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March 5, 2010 From Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense
The In the News story at right is a stunning admission by the president of Toyota—a dozen words that describe his giant corporation being totally out of control: Some people just got too big-headed and focused too excessively on profit. Who are “some people"? Let’s call them a cabal, which the OneLook Dictionary defines as “a clique (often secret) that seeks power, usually through intrigue.” Since 1999, this cabal has been responsible for a reported: 2,262 instances of unintended acceleration 815 crashes 52 deaths. “We did realize that it was not good that pedals were not returning to their proper positions,” said Toyota’s quality control chief, Shinichi Sasaki, “but we took some time to consider whether we needed to take market action.” Parse that. “We did realize ... but we took some time ..." The message here to all businesspeople—from lone wolves to the CEOs of giant corporations: For Pete’s sake, if you're CEO of anything, don't hide behind the words “we,” “us” and “our.” Don’t use them in copy. Don’t use them in speeches. “We,” “us” and “our” are code for, “It wasn’t my decision alone, so I don’t have to take responsibility.” Or, in the words of the late Freddie Prinze Sr., "Eez not mai yob." When the Philippines fell to the invading Japanese armies in 1942, Gen. Douglas MacArthur didn't say something half-baked and corporate such as, “We shall return,” or “America shall return”—meaning if the Japanese won the war, it wasn’t his fault. He electrified the world with three iconic words: “I shall return.”
February 9, 2010 From Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense
The New York Times account of 100 institutions of higher education sending high-tech direct mail to high school students in order to rope them in as applicants—with huge success—grabbed my attention. I devoured Jacques Steinberg’s story. It quickly became clear that some old direct mail pro had landed in the honey pot—a fossilized industry desperate for business—and cashed in big time. Using tried-‘n’-true techniques developed over the past 800 years, these colleges learned they could eat their competitors’ lunch. In the middle of Steinberg’s story, the name of an old pro jumped off the page and grabbed me by the collar—Bill Royall of Royall & Co. out of Richmond, Va., who shook up direct mail more than 20 years ago. Plus ça change, plus c'ést la même chose.
December 2009 From Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense
I'd always admired golfing great Tiger Woods for three reasons: (1) his brilliance on the golf course, (2) his impeccable elegance, and (3) his tightly controlled and shadowy personal life about which I was delighted to know nothing beyond the fact that he lived in Florida and owned a megayacht. Initial reports out of Florida on Friday, Nov. 27, by the usually reliable Associated Press described Woods as being seriously injured in a car accident. As so often happens, the pathetic, aggressive media—more anxious to get it out than get it right—got it dead wrong. He had minor facial lacerations and was released from the hospital later that day. "Media is the plural of mediocre," said Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jimmy Breslin. When I read that the Woods’ Escalade sped out of the driveway in the wee hours of the a.m., hit a fire hydrant and ended up hugging a tree with Woods unhurt, I assumed it was some kind of domestic spat and thought no more about it. This was none of my business. But quickly the story began to grow legs and snowball. The world watched transfixed as a reputation, a marriage and a billion-dollar enterprise imploded. Being a businessperson, my thoughts were (and are) continually with Woods’ sponsors—Nike, Gatorade, Accenture, Gillette and the others—who were paying $105 million a year for pure excellence and got themselves a serial adulterer. How should the Woods organization have dealt with them?
December 2009 From Target Marketing
"The headline selects the reader," said direct mail guru Axel Andersson. The headline of this ad selected me. My lower back had gone out, and I was lying on the floor in pain with The New York Times— a cumbersome broadsheet format that is not easy to read in the supine position. When I spotted this advertisement, I read every word twice and got the message: If you have back pain, a nameless board-certified neurosurgeon out of Yale will happily perform a kind of newfangled surgery on you.
November 10, 2009 From Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense
Of the eight key copy drivers—the emotional hot buttons that make people act—the most mysterious is exclusivity. I never really understood exclusivity until Bernie Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme put a spotlight on it. As Laurence Leamer wrote in The Huffington Post: It was an honor having him handle your fortune. He didn't take just anybody. He turned down all kinds of people, and that made you want to give the man even more of your money. When he took your fortune, he told you that he would tell you nothing about how he achieved his returns. He was a god. He had the Midas touch. Web sites have been built on this exclusivity thing. Among them: Gilt.com, RueLaLa.com and HauteLook.com. They offer to “members only” the same upmarket designer merchandise sold by Saks, but at deeply discounted sale prices during specific time periods. Saks is fighting back with an exclusive online “private event” that the CEO of HauteLook.com calls “the new way of retail.” It ain’t new. Saks is engaging in a technique as old as the hills. It’s called good, ol'-fashioned, time-tested, accountable direct marketing.
November 2009 From Target Marketing
Readers over the years know that I am a nutcase when it comes to rules. Do not break them unless a very good reason exists. The full-page ad ran a number of times in The New York Times and presumably other publications in the early fall.
Write It Right!
September 15, 2009 From Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense
When I started reading The New York Times on Sunday, Aug. 30, my brain kept bumping into articles that were making no sense. Was the problem myself, having just turned 74? Or was it poor writing and editing on the part of the Times. After careful analysis, I discovered that editorial excellence in The New York Times has deteriorated right along with its finances. Poor writing in print media—memos, white papers, letters, reports, newspapers and books—is relatively harmless. “Today’s $1 newspaper is tomorrow’s birdcage liner,” wrote Doc Searls, blogger, columnist and co-author of “The Cluetrain Manifesto.” But if our written material—riddled with mistakes and non sequiturs—makes it to the Internet, it can plague us all the way to the grave and beyond.
September 15, 2009 From Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense
When I started reading The New York Times on Sunday, Aug. 30, my brain kept bumping into articles that were making no sense. Was the problem myself, having just turned 74? Or was it poor writing and editing on the part of the Times. After careful analysis, I discovered that editorial excellence in The New York Times has deteriorated right along with its finances. Poor writing in print media—memos, white papers, letters, reports, newspapers and books—is relatively harmless. “Today’s $1 newspaper is tomorrow’s birdcage liner,” wrote Doc Searls, blogger, columnist and co-author of “The Cluetrain Manifesto.” But if our written material—riddled with mistakes and non sequiturs—makes it to the Internet, it can plague us all the way to the grave and beyond.
Famous Last Words : Direct Mail Redux?
August 2009 From Target Marketing
For more than 35 years, my wife, Peggy, and I have been saving our direct mail for inclusion in the giant Who’s Mailing What! Archive of samples in more than 200 categories—consumer, business and nonprofit.
August 2009 From Target Marketing
For more than 35 years, my wife, Peggy, and I have been saving our direct mail for inclusion in the giant Who’s Mailing What! Archive of samples in more than 200 categories—consumer, business and nonprofit.
June 2009 From Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense
Are financial services companies planning to screw over their most affluent customers as a result of the recent credit card legislation? In October 2008, I wrote in these paragraphs: Take a gander at this paragraph from a Wall Street Journal story by Robin Sidel on Oct. 20, 2008: “AmEx recently slapped a $1,100-a-month spending limit on John and Monica Bell's platinum AmEx charge card. The reason: AmEx customers who pay with plastic at the same places where Mrs. Bell shops and have the same mortgage lender have poor repayment histories, according to a letter sent by AmEx.” The couple pays $450 a year for the card—which promises "no pre-set spending limit." The couple routinely spent $5,000 a month—that's $60,000 a year—and has never been late with a payment. If the data goons are allowed to start treating blue-ribbon American Express Platinum Cardmembers like chronic deadbeats, what will happen to the rest of us? AmEx CEO Ken Chenault was punished for his perfidy. In the first quarter of 2009, his customers reduced spending by 16% and his net was down 55%. On May 19, AmEx announced it would ax 4,000 employees (on top of the 7,000 canned last October) and scramble to cut $800 million in expenses. A personal note to Ken Chenault, Visa, MasterCard, et al: When you allow bean counters and data analysts to make marketing decisions, you'll be punished. Now is the time to study the masters of customer relationship magic. And a good place to start is with Annemarie Victory.
Shadow Government, Shadow Management
November 11, 2008 From Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense
My wife, Peggy, and I overdosed on the 2008 election. Eighteen months ago—with 10 Republicans and eight Democrats vying for their respective nominations—we started slowly. By August of this year, we were hooked. We'd start the day at 6 a.m. watching MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and his happy crew—Mika Brzezinski, Willie Geist, Pat Buchanan, et al. At 1 p.m., over a sandwich in the kitchen, I'd look in on Andrea Mitchell. After work we'd surf the dials, hitting Chris Matthews, David Gregory and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC; Brit Hume and his wonderful roundtable on Fox News; as well as checking in on Wolf Blitzer and Lou Dobbs at CNN. Compared to the energy and excitement of the cable shows, network evening news was a cure for insomnia.The cable folks parsed every speech, analyzed every gesture, trumpeted every miscue, interviewed everybody and anybody who might shed some light on the outcome, and involved viewers in the minutiae of political campaigning. It was a giggle while it lasted.Now Obama is in while McCain and Bush are out.The suspense is gone. Life is normal once again.So whither cable? Will it wither and die?Welcome to the new shadow government.
November 11, 2008 From Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense
My wife, Peggy, and I overdosed on the 2008 election. Eighteen months ago—with 10 Republicans and eight Democrats vying for their respective nominations—we started slowly. By August of this year, we were hooked. We'd start the day at 6 a.m. watching MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and his happy crew—Mika Brzezinski, Willie Geist, Pat Buchanan, et al. At 1 p.m., over a sandwich in the kitchen, I'd look in on Andrea Mitchell. After work we'd surf the dials, hitting Chris Matthews, David Gregory and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC; Brit Hume and his wonderful roundtable on Fox News; as well as checking in on Wolf Blitzer and Lou Dobbs at CNN. Compared to the energy and excitement of the cable shows, network evening news was a cure for insomnia.The cable folks parsed every speech, analyzed every gesture, trumpeted every miscue, interviewed everybody and anybody who might shed some light on the outcome, and involved viewers in the minutiae of political campaigning. It was a giggle while it lasted.Now Obama is in while McCain and Bush are out.The suspense is gone. Life is normal once again.So whither cable? Will it wither and die?Welcome to the new shadow government.
