In 2002, Gartner the brilliant research experts said that by 2010 direct mail would “almost be a half-remembered relic”. Well, stone me! How strange that Mailbird, a relatively small firm that does nothing but send out direct mail fore clients, …
Read MoreAuthor: Drayton
Tesco stinks, Sainsbury and Waitrose deliver; with a salute to Rory Sutherland
Unless you’re in the business or slightly mad I don’t suppose you spend much time following the battle between the supermarkets – but I am slightly mad, and occasionally hopping mad, too. Last year I bought some foul smelling cod …
Read MoreHow to review copy, plus the Tin Piss-Pot for use of jargon. And we’ve been here before, folks – many times. Plus, if you want to meet me …
Yesterday a client wrote saying that my copy was to be reviewed by various “stakeholders”. I wrote pleading with her not to use jargon. I forgot to quote David Ogilvy’s rule: copy should only be reviewed by two people: the …
Read MoreApryl gets the horrors – when all I want to do is help you all make money. So very unkind.
Well, I don’t know. Is there any faith left in this world? As part of my rather self-interested crusade to raise innocent folks’ chances of survival in the coming misery and maybe rid the world of a few rip-off artists …
Read MoreLive in trailer park? Desperate and literate – but stupid? Here’s how to get rich. Almost as good as stuffing envelopes.
My friend Andrew Gadsden, “Saviour of Tea” – his business is selling tons of tea – forwarded a hilarious email message from someone called the PPC Web Spy. The subject: “Can I hire you to write for me?” It read: …
Read MoreToday’s little bucket of offal from the magical (but shrinking) world of marketers with lots of money to waste
Lee Iacocca (remember him? He saved Chrysler for a bit) wrote something good: “If you want to succeed you’d better get on with people, because that’s all we’ve got around here.” And Peter Drucker pointed out that there is only …
Read MoreGrossly unfair! Immigrants to be tested on knowledge of British culture. Plus how to handle incomprehensible call centre people
The Daily Mail is often good for a giggle, and so it proved this morning when I read that would-be immigrants are to be tested on British history and culture. Questions (says the Daily Mail) will include asking who was …
Read More“Skidding about helplessly on the slippery surface of irrelevant creative brilliance” – David Ogilvy
A few weeks ago I was invited to a grand dinner in New York to mark the centenary of David Ogilvy’s birth. I was in New York just before it took place, but had to fly back to London on …
Read MoreMy favourite Poles, the power of brands – and slightly less rain in Spain
In the 1960’s I fell in love with a Polish girl, and discovered that the Poles, whom I had always imagined, God knows why, a calm, slightly gloomy lot, like the Swedes, were – in her case anyhow – a …
Read MoreChildren are suffering because of these crass oafs – or how to make 100% sure your marketing money is wasted
I sometimes have an uneasy feeling that there is a great alternative recruitment agency in the depths below which seeks out idiots for big jobs. They probably run ads headed “A unique money-making opportunity for gormless twats.” Such seems the …
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