Many say techies and business people are getting brainer in Silicon Valley.

Or should we say Silicon Valley of the Dolls?

‘Dolls’ is code for pills as in Jacqueline Susann’s book, Valley of the Dolls.

But this time we have smart pills sling-shotting intelligence higher in the Bay Area and beyond.

One smart pill is Modafinil. Prescription only, it was developed for narcolepsy.

You could run across it as Alertec, Modavigil, and Provigil, as well.

Here the benefit is increased cognitive ability that comes with an impressive checklist:

Mental consistency.

Sharper memory and the ability to concentrate.

An easy way to solve complex problems.

Online reviews come with revealing quotes:

‘Brilliantly awake’.

‘You’ve got new purpose, direction and will.’

‘Brain 2.0’.

‘What’s interesting suddenly becomes fascinating. You’re in gear; any inability is airbrushed away.’

Those remarks make you wonder, don’t they?

The thing is with Modafinil, neurotransmitters in the brain gain an unfair advantage. Science becomes your genie.

Now for a definition …

Wikipedia says Modafinil is a Dopamine Reuptake Inhibitor, whatever that may be.

We’re thinking it’s an upper of sorts.

Maybe your kids can tell you.

By more than a few accounts high school and college students use Modafinil to ace tests.

Getting a 91 is good, but a 97 gets you closer to Summa Cum Laude.

It’s said the Army was smart-pill-empowered in Iraq.

We’ll, an Abrams Tank is mighty, however it’s even better when manned by a brilliant driver, right?

But hold on a minute, the lights are turning amber on smart pills.

The reason for writing today is to pass on a caution.

A marketer we know purchased Modafinil on the Internet.

The result was nil, no effect.

He bought fakes.

But that’s not as bad as ingesting something that could play havoc with your health and wellbeing.

There’s counterfeiting with Modafinil and other pharmaceuticals. Forgeries extend to medical devices and hospital equipment.

Maybe the fake Rolex watchmakers are looking for new revenue streams.

Of course, there’s risk involved with fakes and maybe the real stuff. No long-term studies have been done on Modafinil.

Still, if Silicon Valley starts wowing us even more than usual we can hazard a guess at one thing.

Someone’s neurotransmitters are getting extra help.

Share with us. Leave your comment below. Thanks for reading Whybetonto.com. Regards, Steve Ulin. LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/20Imgh3

Nobody spits at the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

They’re pretty great no matter what your religion may be.

An American icon … that describes them.

But the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing ‘God So Loved the World’ is fully expected.

Nothing new about that.

It confirms what we already know and believe about them.

So to widen interest and engagement how about something a bit more surprising.

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir doing Space Oddity, Ziggy Stardust or Life On Mars?

It’s the MTC meets David Bowie, so to speak.

With a bit of enlightened orchestration the Bowie pieces could be musically remarkable.

Well, don’t laugh just yet; the Daily Mail reported last week that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a Bowie fan.

The point here for business people is maybe we should begin to think beyond accepted beliefs and avoid what’s predictable.

Too many absorb the thinking in their work environment and run with it – no questions asked.

More’s the pity because those individuals aren’t exploring their own potential.

The likelihood of discovering something better remains pretty small.

What was it Steve Jobs said?

We don’t hire smart people and tell them what to do.

We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.

Of course, that can change everything for a brand.

So can ideas.

Remember ideas?

One negative of advertising today is that the technology is modern but the ideas aren’t always so.

Which is why those who go for the unexpected get attention.

Old Spice, Snickers and the Honda work in the UK succeed with strong ideas.

Space Oddity, which you probably heard several times last week, still gets your attention despite the fact it was written ages ago.

The reason is that it was a good idea in the first place.

It endures.

If you happen to be the choral master of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir you might want to make a mental note of that.

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

Some marketers seem to be better analysts than problem solvers.

They can sense difficulties in the marketplace but they’re not as cluey in dealing with them.

A case in point is optimizing brands in the Digital Age.

More than a few marketing people and traditional agencies have said they’re ‘steering into the unknown’.

Or they’re ‘feeling their way’ through it.

If that frames the situation, one wonders … how do you correct it? How do you advance?

For that, it’s always an idea turn to the experts.

One in particular is Malcolm Auld. His blog is www.themalcolmauldblog.com and it’s well worth bookmarking.

Malcolm Auld defines the Internet as ‘a pure Direct Marketing platform’.

How right he is.

But this surprises many marketers and traditional agencies we know.

Their take is that Digital is futuristic, not something from the past.

Well, it’s true technology has changed, but people haven’t.

They continue to be human and they’re motivated by their emotions.

Equally, ‘response’ is what we value today as it leads to attitude changes and the moment someone acts or buys.

If that need for ‘response’ doesn’t define Direct Marketing, then what does?

So it stands to reason that a bit of knowledge about DM techniques can help.

Especially if it can take the guesswork out of creating content on the Web.

If you and your team value learning for gaining and renewing skills, there are plenty of books to give you a grounding in Direct Marketing.

It’s a grounding that benefits you with knowledge you can adapt for Digital communications.

Start with these five titles:

Common Sense Direct and Digital Marketing – Drayton Bird

 Tested Advertising Methods – John Caples 


 Scientific Advertising – Claude Hopkins


 How to Write a Good Advertisement – Victor Schwab

 The Robert Collier Letter Book – Robert Collier


Time spent with these books should give you a clearer idea of how to get results you can test and measure.

By helping you create more effective messaging it can lower your risk of investing dollars in marketing.

It can make it easier for you to compete.

And at a time when you want to be a more effective it can help you become one thing better than a marketer.

A Direct Marketer who can get people to respond.

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

Here’s a story the author Joseph Heller told about writers and an unusual way to buy a book.

Years ago in Manhattan bookstores like Doubleday on Fifth Avenue novelists stole the show.

They set up their manual typewriters in the shop window and worked on their latest book.

Anyone happening by on the sidewalk could see an author typing away or gazing into space to figure out a twist in the plot.

As pages were written they were taped to the inside of the window for all to see.

Often crowds gathered in front of this goldfish bowl as it came with no small measure of curiosity.

If you went inside you could pre-order the book and it would be signed for you when published.

With Amazon there might be a way to revive the ‘unpublished pages promotion’, albeit in a slightly different way.

It could be a way for Amazon to introduce the drone delivery service they’re developing.

As you probably know it’s called Amazon Prime.

Order something online and you’ll be able to have it delivered within 30 minutes. Depending on where you live, of course.

If you happen to be a Maine lighthouse keeper you’ll have seagulls for company, not the Amazon Drone.

So how do you get a delivery?

They’re working on it. But we’ve heard you might be supplied with a large Amazon logo stamped on a plastic sheet.

Your role in the delivery process is to lay the logo out in your backyard or on your apartment rooftop.

Presumably that’s how the drone zeros in on you.

As you read this, a drones-only airspace is being proposed and Federal flight regulations are being hammered out.

Meanwhile, to promote the service, sample pages from an unpublished book could be drone-dropped to you 30 minutes after the author writes them.

Too bad we didn’t have this when JK Rowling was going full blast with Harry Potter.

A drone service might prompt you to order all that goes with a good book.

Reading glasses, a standard lamp, a bookshelf and a set of wine glasses.

Maybe even an easy chair, as a drone’s hauling capacity can be surprising.

In years to come you might be able to order a piano online and have it flown in.

After all, some military drones can manage a takeoff weight of three tons.

As Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon might tell you, that amounts to more than a few books.

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’d rather set fire to your own hair than read boring ads, emails, and Websites.

They’re a chore.

You’d be right to say many are indifferent; they’re often just time-expired ideas, leaving you with the feeling you’re on a hopeless journey.

Why bother.

What’s worse is content without a strong headline. You’re left with a wodge of words that do little to stir curiosity.

Content without an intriguing headline is like handing someone a newspaper with the front page torn off and expecting them to get interested.

It’s not going to happen, is it?

If you’re writing a Tweet, a landing page or say, a social media post about a brand of raspberry jam, why not say something unexpected?

Something that’s not the usual bollocks.

Remember that old rule about not being allowed to watch TV on a school night?

That could well apply to buckling down after hours to learn how to write better headlines.

A place for marketers and agency people to start is The Copywriter’s Bible.

It shows you how 32 of the world’s best advertising writers write their copy.

It’s where you’ll find an escape from all that’s dull and inert.

It’s applicable to the Digital Age or any age as it’s about triggering human motivation.

Dare we say it, that includes sales.

Remember selling?

Here you’ll learn how to communicate with wit, charm and reasoned thinking.

An example is an ad that ran in the UK for The Solicitors’ Regional Directory.

On the face of it that sounds like a book that’s dead boring. A yawn.

The visual for the ad is three conservative looking men in suits carrying briefcases. Three straight arrows.

The headline is ‘Which one of these men do you think would be best at rape?’

It turns out that the men are all solicitors. One is better at bankruptcy, one at property and one at crime.

The Solicitors’ Regional Directory helps you choose the best legal representative for the job when you’re in dire need.

As when you or someone close to you has been raped.

Suddenly The Solicitors’ Regional Directory becomes valuable. Essential, really.

Of course, headlines and content should always be good enough to raise the value of a product.

They should add to its worth and help to polish the brand.

Anything less and your customers are left to do one thing.

Set fire to their own hair.

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

‘We’re Passionate about what we do’

How many times have you heard that self-serving guff?

Website content is often like a broken record with that claim.

You’re expected to take it at face value and be impressed.

Fat chance as the ‘passionate’ statement seems to be dotted all across the Internet.

With over-use, it sounds like the symptom of a mental breakdown from those too lazy think of anything better than talking about themselves.

It makes you wonder … wouldn’t it be more profitable to crow less and talk more about why customers should do business with you.

How about addressing the what’s-in-it-for-me question?

Here’s a travel site that does just that, smallworldtraveler.com.

We’re betting those who run the site are every bit as passionate, innovative and committed as anyone else.

Probably more so.

But you won’t see that vague and inadequate word, passionate, in their branding.

Adventure is their reason for being; they elaborate brilliantly on it to stop you and lengthen your attention span.

They’re promoting global journeys of discovery for families.

Small World Travel is where you go to arrange expeditions with your kids to 7 continents.

To frozen oceans, volcanic archipelagos, lost cities and places like say, Botswana.

There you can do things like live in the bush and experience something of a lion’s eye view of the world.

At times you’d have to call that an underwater world.

Because lions in Botswana’s swampy Okavango Delta have learned to swim to pursue their prey.

Imagine it, lions as part of marine life.

Some bright spark said the best advertising is an example of the product experience.

That’s what you get with Small World Travel.

The prospect of adventure is expressed as a story that’s original, charming, perceptive and multi-layered.

You get the whole box and dice so you read and read.

It convinces you that you couldn’t do better by going elsewhere.

You’re the one who becomes passionate.

Passionate about heading off to places like Botswana, Egypt, India, Thailand, Australia and Antarctica.

Isn’t that better than the soppy and weak ‘We’re passionate about what we do’?

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

Iffy thinking. A bad temper. A shortsighted view of the branding process.

That’s a boss we heard about from a business friend of ours.

Our friend is a marketer with more than a few accomplishments to his name. Lead generation is second nature to him.

But he’s had it with his job. Fed up with the boss.

Still, to be fair, ‘iffy thinking’ describes his boss on a bad day.

Normally he’s okay when things are going smoothly.

Of course, that applies to most everyone, doesn’t it? Who isn’t even-keeled when everything is going to plan?

The thing is, this boss has no abilities when things are going wrong.

He doesn’t function on a bumpy road. When projects go sideways good sense goes with it.

In the thick of difficulties his chief skill is to lay the blame elsewhere.

Who needs a fair weather leader like that?

Opposite to that you have Winston Churchill’s undercover operatives in the dark days of WWII.

With a brief to ‘Set Europe Ablaze’, Churchill sought those who could succeed behind enemy lines in impossible situations.

He needed leaders who could turn the tide on peril.

Isn’t that the kind of thing you’d value for your company?

Isn’t the capacity to function in a crisis the mark of a true leader?

With Churchill in mind, you might want to look at a business management book by two ex-Navy SEALS.

The SEALS are nothing if not cool-headed and capable when it comes to the crunch. They flourish in perilous situations.

You could say they’re past masters of leadership and turnarounds.

Normally for books on business leadership you’d turn to those like Peter Drucker, W. Edwards Deming, Jim Collins, and Warren Bennis.

But the book, Extreme Ownership. How U.S. Navy SEALS Lead and Win, stopped us.

It’s an engaging read by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.

You get a picture of the SEALS in combat. Then in each chapter military leadership skills are directly related to business applications.

In that way the book takes a different approach to getting you involved and getting you to think.

It concentrates your thought process on direction, teamwork, solidarity, smarter decision making, management and achievement.

Equally, it’s an education for the times when your efforts don’t go to plan. When everything goes awry and the way forward is unclear.

Our friend with the iffy thinking boss was impressed with the book.

Here’s betting Winston Churchill would have been as well.

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

We’ve been watching TED Talks over lunch the last few days or so.

Riveting stuff is how you can describe them. An education in every way.

Still, there was one thing that raised a question or two.

The subject of industry best practices.

We heard they’re a yardstick for success. They lead to better key performance indicators.

There’s truth in that, of course, they can help when it comes to your next quarterly earnings report.

But is it going far enough?

Don’t best practices make you like other companies when you adopt the same approaches and milestones?

Isn’t there a bit of a problem being equal to but not better than your competitors?

So … wouldn’t it be an idea to meet best practices standards then move ahead from there?

After all, your competitors are probably doing all you’re doing to succeed in the marketplace.

You can bet that includes everything from Logistics to HR to Training and Product Development.

But why conform to the kind of creative work your competitors run? Why follow the accepted approaches of your product category?

With originality you can stand apart.

Your physical resources and technology can be copied but the right kind of creative work can’t be.

Further to that, maybe you’ve seen the  Honda spot called ‘Paper’. http://bit.ly/1QZnWME

It doesn’t follow anyone else’s lead to present a line of products that includes business jets, motorbikes, cars, racing cars and lawnmowers.

It’s stunning work and could be the subject of a TED Talk in itself.

If only for the fact it neatly showcases everything the company makes without the usual inert thinking you get in a product line commercial.

Quite the opposite, it’s easy to watch again and again.

A 20-something in our office added to that by saying, ‘I bet it’ll sell its ass off’.

‘Paper’ qualifies as best practices as far as other Honda spots are concerned.

It adds to the high standard of Honda commercials like ‘Cog’, ‘Hands’ and the Ayrton Senna ‘Racing’ film.

It also goes well beyond the typical level of creative best practices.

And for that reason it will probably sell its ass off.

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

More than a few companies don’t go far enough with their marketing and advertising thinking.

They often run with half-good ideas … ideas that have just enough power to reach the mediocre level.

They let their brands down.

Of course, nobody wants that.

So why not go further with your thinking.

Why not question old certainties about your customers and marketplace to discover a fresh understanding.

Why not find new creative approaches to differentiate your brand.

Why not boost conversion rates for email campaigns and Website content with smarter, more arresting ideas.

Why not rid yourself of the drag of conformity.

Why not work closer with your ad agency to be more effective against your competition.

Of course, it takes hard work to achieve all this. It takes an unrelenting effort.

The ‘unrelenting’ thing reminds us of John Lennon.

He was unrelenting in becoming a guitarist.

As a kid he played constantly … a fact that didn’t sit so well with the auntie who raised him, Aunt Mimi.

She wanted him to do something else with his life. Her idea was that he should become something.

It’s apocryphal, we know, but his auntie was said to be like a broken record on the subject.

On and on she went about practicing guitar.

As you probably know, John Lennon was a bit of a card.

So when the Beatles became a success he had a large gold plaque made for his auntie.

In engraved, bold letters it sent Aunt Mimi’s broken record words back to her:

‘You’ll Never Get Anywhere

Playing That Guitar.’

You might want to keep that in mind next time you’re working on a project and begin to grow tired of thinking.

It can help you push on.

Because as John Lennon’s auntie came to realize, it’s worth it to keep plugging away.

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

You’ve probably seen it before. No doubt you’ve heard it.

The sound of ‘mwah’ as two women kiss the air next to each other’s cheek.

It’s not really a kiss, is it?

It saves the make-up, right enough, but it’s going through the motions. It’s not exactly authentic.

Too many advertising efforts are a bit like that.

They’re more-or-less asking to be ignored because they’re not going the full distance.

They’re not talking to you or anyone else.

They put a marketer’s point of view out there and hope people will be impressed.

Fat chance.

As you’ve probably heard in marketing seminars, work like that is one-way communication.

It’s the opposite of an original imagination.

Why would marketers approve it?

Some might say they are being ‘safe’.

Others think they just don’t get it.

But that’s not Estée Lauder.

Their ‘We’re Stronger Together’ Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign doesn’t hold back on emotion.

It gets you on intimate terms with your feelings.

It’s new in the way it stresses action as well as awareness.

It showcases a genuineness about life, eating better, exercising, participating in healthful walks, sharing personal stories and supporting one another.

Authenticity is key.

For more on authenticity there’s ‘Hear Our Stories. Share Yours’. http://bit.ly/WgEfhc.

As this Estée Lauder video will tell you, ‘An honest exchange unfolds’.

It’s an honesty we all need for our work.

Because it goes further than just ‘mwah’.

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