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 …
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Apryl 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 …
Read MoreThere’s no hogwash like marketing hogwash … and a possible alternative
I have always thought it was hard to beat the kind of twaddle marketing people come out with, and that the absolute nadir is reached by agency people. Here, for instance, is a quote from a presentation made by one …
Read MoreThe great SEO rip-off – don’t sign a contract: I have a better idea
Do you get a lot of people trying to sell you SEO? I get regular emails – and another agency which has the misfortune of me for its chairman gets people ringing to sell it all the time. The sales …
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