Yesterday, I found myself in the Moco Museum gift shop, thumbing through a book, and looking over my shoulder.
The Moco Museum features street art, pop art, and what I can only call high kitsch.
And after getting through the colorful exhibit, there I was in the gift shop, holding a little white book with a big black title.
The book collects 120 short ideas by George Lois. Lois is a brand advertising guy that the book describes as “America’s master communicator, advertising guru, the original Mad Man, and acclaimed cultural provocateur.”
A little boastful, but nothing too indecent in that.
The problem was that big black title on the cover. It read:
“DAMN GOOD ADVICE (for people with talent!)”
I felt embarrassed being seen buying something like this. But I liked the few of Lois’s bits of advice that I had thumbed to.
And since I have exactly one physical book in my new apartment, I steeled myself and decided to buy “DAMN GOOD ADVICE (for people with talent!)” in spite of the title.
So like a teenager buying condoms for the first time, I looked around, picked an opportune moment, and rushed for the cash register.
“I’d like to buy this,” I mumbled, pushing the book across the counter, not raising my eyes.
The woman just smiled at me knowingly and rang up the book without comment.
And good thing. Because I’m reading the book more this morning, and I’m enjoying it.
Lois gives a brief but interesting perspective on creativity and brand advertising. Much of it is laughable and sacrilegious from the perspective of direct response advertising. But there is still some surprising common ground.
For example, Lois’s advice no. 50 says:
“Research is the enemy of creativity — unless it’s your own ‘creative’ research (heh-heh)”
I raised my eyebrows when I read this headline. But Lois pays it off in a way that is consistent with something a very successful direct response marketer said recently. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow if you like.
For today, I just want to share a much simpler idea, Lois’s advice no. 75:
“What a difference a name makes!”
Lois is talking about the power of good brand names. But his advice no. 75 made me think of chapter 6 of Great Leads, by Mark Ford and John Forde.
One bit of advice from that marketing classic is that, if you have a complex problem to talk about, it can be smart to package it up inside of a name, ideally one that makes instant sense to the reader.
Of course, not only complex, hard-to-describe problems deserve a good name.
Vague symptoms… shadowy enemies… novel mechanisms… and plain old giant promises often become more manageable and real if you just give them the handle of a good name.
Which brings me to the name and the promise of the presentation I will put on next Wednesday.
It’s called the Most Valuable Email.
And it’s about a type of daily email that has been most valuable to me in the history of this newsletter… and that might be equally valuable to you, if you are a copywriter or marketer, and you have your own mailing list, or you want to start one.
The Most Valuable Email presentation will happen on Wed June 22 at 7pm CET. If you’d like to get signed up for it, the first step is to get on my email newsletter before Wednesday. The second step will become obvious once you get my first daily email. No talent required.