Fashionable drivel with helpful advice from 400 years ago – plus your advice, please

I’ll tell about the picture in a minute as it may interest you.

But first, I am often amused by the way, at regular intervals, people tell you everything has changed, customers are getting smarter etc., etc.

Only this morning I read that a business expert, referring to the internet, and the great social media yawn-a-thon thinks “In this new world, we are more and more dependent on word-of-mouth.”

Sorry. It’s all balls.

I regularly quote research conducted for Buick about 7 years ago which asked people what governed their choice of a new car. The chief reason given was word of mouth. (TV advertising, on which Buick were pissing away most of their money was given as least important, and boring old direct mail from dealers came second after word of mouth).

I will happily wager that word of mouth always has been and always will be the chief single reason why people buy things – or do things, for that matter. The internet just allows more people to sound off than ever before, and since most of what they say is rubbish, I’m not sure how much it helps.

I would imagine people are, if possible, getting more stupid, too.

Back in the ’60’s fashionable educational theory proposed that nobody should be allowed to fail. The real result has been that educational standards have been lowered to such a degree that in reality almost everyone does. This is not helped by the fact that governments fiddle things to make them look better than they are.

A big thing worth remembering about people was well put about 400 years by Sir Francis Bacon in one of his essays: “Men behave as they are accustomed”. Our own marketing hero John Caples said “Times change. People don’t”

Here are three things I would appreciate your advice about.

1. Craig Sunney, one of my EADIM graduates, lives in Umbria, Italy in a village called Rotecastello, which means red castle. It’s the one in the picture and I suspect he inhabits it. Maybe I should be his student.