Imagine being a homesteader on the plains of the Nebraska territory in 1843.

You’d need to be good at many things to survive.

Building a cabin, plowing the prairie, digging wells, enduring mind-numbing isolation … and that’s just for starters.

Tommy Lee Jones embodies this sort of multi-talented ability in a film called The Homesman.

It’s on Netflix. Catch it and see Tommy Lee Jones do two jobs, as an actor and director. He’s impressive on both counts.

Jones’s double-act and the pioneer life on the Nebraska plains make us think about those with a capacity to succeed in more than just one field.

We’re talking about individuals who can do almost anything with effortless aplomb.

Chief among them could be Leonardo da Vinci.

As you know he was an engineer, mathematician, inventor, musician, botanist and writer, besides being a painter, sculptor and architect.

The artist, Paul Gauguin, was also a great writer. His book on the South Seas, Noa Noa, confirms it.

It’s as involving as his canvasses.

The greatest English language writer of the 20th century, Evelyn Waugh, was first a painter.

Then there was the photographer, poet, author, actor, singer, and director, Leonard Nimoy.

Call him a polymath … as you might remember from school vocabulary quizzes it’s a word from the Greek meaning ‘having learned much’.

Polymath describes Matt Damon and Ben Affleck who started out as screenwriters on Good Will Hunting.

The guitarist from the band Queen also happens to be, of all things, an Astrophysicist.

That’s Brian May.

So how does ‘polymath’ apply to business and your company?

In many organizations people have their special abilities and often stick to them. Unbendingly so.

Departments in enterprise-level organizations frequently work separately from each other in silos.

You often see that with IT and Marketing.

But how can you succeed if one department doesn’t communicate with the other?

How do you move ahead when IT and Marketing work like nation states, separate in their culture, learning, language, vocabulary and view of success?

When the two battle it out for leadership it’s your company that looses.

Education could be the key … it’s a way to question old certainties to ensure they haven’t become new inadequacies.

Time spent developing a wider view could make a difference. It could make you less vulnerable to disorder and ineptitude.

Maybe HR could take this on.

Instead of merely recruiting staff, they could optimize training and bring in professionals to do it.

The right professionals can build internal coordination so your organization is more attentive and responsive to your customers and stakeholders.

IT people could learn more about Marketing and bottom line thinking while Marketers could become more geeky and understand the demands of IT.

A common ground could do away with fiefdoms, jealousies and the assumed knowledge that can make departments stumble.

It would take time, money and hard work, but then life in the office isn’t always a walk in the park, is it?

Take away the strife between IT and Marketing and you could sail ahead of your competitors stuck in silos.

Leonard Nimoy would have approved of that.

Because as Mister Spock might say, that’s not illogical.

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No doubt you’ve had them in your inbox … emails that don’t stand out.

They’re neither a success or a failure.

They’re often forgettable.

But there’s one thing you can say in their favor.

They’re delivered efficiently with the technology of content management systems.

It reminds us of an old Dutch proverb:

BLOSSOMS ARE NOT FRUITS.

For many, CMS systems are often seen as the be all and end all.

They’ve become the latest infatuation for some marketers.

But in point of fact, they’re more the blossoms than the fruit.

Especially if your emails have little power to stop people and make them read on.

As you know, it takes effective writing to earn and keep an audience’s interest.

With this in mind, we’ve been looking for books on how to write better emails.

Most of those we’ve seen are good when it comes to technology and process.

But the hope of learning to write more effective emails is a bit like waiting to board a flight when your plane is snowbound in another city.

Which is why you might want to turn to something on Direct Mail writing.

Drayton Bird’s How To Write Sales Letters That Sell can help you.

This book may be focused on letters, but it’s a primer on how to communicate with interest and get people to act.

It’s valuable when it comes to framing your story, marshaling your facts and presenting them in a way that sells.

Small wonder, it comes from an expert who was Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Direct.

Here you’ll learn how to write copy that speaks to the needs and problems of your target audience.

If you’re looking to get better at lead generation, take notes on how to appeal to human emotions.

You’ll also become adept at explaining the advantages of your product or service and justifying why it’s better than the alternatives.

You’ll benefit with Direct Mail techniques that teach you how to retain existing customers while attracting new ones.

You’ll understand how to write to people to forestall their objections to buying.

Use the sample letters provided. They’re gold.

Modify them to your email needs to become more effective as you leave it to your competition to invent more ways to make communications duller.

Put Drayton Bird’s book to work for you.

 That way you can start quoting that old Dutch proverb, Blossom Are Not Fruits, to your competitors.

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Tiger Woods misses a few shots and the NY Post sums it up with a front-page headline:

TIGER PUTS BALLS IN WRONG PLACE AGAIN.

A while back, US Senator Al D’Amato headed to a showdown with Soviet leader Gorbachev. The NY Post headline read:

I’LL KICK HIM IN THE BALTICS.

But then there’s the most famous NY Post  headline of all. Maybe you remember it:

HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR.

You don’t need me to tell you headlines like these stop people and sell newspapers.

They break the pattern of indifferent communication; they get people talking.

But how about marketing and advertising headlines?

Modern advertising can be largely wordless, but you could argue that the words that  feature are more important than ever.

So to get attention and change minds, are we doing enough to write riveting headlines and content?

The opinion of those at a recent seminar is telling.

We heard that emails and Websites are often written in the old school broadcast way. One-way communication.

They interrupt an audience and tell a story from their point of view, rather than the view of the prospect.

Maybe some marketers out there should stop taking their own advice.

Then we heard something about ‘acceptable work’.

It’s content that’s ‘okay’ as it ticks all the boxes.

That may be true, but it begs a question  …

Who sets out to create content that’s just okay?

Moreover, who has the patience to read content that’s merely passable?

The good news is that you can begin to remedy all this in a weekend.

A study of the advertising award books can help you develop messaging with more attitude and thus, more stopping power.

It can help you acquire a greater respect for your target audience and build an appreciation for their problems, needs and desires.

Think of the award books as a resource.

They can help you perfect strategies and create work that gives you an advantage when it comes to competitive forces.

After all, isn’t the purpose of better content to make it easier for you to compete?

Equally, you can learn how to add greater appeal to generic products and those that are short on charm and appeal.

It might have been Bill Bernbach who said there are no boring products, just boring writers.

More to that, there’s was a newspaper story about the bureaucracy of a local committee on road improvements.

Not exactly a fascinating subject.

But those NY Post editors were at it again. Their headline was anythting but boring.

RED TAPE HOLDS UP NEW BRIDGES.

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As you know, magicians are normally hush-hush about the way they pull off tricks.

They don’t say a thing, they’re mum; but we were lucky.

A conjurer let a secret formula slip out over drinks the other day.

He explained how to open a show to gain audience attention.

Here’s what you do.

You soak your fingers in a solution of yellow phosphorus and carbon disulphide.

Then you wait and wait until it dries. It takes time.

When everything is as dry as a desert, you’re ready to amaze your audience.

Click your fingers and a puff of smoke floats off into the air.

It drifts along and catches everyone’s eye.

People sit up to see what you’ll do next.

None of this is surprising, really, since you’ve given your audience good reason to pay attention.

You’re communicating on their terms.

Sadly, too many Websites and emails these days do nothing of the kind.

They’re not very good when it comes to getting your attention, never mind winning you over.

You can guess the reason.

They’re inwardly focused; they talk about themselves and expect everyone to be fascinated.

The result is a bit like being cornered by a boring guy at a party.

Someone who insists on bending  your ear.

Their content is like that; it’s full of words like ‘we’, ‘me’, ‘I’ and ‘our’.

Where’s the magic in that?

But then there’s the word, ‘you’ … as in your needs, your desires and your problems.

People respond to that. They wake up.

When it comes to content your customers and prospects want to know only one thing.

How they’ll benefit from a relationship with you.

It’s pretty simple.

One of the great copywriters of all time, Howard Gossage, said people don’t read copy.

They read what interests them.

How true.

So take care to write content from your customers’ point of view.

If you don’t, you can bet someone else will.

Namely your competition.

Share with us. Leave your comment below. Thanks for reading Whybetonto.com. Regards, Steve Ulin LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/1Bey3Jl

If you’re anything like people in our office you bought the Steve Jobs biography the day it was released.

Everyone we know read it.

Some carried it around like a badge of honor; one that announced them as a member of an elite team, like Seal Team 6.

Well, the story does ally you to a different sort individual and company.

That was then; now there’s something of a let down.

Not with Steve Jobs but with Walter Isaacson, his biographer.

Seemingly, he could have upped his game.

According to Jonathan Ive, head designer at Apple, Isaacson’s book has inaccuracies.

Ive is well placed to know.

He and Steve Jobs were best friends. Equally, Jonathan Ive knew him better than anyone in a professional sense.

They thought along the same lines for years.

In fact, they worked as a team since Jobs rejoined Apple as CEO after launching Pixar and NeXt.

Jonathan Ive says he thinks little of the Isaacson effort.

Read about it in the New Yorker, the week of February 23rd. http://nyr.kr/1L1Thdt

It’s an article on Jonathan Ive, by Ian Parker. It’s called The Shape of Things to Come.

By the way … it’s Sir Jonathan Ive, to get a detail right.

Before reading put your iPhone on mute and settle in for a lengthy article.

Thanks to Ian Parker, who was virtually imbedded at Apple, you learn a lot.

Like the fact that insiders see Ive and the way he thinks as the heart and soul of Apple.

After all, he goes where the mapmakers haven’t been. He’s not about finding a trend and hopping on for the ride.

As you can appreciate, it’s more groundbreaking than that.

You get Ian Parker’s take on a design studio that’s open to few people — including Apple employees.

Here’s betting that in your company, designers don’t have anything near the influence they do at Apple.

Certainly design teams have never had a champion who established their right to call the shots as Jobs did.

Ian Parker goes into the kind of industrial design thinking that forces all others to play catch-up ball. They live life on the back foot.

It’s fascinating stuff.

Interestingly enough, Apple’s 19 designers are mostly unsung heroes. Anonymous.

They like it that way as it avoids disruption.

At Apple it’s all about the work and focusing on projects such as the new watch.

There’s purity for you.

Incidentally, you’ll read about cars and car design, as Jonathan Ive is an aficionado. A motorhead.

He had a hand in influencing the design of the new Bentley GT Concept Car, the EXP 10 Speed 6, presented this week at the Geneva Motor Show.

But there’s nothing about an Apple car.

If it is in the planning stage, not even Edward Snowden could detect it.

But that hasn’t stopped people admiring an audacious move, has it?

It seems almost fashionable these days for corporate types to talk about becoming more Apple-like.

After reading this article you might say a note of caution should be added to that.

Because Jonathan Ive’s approach is unique and ever-changing. Unlike others.

Copy him and you might get little for it.

Because just as you’re about to launch, he could monopolize public attention with something entirely new and exciting.

Share with us. Leave your comment below. Thanks for reading Whybetonto.com. Regards, Steve Ulin LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/1Bey3Jl

We read an interview the other day with Kid Rock.

He said something like I’m not just rich, I’m loaded.

Oof … that hits home with a telling statement.

Well, it does say something for not doing things half-way.

Maybe if Steve Jobs was with us he’d fine-tune that and say ‘half-assed’.

Sadly, half-assed describes more than a few efforts when it comes to marketing and advertising.

We’re talking about emails, Websites and online ads that have all the power of a strong general anesthetic.

It’s work the office intern wouldn’t own up to.

More’s the pity.

Because as Kid Rock might remind us, when you go all out and get it right, it pays off in a big way.

You can put that down to the fact that effective creative work usually comes with an  emotional appeal.

When that appeal is at it’s height — when it lifts you to the level of elation — the Japanese have an expression for it.

They say, ‘waku waku doki doki’.

Sounds comedic, doesn’t it? But it’s no leg-pull.

It translates as ‘excitement that sets your heart aflutter with anticipation’.

In our part of the world, the last time we experienced that was with a friend on the morning of her wedding day.

She was all-aflutter. ‘A wonderful madness’ is how her sister described it.

Imagine being able to inject a bit of that emotion into the customers for your products or services.

That’s Toyota’s aim, so why shouldn’t it be yours as well.

In a recent speech, the President of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, said a car must appeal deeply to our emotions.

Nothing new about that.

But he went further.

He used the ‘waku waku doki doki’ expression to describe the level of cars his designers and engineers are intent on producing.

A lofty ambition, but if you aim lower there’s every chance you’ll end up lower.

Another company, Oculus Rift, has its sights set higher with an advanced virtual reality headset for 3D gaming.

It must have caused Mark Zuckerberg’s heart to go all aflutter.

Because after trying it he bought the company for $2 billion.

To set your heart aflutter, there’s Hyperloop Technologies, as unveiled by Elon Musk.

They’re developing a ground transportation system to whisk you from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 35 minutes.

For want of a better description, think of it as a ‘rail gun’ where your transport capsule is the bullet. http://bit.ly/1rGKFRI

Thanks to technology  the gap between ‘what’s ordinary’ and ‘what’s fantastic’ is closing.

But as narrow as that gap has become, it’s impossible to bridge without big ideas.

That’s a thought that should encourage you to reassess your marketing efforts and set your creative sights higher.

That way you can leave all the half-assed emails, Web work and content to those who deserve it.

Your competitors.

Share with us. Leave your comment below. Thanks for reading Whybetonto.com. Regards, Steve Ulin LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/1Bey3Jl

Are you thinking most commercials and content should be ignored?

A show of hands at a recent seminar confirmed that thought.

After all, when you disrupt people with boring or confusing messaging you’re often in for one thing.

Olympic-class complainers.

Currently there’s a headache-inducing spot for one of the major cable companies.

It convinces you that those who approved it are at best sales-challenged.

The commercial opens with a price they want you to think is low.

Then comes the line: ‘and that’s not a promotional price’.

As you patiently wait, they don’t give you the promotional price.

Well, think about it.

If you really wanted to pay less, wouldn’t you put off buying and wait for the promotional price? All urgency is shot to hell.

There’s got to be a better way than stumbling along with this sort of confusion.

What happened to thinking that goes something like this:

‘How right you were to wait. This is our best offer yet. But only for the next 48 hours. So calll now for a savings that rewards your patience’.

Where did that come from? Not from me.

It’s test-proven, moneymaking thinking you can adapt to your advantage from the advertising books by John Caples.

Many public libraries have his Tested Advertising Methods and his How To Make Your Advertising Make Money.

But there’s a question you might have about John Caples.

In the Digital Age why should you read direct marketing books that were published long ago? In the 1960s.

What could John Caples tell you about 2015 target audiences and the electronic age?

The answer is technology has changed, but one thing remains constant.

People.

Your customers and prospects are still human. They react emotionally with their own particular needs and desires.

To stop them, to relate to them, to lengthen their attention spans and to create the moment someone buys, we all need ideas as well as technology.

That’s where John Caples comes in with direct marketing thinking that can get people to act.

A CMO we know summed it up with this thought …

‘What’s digital communication, if not direct marketing on steroids. Everything you do online is aimed at getting a response. Those who win know how to optimize that response.’

The ideas you’ll see in Tested Adverting Methods and How To Make Your Advertising Pay have been proven to get response. They work.

Use them and you’re armed with proven thinking that can lower your risk of investing your dollars in marketing.

Equally, you’ll see ideas that can make it easier for you to compete.

Who’d turn a blind eye to that?

As we’re all looking for better response rates, I’m betting John Caples can help you.

Look at his ideas as a starting point for your thinking.

Use those ideas, adapt them, add to them, make them work for you and your product or service.

When you proceed with a John Caples take on selling it won’t be your customers who’ll have a headache.

It’ll be your competitors.

Especially when you lure their customers away.

Share with us. Leave your comment below. Thanks for reading Whybetonto.com. Regards, Steve Ulin LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/1Bey3Jl

If the Nationwide dead boy spot were handled any better it might reach the ill-judged level.

When you’re enjoying the biggest TV event of the year do you really want a dead child on your screen?

Okay, okay … enough about tragedy dampening the spirits.

No use tearing strips off on this spot. It’s been given a verbal kicking in just about every Starbucks you could walk into last week.

Still, we wondered who approved this commercial? How qualified were they?

Which is why we’ve been looking into the MBA courses at Columbia School of Business.

What do future marketing directors learn?

How do they become effective planners, skillful communicators and active contributors to the bottom line?

As you’d expect, Columbia has courses like Corporate Finance, Business Analytics, Managerial Economics, and Investment Banking Tax Factors.

‘Leadership’ also has its place.

One course is called ‘Lead: People, Teams, Organizations’.

That seems promising in the light of difficulties in companies like Sony, Radio Shack, JC Penny and Tesco.

Then there’s Marketing.

What catches your eye is a course called ‘Strategic Consumer Insights’.

MBA candidates study companies like Coca-Cola, BMW, Samsung, Procter & Gamble, Apple and Disney.

The focus is on how consumers think, feel and make product choices.

As the course description says, ‘It’s designed to help students become astute discoverers of business-relevant consumer insights’.

We all need to be past masters of that, right?

But what about the creative work itself? Like a script for a Super Bowl spot that lands on your desk for evaluation and approval.

Are up and coming marketing directors learning how to judge creative work?

In a world where success is compulsory, are they learning to ask questions like:

Is the strategy, itself, creative?

Is the input to the brief for the creative team

thoroughly researched?

Has the agency gone far enough to come up

with the right solution?

Does the work create a point of difference for

the product?

Is the work smart and uncomplicated?

Is the work relevant/pertinent/appropriate and a

significant step ahead of the competition?

Will the only person who counts — the customer — value

the creative experience?

Does the work inspire a new interest

in the product?

Is the work convincing enough to change the

situation in the marketplace?

It’s not readily apparent from the Columbia catalogue if MBA students are taught to think along these lines. Let’s hope they are.

But before the above questions and a Columbia MBA at $96,468 a year, there’s one thing that can keep you out of trouble.

Commonsense.

Isn’t that the best starting point for any Super Bowl spot?

Share with us. Leave your comments in the box below Thanks for reading Whybetonto.com. Regards, Steve Ulin. LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/1Bey3Jl

Rejection.

Imagine your Airbnb  booking being knocked back because you don’t have enough friends on Facebook.

Something like that happened last year.

A mother with a top credit history was turned down.

To be fair,  Airbnb didn’t literally say ‘you don’t have enough social media contacts’, but the woman in questions claims it amounted to that.

So welcome to the new status.

It has nothing to do with your bank account.

It’s not contingent on an Ivy League education or say, the fact you may be a director of a powerful Wall Street firm.

The algorithms don’t care.

They just look for one thing. They want to know if you’re connected socially.

Are you linked to the point where people will be influenced by your choice? Will hordes follow you?

It looks like a new expression of online promotion is at work here for Airbnb.

Imagine being able to handpick your customers.

You decide who is worthy to use your service or own your product. You choose who represents your brand.

Airbnb appears to be in that rarefied position. They share that with Ferrari.

It’s tough to buy one of their low-volume cars if you’re not known to the company. Maybe it’s even impossible.

To get on the Ferrari waiting list for a car that’s one of just 400 you have to exert yourself.

You’ll have to attend Ferrari events like promotions, car shows, track days, Formula 1 races or be a current owner.

You’ll have to be known to the company.

Even then it’s difficult. If a Ferrari Dino is in your garage, that may not get you very far.

For many it’s not enough of a Ferrari as it’s a relatively low-cost offering meant for a wider market.

Not only do you have to possess the wherewithal, but you will have to demonstrate value to the company.

In short you have to be worthy of owning a Ferrari.

It’s a bit like CRM. But in reverse.

Meanwhile, if Airbnb doesn’t come through with a booking there’s always Craigslist.

And for a mode of transport more exotic than a low-volume Ferrari, try India.

They’ve had a spacecraft orbiting Mars since September 2014.

If all goes well they could be looking for spaceflight passengers in the not too distant future.

Share with us. Leave your comments in the box below Thanks for reading Whybetonto.com. Regards, Steve Ulin. LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/1Bey3Jl

Where’s Gorilla Glue?

Where are the rest of the super glue brands?

We’re not talking about stock on a store shelf; we’re referring to an online presence.

We’re talking about timely ads here.

Where’s the online creative work for Gorilla Glue showcasing it with King Tut’s solid gold funerary mask?

The one that was recently broken by a cleaner. As you probably know, the beard snapped off.

An accident like that becomes less of a worry when you have super glue handy, right?

The chipped-off beard is a communications opportunity.

So why not run an ad?

Why not remind people that super glue is terrific for mending the odd three thousand-year-old solid gold Egyptian artifact you might have lying around the house.

Short of that application, it’s also good for gluing a kid’s flapping shoe sole back on to the shoe.

Many ads these days, as they say, are enough to give an aspirin a headache. They’re dull at best.

But timely ads can change peoples’ minds about advertising. They’re accepted, they penetrate.

Amazing how those who spend their life purposely ignoring bland communications perk up when your messaging is timely.

Some ad curmudgeons have actually been known to smile.

Why? An instant connection is made with something in their frame of reference.

It all comes back to one of the most effective rules in marketing and advertising.

Don’t cook up an advertising solution in your boardroom, find it in your prospect’s mind.

Do you remember this?  ‘You can still dunk in the dark?’

It was the Oreo Tweet about the Super Bowl XLVII blackout.

It’s timely, memorable and pretty brilliant.

A nice catch … better than any on the field.

To do this sort of work, take a leaf from the great London agency, Collett Dickenson & Pearce.

Before starting work each day creative teams combed the news media for stories that might link to any of the agency’s brands.

It became standard procedure, I’m told.

Well, after all, shouldn’t you be thinking on behalf of your clients 24 hours a day?

The Collets teams didn’t find something everyday.

But when they did you got the kind of impact money can’t buy.

Share with us. Tell us, how do you go about finding solutions to your marketing and advertising problems in your customers’ minds? Thanks for reading Why Be Tonto. Regards, Steve Ulin LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/1Bey3Jl