Does he want a bucket of water or does he want to be put out?

Imagine this . . .

You’re on fire. Your whole body. Your clothes are sheathed in flame. Your nostrils are burning. You can feel your flesh melting like candle wax or a “He-Man” action figure left out in the sun. You’re hot, hot, hot.

You run (on fire) into a room and see two big neon billboards.

Which one catches your attention? Which one do you run over to?

Option 1: “Bucket is a liquid-containing receptacle created by artisian craftsman in the Himilayas using ancient techniques. Bucket is delivered full of fresh, clear spring water devoid of all toxins. Bucket has convenient carrying handle designed to fit comfortably in all but the largest hands. Full history of bucket available upon request.”

Option 2: “If You Are On Fire, This Will Put You Out”

This sounds like a pretty silly exercise, but I think it illustrates a problem I’m seeing with a couple of my students in John Carlton’s “simple writing system” . . .

What’s the problem?

That they’re making things too complicated and that (when you get down to it) all this advertising and copywriting stuff really comes down to figuring out what somebody wants (or desperately needs . . .being on fire would suck) and GIVING IT TO THEM at a price they’re willing to pay.

Not that complicated, huh?

I went to see “Alice In Wonderland” last weekend.

It was a bad movie.

It was pretty to look at, sure. But in that vacuous, crazy way Hollywood seems to prefer these days. Pretty like an ice sculpture. Pretty like a punch in the face.

But bloodless in the purest sense. It lacked anything resembling life.

I saw it at the Imax. My girlfriend and I got there late and had to stand up and dance around in the back of the theater at first. Then we saw seats way down in front of the screen. We snuck like sneaky rabbits, hunched down in our seats and stared up at the God-sized face of Johnny Depp.

And we were dazzled and bored.

BORED.

BORED.

It’s pretty amazing to me that someone can spend THAT much money and THAT much time on something so . . . slight.

The “plot” of the movie is that it’s been 13 years since Alice’s first trip to Wonderland. She’s 19 now, thin and whispy and scheduled to be married to a weak-chinned noble.

He proposes to her at a big party with all her friends and several of her enemies. They stand in a gazebo. He gets on one knee.

And she dashes off into the woods to follow a rabbit.

Then . . .

Well, stuff happens. Not much of it memorable. There’s cakes and tea and sword fights and lots of CGI.

I guess one of the “cool things” about this movie is supposed to be that it’s a blend of live action and animation. And that it’s SEAMLESS.

I guess it is . . . but do we really care? Oh! Look! It’s Johnny Depp and a bunch of animated playing cards with spears! Whoopty! Why is the bunny a better actor than Alice? Strange.

I really just wanted an excuse to put a pretty girl on my blog.

At the beginning of the story, you learn that (for some reason) It’s Alice’s “destiny” to get hold of the Vorpal Sword and Slay the Jabberwocky on (something that starts with an F) day.

And so, dutifully, the plot pushes on. Alice meets some creatures. She gets the Vorpal sword. There’s some small, unbelievable doubt that she might not be the RIGHT Alice. But there’s no OTHER Alice in the movie, and nobody really takes that seriously, not even her.

At the end, the Red Queen and her army of playing cards approaches the White Queen (a stoned Anne Hathaway) in force. Animated soldiers face off. Johnny throws his hat.

And the champions march onto the field.

On the white side we have Alice.

She’s wearing armor (nobody ever explains what the armor is about.)

She has a shield.

She carries the Vorpal sword . . . .

On the red side, the Jabberwocky.

It’s big and mean. It’s a dragon. Fin Fang Foom.

Now, early on in the story the Red Queen is told that the prophesy says that Alice will kill the Jabberwocky on the (F day) with the Vorpal sword.

By the time the “climax” comes upon us, it is (F DAY), Alice has the Vorpal sword . . .

You’d think she’d be smart and leave the Jabberwocky at home. She seems really fond of her Jabberwocky and I’m pretty sure you can’t just go on Amazon and get another one.

But no.

As the champions approach each other the one truly cool moment of the movie happens. It’s a moment that hints at a much BETTER movie that simply didn’t get made. I’m sure there’s a script for this better movie out there somewhere. This script for a better movie got savaged and thrashed and mutated and maligned.

But this one tiny scene from this better movie goes like this . .  .

SCARY! Wonder what his story is. Why didn't Tim Burton tell me?

Jabberwocky: “So we meet again on the field of battle, my old enemy.”

Alice: “We’ve met before?”

Jabberwocky: “Not you, insignificant bearer. I mean the sword!”

Ahh! Now there’s some meat.

The idea that OTHERS have raised the Vorpal Sword against the Jabberwocky and FAILED. Now THERE’S an idea. THERE’S something interesting. THERE’S a bit of TENSION.

There’s a STORY.

If only they’d told us about THAT before all this malarky with big chins and bad CG.

But no.

The fight goes on.

And what happens is what you knew would happen from frame one.

Alice kills the Jabberwocky.

The Red Queen gets sent off with Crispn Glover.

And Johnny Depp does a truly AWFUL CG enhanced Dance to some form of Acid-fueled hip hop.

And we all sort of shuffle and harumph our way out of the theater.

Our pockets feel lighter. We give back our glasses.

We make slight mouth noises about it being “OK.” Even the kids look kind of cheated.

And we all think “Shouldn’t it have been better than that? Shouldn’t I have cared?”

“Shouldn’t my heart have soared and shuddered at the idea that Alice could . . . lose?”

Now, I’m not ranting on this to make fun of Hollywood (though that’s fun), or to hector Tim Burton (though he deserves hectoring. He’s done much better in the past  . . . the far past.)

But to make a point about marketing. (Seriously, I’m not kidding. Stop laughing.)

And that point is this:

Whether you’re making a movie, running a product launch or just trying to make a sale, it’s the STORY that matters.

I got in a conversation with a fellow Product Launch Manager not too long ago. He couldn’t figure out why a client had hired me instead of him for a project.

After all, he’s a lot better at the “tech stuff” than I am. He’s got bells on top of whistles. Big ideas. Cool bits of gadgetry.

Just like Alice in Wonderland, really. Lots of cool gadgetry. Lots of pretty pictures.

But no story worth giving a damn about.

And I’ll tell you right now, I don’t care how flashy your videos are, how hip your design, how nifty your social media . . . if you don’t have a story that gets into the hearts and minds of your prospects, you don’t got a damn thing.

Later.

(Of course Alice In Wonderland made a truckload of money. But you get the idea.)

Do you want a MAN or do you want a Puppy?

I got bored at the office yesterday and decided to kill a little time surfing the Craigslist personals (which are almost always HILARIOUS).

I was pretty saddened by what I saw so I wrote up this “advice article” and posted it for the girls to see. Got a LOT of positive feedback  so I figured you guys might get a kick out of it  too. =-)

Hey ladies,

I’ve spent the last hour skimming through a bunch of the “W4M” ads here on Craigslist and, honestly, have been a little freaked out by what I’ve found . . .

Why?

Because as far as I can tell, most of the women on here aren’t looking for “men” or even “guys” but actually want puppies.

Cute, passive, affectionate, needy, somewhat inbred and emotionally damaged puppies.

Now, I’m not saying this to be mean.

More I’m saying it because behind the sappishly-written puppy-attracting profiles some of you seem to actually be dynamic, sexy fun, interesting women.

And it just bugs me that you’re selling yourselves this short and putting up ads that will make most men run for the hills or consider putting wigs on their right hands and calling that a relationship. 

It’s just no good. Men need women. Women need men (at least the straight ones do) and while puppies are cool, you don’t really want to date one.

So a little marketing 101.

If you go through this exercise, think about it and do what it says you’re going to have a MUCH better chance of landing an honest-to-goodness non-puppy-like guy who sweeps you off your feet and makes you tingle all over like you accidentally stuck your toe in a light socket.

And isn’t that what you really want?

Step 1: Think about the guy you REALLY want. Who are you looking for? Who’s your IDEAL guy who actually stands a reasonable chance of existing?

Now the key phrase here is “who actually stands a chance of existing.”

He doesn't exist, and even if he did you wouldn't really want him.

I hate to say it and break your hearts but that “Prince Charming” you keep writing about who you want to come in and sweep you off your feet? Something of a fantasy. He’s right up there with the pneumatically enhanced nymphomaniac barbie so many guys seem to think they want. Not in reality. 

Think about it, have ever actually even MET a man who acts like Prince Charming? Nope. And you know what, I’m willing to bet that if you did you’d think he was a total sap and would run the other way. Worse yet, you’d say unkind things about his genitalia behind his back.

Because that guy ain’t a MAN.

(It works the other way too, if most guys met the nymphomaniac sports-loving floozie they THINK they want they’d run so fast they’d leave one of those “Road Runner” dust clouds in their wake.)

So here’s what you gotta do . . .

Sit down and write out a bunch of REASONABLE traits you want your guy to have.

How tall is he?

What does he look like?

Do you like white guys, black guys, asian guys? Do you like latino midgets? That’s fine. All these things actually exist in the world.

Just get it all down on paper. Heck, even give him a name. What you want to do is create an “avatar” of your perfect guy (who could actually exist). You want to get him really firmly fixed in your mind. You want to know what he dresses like, what he smells like, what he feels like, how he moves, all that stuff.

You want him to seem like a real and actual person in your mind. (Now, there is some danger here. It’s possible that you’ll fall madly in love with your “dream guy” and won’t be willing to settle for actual human being. You don’t want to do that, but getting really clear on your man is going to make the rest of this much, much easier.)

Step 2: Ok, What does your Dream Guy WANT? What is your Dream Guy ATTRACTED to?

This is a big one.

Picture the MAN of your dreams

Remember, you’re trying to attract the right kind of guy here. A guy who’s going to fulfill you, push your buttons in the right way. A man who’s going to make you feel sexy and confident and fulfilled and wanted.

(NOT a puppy.)

So think about your “Avatar guy” and then list out what he likes and what he wants.

WHY is he on craigslist on the first place? What’s driving him to be here? What’s going to pique his interest?

In general guys like . . .

Sex (duh. I know, I know, you’re not looking for a hookup and that’s fine. But you’ve still got to be realistic about what guys want.)

To feel attractive and looked after

To have a girl on their arm they can be proud of.

To have a woman who UNDERSTANDS him and doesn’t try to change him.

Etc etc. what does YOUR guy want? Do you want an emotionally stoic manly man? Or are you looking for the emo hipster type? What’s going to get his attention?

What is THAT KIND OF GUY attracted to? What’s going to turn his head and get his body humming? What does he REALLY look for in a girl both on a conscious and an unconscious level?

Be honest here. Remember, men are MEN. And that’s why you LIKE them. If men were women . . . um . . Well, we wouldn’t need toilet seats.

Step 3: Write your ad (and keep the Dealbreakers and puppy-attractors out of it.)

Ok, here’s where the rubber hits the road.

One guy's version of the perfect woman.

You want your ad to be specific, written with confidence and designed to get you EXACTLY the guy you’re looking for.

It also needs to talk about you in a way that comes across as attractive and fun.

Most guys HATE drama and will run the other way at the merest whiff of it (unless you’re phenomenally good looking and then we’ll put up with it for a while because we’re dumb and driven by animalistic urges.)

I saw a couple ads that said things like “Just had my heart broken” or “Are you the one” and then went on to WHINE for the whole ad.

That stuff is MAN kryptonite.

Straight guys know that a certain amount of emotional whackiness comes with the territory of dating straight girls (and most of us ADORE women and are totally cool with the fact that you’re generally more emotional than we are.)

But we don’t want to START there. We want to at least START OUT thinking you’re sane and awesome and emotionally stable and different from the last girlfriend who kept crying and banging her head against the wall every time you said the word “corndog” even though you couldn’t figure out why.

I’m not saying you should LIE in your profile (that would be a baaaad idea because lies always have a way of coming out in the end.)

But put out the BEST version of you. And emphasize the BENEFITS of being with you. Help paint a picture in your target guy’s mind of how GREAT it’s going to be to be with you . . . how you’re going to make him FEEL . . . how much more fulfilled he’s going to be . . .

A few final tips before I end this thing . .

1. Headline

No “Are you the one?” or “Looking for prince charming?” type headlines.

Again, those type of headlines can work great with women, but you’re not trying to attract women, you’re trying to attract MEN.

You’ve gotta KNOW YOUR MARKET, ladies. =-)

Also no “Sex obsessed” headlines unless that’s really what you want (guys hate bait and switch and most of us are actually a bit turned off by that kind of overt aggression from girls.)

A good headline should project confidence and scarcity. It should show that you’re NOT just waiting around for some dude to rescue you.

Remember, the job of your headline is to get the guy of your dreams to click on your ad and read more . . .

So it’s got to contain excitement, curiosity, intrigue, action . . . some combination of these.

Personally, I really like headlines that have a specific activity in mind and say you’re looking for (but don’t need) a cool guy to go with you.

“Challenge” headlines can also be attractive. Saying things like “I’m way wittier than you” or “You probably couldn’t handle me” can get a nice response. Men are naturally competitive and that kind of spunk goes a long way.

But again, it’s all about what your SPECIFIC kind of dream guy wants and responds to. Want a jock? Put “jock stuff” in your headline. (Running a 2K tomorrow, think you can keep up?)

Want a geek? GEEK OUT in your headline (“The body of Aragorn the mind of . . .”)

2. Body

Jaysis, please do NOT go on and on about yur passion for crocheting or how you just haven’t been able to get out of bed since Michael Jackson died (you just know you could have changed him and SAVED HIS LIFE if you’d gotten there in time.)

Show off your personality a bit, be confident and secure, seem like the kind of woman that other guys are falling over themselves to get to. And fill the body of your profile with the kind of details that you know your perfect dude is going to be interested in.

Personally, I like a little cockiness in a girl’s profile. But I’m one of those guys who finds confidence extremely sexy.

3. Pictures

Most guys will completely skip any ad that doesn’t have a pic. We’ll also get kind of mad if you do the “here’s a pic of a farm” thing to trick Craigslist. Get some nice pics taken of you at your best. Don’t try to hide your “flaws” but focus on your best features.

Now here’s the bad news:

Guys are “visual” creatures and we’re a LOT more shallow on the looks department when it comes to looking for mates than women are. (In my experience, a “average looking” or even “ugly” guy can still end up with a conventionally beautiful girl, but the opposite is really hard to pull off. Sad but true.)

But you STILL have to put a picture up. A good picture. That shows you how you really are and actually smiling.

Seriously, I mean it.

Oh, and here’s a big “ad crime” that drives me nuts.

Whatever you do DO NOT put a picture up of you with your stunningly-hot lingerie model friend. If you do, it doesn’t matter how cute or spunky or awesome you are, your dream guy’s lizard brain is going to freeze up.

"If you want to look thin, hang out with fat people."

(Think about what Rodney Dangerfield said in “Back to School:”

If You Want To Look Thin, Hang Out With Fat People”

Whew.

There’s a lot more to say on this topic, but you should get the idea for now.

Just to sum up:

1. Men are not women. And they are not mentally damaged puppies. If you want to find a MAN you’ve got to write your ad in a way that appeals to MEN.

2. “Prince Charming” really doesn’t exist. But there ARE a lot of really awesome guys out there who really are just looking for funny, cute, emotionally available girls. You just have to get by their “Manness” to find them.

3. Pictures are a must. Sooner or later he’s going to see you and it’s better to hit the “are you hot enough” objection head on and early than it is to wait and hope to snag him after he’s already fallen for your witty personality. Men are kind of shallow. Sad but true.

—

And, back to the blog.

Hmm. This one should get me some comments =-)

Check out this “Guerilla” critique I did of http://www.MassageEnvy.com.

What makes it “Guerilla” is that the fine folks at Massage Envy didn’t actually ask me to critique their site.

It’s just that I’m such a big fan of their service that I think their website needs a proper savaging.

The video is only about 10 minutes long, butI cover a lot of ground in it and reveal a lot of my own techniques for getting into the head of your market, avoiding “false” benefits and pushing your prospects towards a powerful call to action.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
c

Well, here’s my favorite example–an example that shows a real misunderstanding of what people are looking for and how to present your product.

One flyer has this headline:

“Interested in Rolfing?”
And then the body copy says some stuff about “Sam Sammicans Can Teach You All About Rolfing and Rolf, Rolf, Rolf.”

Which is great if I:
A. Know what Rolfing is (I have only the vaguest idea).
B. Know that I’m interested in Rolfing (Why would I be? It sounds kind of dirty.)

The problem here is that whoever wrote the ad (new adage, never have a rolfer write your advertising) is stuck in feature mode (and stuck in I’m a Rolfer and I’m interested in Rolfing so you should be interested in Rolfing too) mode. What he should have done is taken a big benefit of Rolfing and built his headline out of that.

For instance (and this is me doing absolutely no research at all).

“Suffering from Back Pain, Sore Muscles and (add a few more things that Rolfing takes care of)?”
Rolfing Can Help.

What the heck is Rolfing? Rolfing is a (explain what the heck Rolfing is.)

And then you go on and make an offer for a free first session or consultation. In other words, you don’t say “Interested in Rolfing” because the answer to that question could be a very simple “no.” Instead, you list out benefits you’re going to give a reader and then give a REASON WHY they should call you right now.

Damned Hippies. They’ll never get it.

Dear Sir / Madam

Welcome to the new XXXX marketing campaign. We have officially adopted Einstein and other wise men to provide us with great business ideas.

The XXXX team have had great success this year with a previous campaign. We ran the “Da Vinci” Marketing Code campaign and were inundated with enquiries and orders for our service.

The reason for our new theme is the result of our recent success! The XXX team were running low on TIME hence our new theme. So we have recruited a bigger team!

We can provide an outstanding service that will provide you and your team with more time to create new business opportunities.

So if you need anything from “PRINT TO POST” we are the expert team to give YOU the TIME to grow new business!!

XXXX would love to provide you with TIME, so if we can help please take the time to:-

(followed by website, email, telephone, fax info)

Ok, dear readers. Have some fun. What’s wrong with this thing? Is it the lack of any real and discernible benefit? Is it the completely passive prose? Is it the fact that all the letter does is talk about how great the XXXX team is? Is it . . .dear god, I could go on and on. I could spend a whole day just drilling through this thing and pulling it apart. It’s like copy crime salad.

Remember, folks, a good sales letter:
-Is benefit oriented.
-Is about the prospect, not about you.
-Doesn’t read like stereo instructions.

My copy of “Marketing News” came in today, and the whole front cover is taken up with an Ad for the American Marketing Association’s flagship conference, MPlanet.

I can’t find a good scan of the cover online, but the copy goes like this:

At the top of the page:

ALL ABOUT MPLANET
At AMA’s unique marketing event, professionals will find any number of new ways to survive and thrive in the new world of marketing.

Then on the bottom 2/3rds of the page, we’ve got a picture of two folks sitting on a couch staring at a starry sky. And superimposed on that we get some more, err, “creative” copy:

MPLANET
Light Years From Ordinary
Introducing MPlanet, AMA’s unprecedented event for the marketing community.

Ok, so why is this sticking in my craw? Why is this worthy of me stuck here in my super-special copywriting crimes category?

Well, let’s think about it for a second.

Go back up and read that copy again. Now answer me a few questions.

-Who is this copy aimed at? Near as I can tell, it’s marketing professionals–the very folks that would be reading a publication like marketing news. But still, the clever copywriter charged with putting this high-profile cover together says “professionals will find. . . ” instead of “you will find. . . ”

-What’s the big ballsy benefit of this conference? As a marketing pro, what amazing thing am I going to learn at this conference that’s going to flip my whole world upside down? Honestly, looking at it, I don’t know. Sure, there are platitudes and weak, weak, (weak) statements about this conference showing me (or, er, “Professionals”) “how to survive and thrive in the new world of marketing” but there’s not a single example of what that means. There’s no specificity at all.

-What sets this conference apart? What’s the USP? Reading the copy, it looks like the Unique Selling Proposition is that the conference is . . .uh. . “unique” and, uh. . “unprecedented.” Which to me is, uh, lame.

Which is really how I feel about the cover, the articles inside and the flash-heavy and content-light website the AMA shelled out big gobs of cash to put together. It’s a bearish monster, that site. Hard to navigate, harder to read and full of some of the limpest copy I’ve come across in a while.

Having been in the marketing game for a some time now, it always strikes me as odd and horrible how utterly awful the marketing done by organizations like the AMA and the DMA (direct marketing association) is. You’d think with all the high-paid power behind these organizations, they’d have the basics down, but instead we get flat and useless drivel cut together by committees who pat themselves on the back for their artful use of the word “unprecedented.”

So what should they have done?
Well, how about actually finding out what their target cares about and putting forth a specific reason to show up at Epcot center? How about talking right to the people that matter? How about throwing off the stiff as a board prose style and remembering that marketing people are, uh, people? Tough stuff, I know. But I’d bet my right arm they’d get ten times the response.

1. Optimize. This one’s mostly found in internal marketing communications where some low level director is trying to impress her superiors. In use it goes like this: “We plan on optimizing ROI with optimetrix optimizator.”

2. Solutions. Solutions is the devil of marketing copy. What makes it so bad? There’s not a damned word in the world that says the same thing. Strangely enough, Solutions used to be a jim dandy of a word, but overuse by hyped up marketers has rendered it absolutely useless. Common use these days? “We’ll optimize your solutionator with our solutionazation stream.”

Here’s what I found in one of the RSS feeds I have setup on craigslist for a full time copywriting position (don’t worry, folks, I’m not leaving you.):

“This position will create online tactical copy solutions that support seasonal/brand strategies and drive sales profitability. ”

Uhh. Ummm? You kiss your momma with that copy? Bad writing is a plague. A plague of nasty, biting insects. Avoid it at all costs.

Not that I don’t like the big M. I’ve worked for it in the past, I have an Xbox 360 sitting in my living room and I do the vast majority of my work in MS Word (OK, that last bit is more by necessity than choice. If I had a better option that had the Word track changes feature I’d probably jump on it.)

What really bothers about marvelous and monolithic Microsoft is just how massively mediocre most of their marketing is.

I mean, when you’ve got budgets like I know they have and smart, smart people like I know they hire, you’d think you could come up with better work than, well, this.

So, yea. Doesn’t exactly start you salivating, does it? Doesn’t exactly get you ready to cue up at Best Buy for when this long-delayed update finally drops like a bomb on the sky-gazing, fearful world.

How many man hours and millions went into developing the yawn-inducing tag line: “Bringing Clarity to your world”? How many dozens of drafts did that home page copy go through before it limped broken and beaten onto the Vista homepage?

It’s . . . OK, embarrassing is probably the wrong word. But it’s certainly boring. And it’s got the stink of engineers and middle managers and ambitious ladder-climbers who “just want to put their mark on something” and weary, weary creatives who have gotten so used to having their work ripped up and reorganized that they just gave up.

The worst part? With this limp, lazy, no-risk-taking, no-promise-making site, Windows is setting the tone that all of their partners and hangers-on and immitators are going to imitate for years and years to come.