Wizard of Ads Clay Campbell

The American Dream

The American Dream

America is a democracy and we believe in free enterprise.
Let's look at that for a moment: Democracy is majority rule. Groupthink. "United we stand, divided we fall." But the key to business – free enterprise – is to have an absolute dictator.

In America's system of free enterprise, the person whose money is at risk is the person who gets to decide. Wrong or right, foolish or wise, whoever has the gold makes the rules. And that's the way it should be.

So while America's social system is a democracy, individualized financial dictatorship is the foundation of our economy.

Apply democratic principles to a business economy and what do you get? Socialism, if you do it softly. Do it for real and you've got Communism, the biggest economic disaster of the 20th century.

Strange, isn't it? A democracy will have an economic system based on Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest, "It's a dog eat dog world and I'm about to wolf your poodle, pal." But a society ruled by a dictator will usually have an economic system of financial democracy, "Everyone will work for the good of all and everyone will share alike."

Strange, isn't it? Social democracies have financial dictators and social dictators have financial democracies.

The American Dream requires that businesses be controlled by two financial dictators. One of these dictators is the business owner. The other is the customer.

Employees: If you don't like the rules of your dictator, you can go to work for someone else. Heck, you can even go to work for yourself. But if you're an unwise financial dictator, the bank and the IRS will come and haul away your stuff. Welcome to America.

Customers: If you don't prefer the person you bought from yesterday, buy from someone else tomorrow. God Bless America: Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

I share these untidy and discomforting thoughts with you only as a warning: Don't introduce democratic principles into your business. I've seen it done too many times to count, and always by the kindest and best of my clients. And it has always ended badly.

A strong business requires a strong dictator.

Hey, don't get mad. I don't have a social or political agenda here, I'm just sharing an observation that's been tumbling through my head.

"The American Dream" isn't the dream of a great society. It's the dream of personal wealth.

I'm not saying that's the way it should be.

Roy H. Williams

PS - Do you remember my middle-of-the-night diner challenge in the January 9, Monday Morning Memo titled Inside the Outside? Well, my throwing down the gauntlet, "only twelve will do it," emboldened 114 readers to crawl under that fence. I plan to have Thomas and Barry build a website to archive and honor these stories. Some of them are utterly fabulous. I'm extremely happy with the results of our little group experiment and am planning an initiation that will roll everyone's socks up and down. Stay tuned. – RHW

The Future of Ad Writing

The Future of Ad Writing

America has been flattered by advertising ("Because you deserve it"), misled by ads ("Lowest prices anywhere"), hyped by ads ("While supplies last"), and lied to repeatedly ("Guaranteed!"). The result of all this misinformation is a growing numbness to ad-speak. We're becoming deaf and blind to it. With effortless ease we shut it out of our minds.

Why are advertisers happy when their ads sound like ads?

Once-effective phrases become clichés when overused. Remember the 70s? Guys with long, pointed collars and blow-dried hair used the standard pick-up line, "Do you come here often?" They did it because it worked. They quit only when the ladies began laughing at them.

But advertising still wears that ridiculous collar and blow-dried hair because its rejection was never face-to-face. We don't laugh at ads. We quietly ignore them.

When demand is high and supply is low, your ads need only tell the world, "We've got it!" But how often do you actually get to do this?

Advertising – when you're building a brand – is merely a relationship deepener. Its job is to cause the public to like you and trust you. Accomplish this and they'll remember you when they, or any of their circle, need what you sell.

Good news: A seductive new voice in advertising is softening the hearts and winning the wallets of our nation at a record pace. This new future of advertising is known as "non ads" – consumer messages written in the vulnerable, candid style of a conversation between close friends. Their language isn't aggressive and egocentric like advertising, but unguarded, playful and real. Non-ads admit weaknesses, confess fears, and never try to impress. They speak to the customer in the language of a friend, rather than a pitchman. Does it surprise you that the natural response of the customer is to give you their trust? But here's the bigger question: Do you have the courage to be a friend, tell the truth, and worry more about your customer's happiness than your own?

My strong suggestion is that you adopt it sooner rather than later. The following examples of two real non-ads I've encountered lately should help you better understand this new concept and begin implementing it today.

Example #1
You're seated in 12-B, reading an in-flight magazine. The following words appear in white letters against a medium olive background, no photograph or graphic:

Isn't it amazing how people will read anything at 36,000 ft? You, for instance, are reading this. And even though it's quite obviously an ad, and you're skeptical of advertising, you'll continue reading it. See, here you are, still reading. C'mon, don't try to deny it. And why are you still reading? Not because you find it particularly captivating, but because it's here. And you're here. And you've already exhausted your mandatory, meaningless airplane chit-chat time with your neighbor. So right about now you're probably asking yourself, 'Why am I still reading this?' Perhaps you're even pretending you're not reading it anymore. You're going to close this magazine up right now and slip it back into that pocket up there. But wait, you're still reading it, aren't you? You can't help yourself. It's here. You're here. And you still can't use your cell phone until you reach the tarmac. By the way, we know a really good bookstore around here.

At the bottom of the page is the logo for Verizon and in larger letters, "Superpages.com, We know around here."

Like you and trust you. That's the goal.

Example #2
Walk into the men's room at Robbins Bros., The World's Biggest Engagement Ring Store, and here's what you'll see covering the wall of the toilet stall:

Here's your chance. Get out now while you can. Quick, look for a window. Or the ventilation shaft. Okay, remove your clothes. Skivvies, too. Lube your entire body with that hand soap over there. Now take a penny and unscrew the corner of the duct. Now get to struggling. Conviction is important at this point. You do not want to get stuck. Imagine your bride-to-be coming in and seeing your nude lower torso poking out like some sort of modern art installation. That's an image for the mantel, isn't it? So squirm like the wind. Once free, secure some clothing and start a new life somewhere with complicated extradition laws. And then back to bachelorhood. Yes, the singularly most forlorn, emotionally vacant time of your life. Come on, is there anything more overrated than bachelorhood? If you're like most bachelors, you go to bed every night wishing you weren't one. Let's look at the sacred, time-tested bachelor traditions you'll be missing out on. Well, of course, there's being a slob. As well as extended periods of not bathing and otherwise lapsed personal hygiene. And hanging out with your unattached friends. A group of guys who with each passing year are starting to get, frankly, a little creepy. Your future is out there. Your best friend is out there. Besides, that liquid soap itches like crazy.

Vision and audacity allowed these companies to leap to the top of their respective categories. And the same characteristics caused them to be among the first in America to embrace the intimate and irreverent voice of "non ads" as the advertising voice of the future. By the time the rest of the nation catches on to what they're doing, they will likely have moved on to something else.

How about you? Will you change with the times?

Roy H. Williams

Monday Morning Memo from Roy Williams

The Critical 0.05 Percent

It takes 1,800 electrons to equal the mass of a single proton.

Protons and their cousins – neutrons – make up 99.95 percent of the mass in the universe. Yet it's the electrical charges of the seemingly insignificant 0.05 percent – those tiny orbiting electrons – that hold our universe together.

Commitment. Purpose. Focus. Passion. These are the electrons of Happiness. Orbiting our actions. Binding us together. Keeping us from flying apart.

Shift gears, new subject: Is commitment a manifestation of passion, or the cause of it? In other words, are we committed because we have a purpose? Or do we have a purpose because we chose to commit? (Please don't make me tell you the answer. I'm begging you to see it for yourself…)

Ah. You see it now. I'm relieved.

I'm alarmed at the number of people who act as though purpose is somehow inherent, tied to destiny, a thing mysteriously willed to a chosen few by the gods. They moan, "I don't have a purpose. I don't have a passion. I'm not happy."

Frankly, it's all I can do to keep from slapping them.

Let me say this plainly: Your life's purpose will be chosen by you. It's a decision you will make. If you're waiting for your purpose to drop mysteriously from the sky, you're wasting what could have been a wonderful life.

Passion comes from having a focus.
Focus comes from having a purpose.
Purpose comes from having made a commitment.

To whom or what will you choose to commit?

Shift again, third subject: The world stands knee-deep in unrewarded talent because most people are unable to survive the death of their dream.

Every dream of the future is a seed. But until your dream falls into the ground and dies, it cannot burst from the ground and deliver the harvest you seek.

Is your commitment strong enough to survive the death of your dream? Will you be found still hanging on when hope has fled, the room is dark and everyone believes you a fool?

Believe it or not, this is usually the key to the miracles that follow.

Roy H. Williams

"Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance." – Samuel Johnson, (1709-1784)

"Truly, truly I say to you, unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit." – Jesus, in John 12:24

PS – Long experience has proven to me that a business owner who possesses the critical 0.05 percent will usually find a way to secure the other 99.95 percent. Successful men and women instinctively know the truth of the words of young Gaelen Foley, "Leap, and the net will appear." My friend Marley Porter echoes her words by adding, "The gift of flight is reserved for those who jump." Are you ready to leap?

PPS – The deadline for submitting the details of your experience is noon (central time) Wednesday, January 18, 2006. I'm referring of course to the challenge described in last week's Monday Morning Memo.

Do you love what you do?

Hundreds of thousands of people are unsatisfied with what they do for a living. Here is an excerpt from my book Escape from Mediocrity: Advice on living the above average life

Dan Miller wrote the books 48 Days to the Work You Love and 48 Days to Creative Income. I highly recommend you read them for ideas on how to jumpstart your thinking. Here is something else to write in your journal and underline, “The book I don’t read won’t help me.”

The following excerpt is from one of Dan Miller’s monthly newsletters.
"Law school sucked all the life and creativity out of me. I’ve never been happy practicing law. I have never had a sense of purpose. I feel destined to do something great, but have no idea why or what. I work only for the money."
These are statements from a young attorney who in his last position had been sick for 6 months, triggered initially by stress. But a new career opportunity presented itself and he is now working in a prestigious position with a Fortune 500 company. Unfortunately, the sickness is returning, starting with the symptoms of a choking feeling and shortness of breath.
Ultimately, money is never enough compensation for investing our time and energy. There must be a sense of meaning, purpose and accomplishment. Anything that does not blend our values, dreams and passions will cause us on some level to choke. Events since 9/11/01 have caused all of us to reassess what's important. A life well lived must go beyond just making a paycheck - even if it's a very large one.
The Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes 5:10, "Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income." If money is the only reward of your job, you will begin to see deterioration in other areas of your life - physically, emotionally, spiritually, and in your relationships.
I have been working with a corporate executive whose salary after 21 years with the same company is in excess of $330,000. In the process of taking a "life inventory" she says she is "waking up to things that are important to me" for the very first time. The intense focus on work has caused her to miss many deposits of success in other areas of her life.
P. S. I have to add an interesting side note. Proper alignment in doing work we love does not mean the family will be eating rice and beans; in fact, the opposite is more often what I see occur. I have worked with many people who have increased their income by 4-5 times as they moved into the freedom of finding God's authentic path for their work and lives. Proper alignment releases not only a sense of peace and accomplishment, but money is likely to break in on you like an exploding flood of fresh water.
Dan Miller

Learn to be happy with what you’ve got while you’re planning and working towards someday doing what you really want. Doing what you love is directly connected to God’s will for your life. It’s pitiful to talk with a person who’s not happy where he is, and at the same time doesn’t have any plans, dreams, or goals for where he’d like to be. Don’t be like that. Be above average!
“Where there is no vision the people perish…” This Bible verse is referring to the vision that God revealed to His prophets to lead His people. You also need to have a vision to take you in the direction of doing what you love for a living.
If you want to be above average, you must write your reasons down on paper. It doesn’t matter what you call them–hopes, dreams, plans, visions—they are all something that is in your head in the form of an idea that you want to become a reality.
More Later,
Clay