Category Archives: Advertising

Geppetto Management

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 »

What’s In a Blog Post

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 »

Stories Have Staying Power

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 »

What’s the Real Price?

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 »

Me and Koolio Down in the Jungle

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 »

Narcissism of Small Differences

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 »

The Day the Junos Went Public

The Juno Awards was an annual private music industry awards ceremony for insiders, wearing tuxedos and gowns, until 1995. The organization that put it on was the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS). They had this crazy idea that they should be making money from it rather than losing or at best breaking even. Enter Jacques… Read More »