Monday Morning Memo

A Monday Morning Memo for the Clients and Friends of Williams Marketing In a chapter of The Wizard of Ads called “Willie and His Bank Balance,” I scold William K. Vanderbilt, Sr. for his statement, “It has left me with nothing to hope for, with nothing to seek or strive for. Inherited wealth is a &hellip Continue reading »

A Monday Morning Memo from The Wizard of Ads “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” might be true in goose ranching, but it’s not a valid concept in business. Strategies, concepts, and technologies which are proven winners for big companies are often counterproductive for smaller ones. What’s good for the big &hellip Continue reading »

A Monday Morning Memo from The Wizard of Ads Not old enough to drive, I sit in the back seat and read billboards for 200 miles. What else can a fourteen year old kid do to pass the time? Outside my window, Hereford cattle stand behind barbed wire fences looking every bit as bored as &hellip Continue reading »

A Monday Morning Memo from The Wizard of Ads George has been without a Daddy since he was ten years old. A quiet boy, George mostly likes to put seeds in the ground and then watch over them as they sprout and grow. He doesn’t get to do this very often though, because people are &hellip Continue reading »

A Monday Morning Memo from The Wizard of Ads The human mind is a crowded room, overflowing with too many memories of smell and color, taste and touch, sight and sound. Half remembered words and buried emotions lie stacked, layer upon layer, in piles that grow deeper with each passing year. A familiar face, a &hellip Continue reading »

A Monday Morning Memo from The Wizard of Ads I’m watching the hit movie Jaws from the back row of a movie theater during the early 1970’s. The scene on the screen is quiet and calm, without even a hint of trouble on the horizon. The actors are engaged in uninteresting dialogue on a boat &hellip Continue reading »

A Monday Morning Memo from The Wizard of Ads A bank once informed their advertising consultant they had written a mission statement, developed a five year plan, and agreed upon a goal that would be the focus of all their concerted action. The directors of the bank had decided their goal would be 100% Customer &hellip Continue reading »

The Choice of Florence Balcombe For the past several months, Florence Balcombe has been dating Finegal O’Flahertie, the baby boy of Speranza, an unconventional poetess who fights for women’s rights. To the outrage of many, the six-foot Speranza coolly justifies her public extravagances by saying that she is “above respectability.” Like his memorable mother, young &hellip Continue reading »

A Monday Morning Memo from The Wizard of Ads If you don’t have a few failures, you’re not taking enough chances. Nobody can be right all the time, and the big companies didn’t become big by “playing it safe”. So goes the cover story in the May issue of Fortune magazine. Here’s a summary: “Sergio &hellip Continue reading »

A Monday Morning Memo from The Wizard of Ads “I have made a captive of myself and put me into a dungeon, and now I cannot find the key to let myself out.” Nathaniel Hawthorne “As the lack of sleep wore me down, a sense of hopelessness enveloped me. I knew that nothing I did &hellip Continue reading »