Our brain is quirky and certainly not logical.  Despite what we tell ourselves.

Our brain remembers things differently than computers do.  We remember by association and context.  Computers remember facts.  We zoom in on facts by association.

We use things more familiar to recall things that are less familiar.  When you want to remember someone that is married to your cousin…  What is his name?  Out of your head pops, Wayne’s World, oh yeah, his name is Garth.  Hi Garth.

The computer doesn’t remember it that way.  It just has Garth filed under G, with various tags none of which would connect my cousin’s husband with a movie.

Knowing how our brain remembers this can be a useful aid to advertisers.

That’s why we advertising people take familiar phrases and sayings and change them a little to become slogans for products.  That’s also why we use music to aid memory.  The melody is the context for the words and rhymes help aid recall by providing context as well.  When we write songs the important words should rhyme so they are better established in the listener’s memory.

Another way humans think that is different from computer chips is that we interpret reality in favour of what we are familiar with?  When we see a new person, we often remember them by thinking they look like someone else we know or know of.  It is like we have a familiarity filter that will even change reality to make it fit with our familiarity or expectations based on our familiarity.  Many psychologists have shown how stereotypes taint witnesses.  And that’s why I am so often mistaken for Bruce Springsteen.

Knowing about this familiarity filter can be a useful aid to advertisers.  It is why leading advertisers often get credit for competitors’ advertising particularly if it not very well branded.

The way our brain relies on familiarity can change how we think of products by the context advertisers present them in.  When the sexy girl shows you the car, you associate her sexiness with the car, no matter how much you understand she is just a hired model.  You can’t dismiss her aura of sexiness.  She creates a filter that is the context for your seeing the car.

Most people know we have two brains.  There is our primitive animal brain and a later evolved social and thinking brain.  The primitive brain reacts to animal issues: food, safety, sex.  It is kind of a teenager.  It understands visuals quickly since our ancestors had to decide quickly to attack, run or hide in seconds or be eaten.  When this part of the brain gets something; the understanding is strong and lasts and overshadows the more reasoning brain.

Our later brain reasons things out.  It reads and analyses to make a considered action. It can easily be fooled by the filter applied by the primitive brain.

These facts should tell advertisers  to appeal to the strong influence of the primitive brain because it will filter out complicated thoughts:  As we say about outdoor headlines: the best headline is no headline at all and no headline should be more than seven words.  People are driving by and not stopping to read and consider billboards.  They filter the messages through their primitive, unreasoning brain.

Come to think of it, people are not paying rapt attention to most advertising.  So take a lesson from your animal brain, and Procter & Gamble.  The more you can show your strategic message visually, the better.  Everyone can remember the bottle of Downy dropping into the towels – that says soft.  Or Mr. Clean reflecting off of a shiny surface.  These strategy visuals are immediately understandable by the primitive brain.  They don’t need any copy to explain it.  You might forget the commercial, but you get the visual.

Clever headlines that rely on double meanings and complicated thoughts might leave the copywriter’s reasoning brain feeling superior and masterful but they often leave the consumer feeling puzzled or just plain uninterested because the message got filtered out.  Graphic ideas that go directly to that primitive brain get understood quickly and get action.

The Greeks, Romans, Hindus and many others had pantheons of gods and goddesses.  But no one had a God of Small Mercies.  We need one.

There are saints, prophets, mahapurushs, walis, and other folks of slightly lesser rank than gods. These guys and gals usually get an area of responsibility – traveling, lovers, education, farmers, miners, sailors and such.

But Small Mercies is definitely a large Department that requires a full God.

Think of all the times you ended up stuck behind that slow poke in the passing lane who finally pulls over.  Give thanks.

Or the times when things didn’t work until you tweaked the wire then all of a sudden it does.  Give thanks.

Or the time you left the appliance on and your wife called to tell you she turned it off.  Give thanks.

Or, wonder-of-wonders, after the “this call may be recorded” message, someone actually answers the phone and can help you.  And does!  Give double thanks.

While the quantity of requests is overwhelming for the Department of Small Mercies, the amount of influence required for each is small.  Such a little bend in the cosmos requires a subtle touch.

I think everyone should get an allocation of chits to spend on small mercies.

Small mercies are the things that can really make your life work better and have significant impact on your frame of mind.  A few little things go your way and you are feeling positive about your whole day.

Small mercies are the answers to the invocation: “Cut me a break!”  The connecting flight that happens to be late departing when yours arrives late.  The client who calls to say she can’t make it for lunch when your friend unexpectantly comes to town.

The girl who smiles at you in the elevator.  The person who helps you with a cumbersome package.  Random acts of small kindness that make your day.

The best small mercies are those unintentional acts of kindness.  Give thanks.

The big things we address because they are usually things we have some input on.  The little difficulties are like fleas that bite, that hide, that torment.

I am all for small mercies, just getting something nice for no good reason.  And the God of Small Mercies told me to start with this nice thought.  Pass it on.

I get very upset at the way police are portrayed on television.  They are shown as bullies, extortionists, blackmailers who jump to guilty conclusions with little or no basis and who take law into their own hands.

A couple of the shows are really bad.  The cops on Law & Order SUV are always telling suspect’s family, friends and neighbours about suspected infidelities or sexual activities to try and get information.  In the early half of the shows, more often than not, they are wrong.  You can tell because the accusations start early in the show to kick start the plot and get viewers thinking/suspecting sexual indiscretions.

I just saw a Miami CSI episode where the “scientist detective” jumped to all sorts of wrong conclusions, wrongfully accused an innocent fiancée of murder.  Same episode, another of the CSIs extorted a search without permission by threatening to interview a farm’s workers for immigration status and turn in all the illegals.  And finally Mr. Sunglasses duped a suspect into dismissing his lawyer so Mr. S. could entrap the suspect.  All in a day’s work.

This is the same show that sent some of their cops off to Brazil to actually murder some bad guys.  So much for respect for the law and its principles, if it is inconvenient.

Is this representative of a society that will toss off its values of openness and personal rights with the merest whisper of a treat from some terrorist?  A society that will review and analyse personal correspondence of citizens while proclaiming they are doing it in the cause of freedom?  Or who imprisons and tortures in the name of respecting the individual?

Probably, if your government is misbehaving, you can misbehave in your TV dramas as well.

At the same time these CSI geniuses can get DNA analyses done in minutes, do spectral analysis of fibres and locate soil samples in a massive city in moments – for dramatic effect, of course, to move the plot along and to achieve climax/resolution within the one hour time slot.

The funny thing about distorting reality is that people believe what they see.  Even if they know it is “just a show.”  The behaviour patterns become accepted and expected.  And viewers have a hard time separating the TV entertainment from reality because they have seen the TV with their own eyes.

Humans are funny about that.  If they think they have seen it, it must be true.

It should be noted how the side stories on TV cop dramas are consistently dumping on the Federal agents and making heroes of the local cops.  The Feds are often bumbling, arrogant bad guys.

Film and television reflect expectations of life.  They are real.

Without all the cheats, the TV cop shows would be bland as butter right out of the churn.  Of course the cheats allow the churning of show stories.

We would never stoop to such cheats on this blog,  I was mentioning tha the other day to my nine foot tall, blue Na’vi buddy…

As we watch the Vancouver Olympics, we are focused by the media on the standings by country.  To count each country’s medals.  But there are only a few sports that are really team events: hockey, team pursuit speed skating among them.  What is this drive to nationalism – latent tribalism?

But as you start scraping the surface you see that country is a flexible term.  While all of Canada was elated to see Alex Bilodeau win gold, he beat Dale Begg-Smith.  Begg-Smith was born in the town where the competition was staged, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, but was competing for Australia.  Why?  For political and personal reasons.

So would we have been as happy celebrating Begg-Smith winning gold — a Canadian native under the Australian flag?  Probably not.

But Begg-Smith is hardly alone.  Later the same day we watched world pair skating champions, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany.  Savchenko previously skated representing the Ukraine, her country of birth.  Szolkowy could also skate for Tanzania if he wanted and they had a team.

Or Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov who skate for Russia.  Kavaguti (Kawaguchi) previously skated for Japan.  We could go on.

The same is true for many other competitors in these Olympics and the same is true of the summer games where athletes born in one country were competing for others.

Why not?

If we believe that the Olympics promote brotherhood and good well, then what do we care for country?  Professional athletes are not stay at home, either for city or country or even continent.  They go where the money is.

For Olympic sports, athletes go where the opportunity is.  Like all of us seeking work and opportunities to enrich our lives, for school, or work, or life.

A world where people move around is a better world.  We learn about other people and find out that they are pretty much like us, but they do things differently.

The rub of cultures brings invention that makes everyone’s lives better.  Who could get by in North America without tacos or pizza or pho?  Or take spaghetti – noodles from China, tomatoes from South America collide in Italy and, dare I say, voilà!

While it might be a long trip from a gold medal to a plate of pasta, it is interchange of cultures that drives innovation and competition.

As we enter the Vancouver Olympiad, we should stop a minute and ask what it is all about.

The Winter Olympics is one of the biggest marketing promotions in the world.  So who does it benefit?  Why do we do it?

Are the Olympics a chance for people all over the world to get together and celebrate the family of man?

To wonder at the diversity of our activities and achievements?  To compete and reward the fastest, highest, strongest (Citius, Altius, Fortius) competitor?

Or are the Olympics just an excuse for continuing tribalism?  Or are they a wholesome celebration of nations?

If the Olympic are celebrating human achievement and brotherhood why is all the advertising that is inundating us all about OUR Canadian team members?

We are waving our flags!  We will be counting the medals we win!  Cheering!  Singing our athems!

And why do they keep score by country?  Why are the “teams” organized by country ?

What do countries have to do with it at all?  Are the Olympics just simulated warfare?

If we eliminate the tribalism, is there enough left for us to cheer about?

I have been most interested in the stories from the Olympics of athletes showing the spirit of the family of man.

My favourite story is the Canadian sailing racer, Lawrence Lemieux, who pulled out of a race to rescue a distressed competitor from the water in the Seoul Olympics.  Although he ended up finishing 23^rd, officials awarded him second place.  That’s what we should celebrate.

But for the spoiled superstars who missed their medals because they only gave it 110%, we ask – why didn’t you give 120%?  Or 150%? You better be good at your sport because you suck at math.

These questions floating around in our brains won’t stop us from watching the drama and tension, the euphoria of victories, the crashes of spirits when victory eludes.  It is better than any other contrived reality show on TV.

And a glorious showcase for one of the most beautiful cities in the world.  You go, Vancouver!

My old friend Gary used to tell little parables in business situations to help resolve situations.  Here are some and some more:

Consider the Two Kinds of People

It is often said that there are two kinds of people in the world.

James Thurber, for example, said there are two kinds of people in the world, those that divide people into two groups and the others.

I like saying there are three kinds of people in the world.  Those who can count and those who can’t.

Consider the Purchase of Bread

You can tell everything about a person by the way they buy bread.  Nearly everyone has some older bread at home when they buy new bread.

When you buy the new bread, do you immediately eat the new loaf – or do you finish the old loaf first.  That’s the difference between the grasshoppers and the ants.

The grasshoppers eat the new bread because it is fresh and delicious – at the maximum level of flavour and taste.  They want to enjoy it at its best.

The ants are more concerned with the availability of the bread than the flavour and they will finish the older bread first.  They are willing to give up a little to get more.

Consider the Kind of People You Work With

It is at the entry of an old medieval town.  There is a blind beggar sitting there as people go about their business.  A man enters through the gate and walks up to the beggar.

“Hello.  Can you help me?  I am moving to this town.  What kind of people live here?” he asks.

“Let me answer your question with a question.  What are the people like in your town?” says the beggar.

“Well,” says the man, “that’s the problem.  The people are all very nice, trustworthy and helpful.  They are pleasant and courteous and always willing to lend a hand.  We are going to miss them.”

“Ahh,” says the beggar, “I have some good news for you.  You will find the people in this town are very much the same.

The next day, at the same place the same beggar sits.  A man enters through the gate and walks up to the beggar.

“Hello.  Can you help me?  II am moving to this town.  What kind of people live here?” he asks.

“Let me answer your question with a question.  What are the people like in your town?” says the beggar.

“Well,” says the man, “I am going to be happy to be rid of them.  Those people are never very nice or helpful.  They never have a good word to say and are always looking for favours.  You can’t trust any of them.”

“Ahh,” says the beggar, “then I have some very bad news for you.”

Consider Eating Bacon and Eggs

When you eat bacon and eggs for breakfast, the chicken is involved.  And, it can walk away afterwards.

The pig on the other hand is committed. It has no remaining options.

It is like that with many projects, people are either involved or committed.

The whole game in business is to turn your people into pigs.  Get them committed to a project or idea.

If they are only chickens, they can walk away at any time and leave you in the lurch.

Consider the Reasons to Support Your Argument

Another visit to the old walled town.  The Bishop arrives by train one morning for his first visit to the town.  He is greeted by the local Priest and the Mayor who express gratitude for the visit.

The Bishop is taken to the town square where all the townspeople are.  Speeches are made and the children, all up, put on a historical pageant.

The Bishop is then taken to the town hall where there is a fine and ample lunch prepared by the people of the town.

Following the lunch there is a full church service for the Bishop where all the citizens show up in their finery.  The service is followed by a banquet and a concert with singers and dancers from the town.

As the local Priest takes the Bishop back to train for his return to his home, he asks the Bishop how he enjoyed his day.

The Bishop is effusive in his compliments for the food, service, pageantry and everything.  “But,” he says, “I have one question. Usually when I visit a town for the first time, they ring the bells in the church.  Why didn’t you do so?”

“I knew you would ask that,” said the local Priest unfurling a long sheet of numbered responses.  “I have a list of 37 reasons why we did not.”  And he rapidly begins to rattle them off:  “First, we have no bells.  Second, we were unsure of the most appropriate tune.  Third, we were….”

“Wait!” said the Bishop.  “What did you say the first reason was?”

“We… have no bells.” stuttered the local Priest.

“That’s good enough.” replied the Bishop.  “One good reason is worth more than the other 36.”

(One good answer can win the “No Bell” Prize).

Nearly every civilization has origin myths that explain how they started.  Athens, Sparta and Rome had them and we learned them in school.

Nearly every native population has an explanation for how they came to be and why they are where they are.  It gives everyone a shared consciousness and a shared set of values to build from since they can all look to their origins for guidance for the future. Continue reading ‘Origin Myths Set The Trajectory’ »

Whatever happened to the old days when everything was “Plug and Play?”  You got some new technology; you plugged it in and started using it.

If anyone has gone through a computer meltdown, and I recently did, you will realize how fragile and interconnected everything is now.  Nothing is plug-and-play anymore.  It is more like plug-and-pray. Continue reading ‘Plug and Pray – A Personal Exodus to the Forbidden Country of NO COMPUTER; NO PHONE!’ »

Which commercials do you believe?  Too few!

Many commercials are produced these days with little thought of suggesting their message is actually believable. Continue reading ‘Commercials That We Don’t Believe’ »

The People’s Choice awards was well on its way when they declared a pizza break and a team of well labelled DiGiorno pizza servers came marching out with pizza.  And then there were the celebrities who were taking photos with their Kodak cameras – loudly labelled at that.

It got me wondering where the line between editorial and commercial got that blurred.

Product placement has been with us for a long time, famously when ET preferred Reese’s Pieces.  Product placement appearances, though, have not always been so blatant or heavy handled.

Is it that the advertisers have more power or have the producers of programming become overwhelmed?

Flimsy programing, like game shows, that have little editorial content and are designed to be extended commercials, have long integrated commercial mentions with content.  When Monty Hall revealed the brand new car his contestant won, it came with a list of advertiser defined features.

But when the CSI Miami crew make pointed use of Hummers, an incongruous placement of $100,000 vehicles for a police force, we sort of accept it.  How many police forces would allocate that kind of money for a status vehicle?

But is The People’s Choice award show any more than a prime time version of a game show?  Isn’t it just a promotional vehicle?

Like the OSCARS, or any “award” show, the show is designed to promote the entertainment industry.  It doesn’t have any real editorial content.  So cheesy (pun intended) product placement is nothing to be concerned about.

What is interesting is that few people see award shows as promotional vehicles.  They are considered newsworthy content and reported on the News shows.  The News shows are also part of the entertainment industry and have a vested interest in promoting the awards shows.

That’s why half of the news is not journalistic but promotional.  Public relations folks do their jobs really well.  And the news folks don’t seem to mind or notice.  When the sports guy tells us about the game to come, he is promoting it, not providing news.  And what TV news cast doesn’t have their celebrity report or talk about the shows on their own network?  News stories about Jay Leno’s show are not exactly incisive journalism.

Or, when the football post-game show features a presentation from our old pal Jared from Subway of a new sandwich feature to the coach/expert panel.  What does that have to do with football?

Perhaps this intrusion, or crossing the line, reflects a need from both broadcasters and advertisers.  Broadcasting is suffering from fragmentation.  Each channel is losing viewers to more and more channels that are proliferating on cable.  Each channel is also losing viewers to internet downloads such as Hulu, the networks themselves or file sharing.

Advertisers are losing eyeballs on their commercials to internet viewing, TIVO/PVRs, downloads, channel surfing and plain old lousy commercials that are uninspired and tedious.  So how do you intrude and get viewers to notice you if they are fast forwarding through your commercial on their PVR?

With one move.  Broadcasters add revenue by selling in show features and integrate the advertiser into the program for all future downloads.  Advertisers have always been keen on doing this and are happy to buy.  It even adds a small factor of endorsement at times that advertisers also like.

The downside for viewers is full time infomercials which will test viewers desire to watch particularly such commercialized promotional vehicles such as award shows.

What I would love to see is a show, let me call it “Awards of Awards,” where celebrities give out awards for: the best award show, the best award show presentations, the best staging, the best award show blooper, best fashion statement at an awards show and, maybe, even the best product placement.