As Super Bowls, Stanley Cups and other championships roll around, it is interesting to see so many people wearing the jerseys or replicant jerseys of their favourite teams and players. It is a new thing. Even putting names on the backs of jerseys is a relatively new thing and not all teams even add them.… Read More »
Everyone who has ever managed people should aim to be a “Geppetto Manager.” In the famous Italian story, retold by Disney, Geppetto was the old woodcarver who made a wooden marionette named Pinocchio. Pinocchio, the puppet, dreams of becoming a real boy. The story is about how Pinocchio learns to have a conscience and then,… Read More »
After a few hundred blog posts, for myself and others, I might have learned a little on how to put a good post together. So here are a few tips for anyone starting or considering putting a blog together. It is really quite simple if you stick to some easy rules: Have a Snappy headline… Read More »
In the mid-1970s, my parents arranged for a condo in Florida when I was living in New York. We had a family summer vacation, joined by my brother-in-law and sister and their small two girls, aged 5 and 6. One day we were going to go to dinner with some people and had an hour… Read More »
When buying a new car in the US, you are given two prices on the vehicle as you browse: Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) and Market Adjusted Price (MAP). Why? MSRP is required disclosure on all vehicles and is commonly called the “sticker price.” It used to be an anchor price that told buyers what… Read More »
Which commercials do you believe? Too few! Many commercials are produced these days with little effort to maintaining the premise that their message is actually believable. Maybe we gave up trying to make them believable. But when commercials are more believable, they are more persuasive. There are three qualities that contribute to believability: expertise, trustworthiness,… Read More »
For most of my career I have kept a large apothecary jar of candy in my office. Rarely does anyone ask me why. Do I have a sweet tooth? Well, yes. Am I just being generous? That’s doubtful. I do have a jar of candy in my office because it is a great psychological tool.… Read More »
In honour of November being Mustache Month for Prostate Cancer, here are two stories about how mustaches have screwed up commercial shoots for me. First case was a Mr. Clean commercial we shot. It was a typical Procter & Gamble commercial. Lady of the house uses Mr. Clean to leave her house looking bright and… Read More »
It was the middle of the summer of 1978, I had just taken a job working with Grey de Venezuela, an advertising agency in Caracas, Venezuela. The appeal to me was for some control. I had been working in massive agencies in New York City where I was just another brick in the wall. In… Read More »
How many times have clients asked us to change fonts, change colour shades, change layouts… I couldn’t count every time this has happened. Small adjustments get deemed important by those suggesting them. And in conversation become more and more important. Sometimes it allows people to think they have made some impact on the project. It… Read More »