The 12 Answers of Great Ad Writers

Curiosity is a beagle running through the forest with its nose to the ground.Curiosity is the cure for boredom. There is no cure for curiosity.Curious, I asked, “How did the Kardashians become famous?” I wish I hadn’t.“Through different ventures, several members of the family have assets of over $1 billion. Kim Kardashian became a celebrity in 2007, after selling a pornographic film featuring ex-boyfriend, singer Ray J, which enabled the family to rise to stardom.” – GoogleThe reason I asked Google, “How did the Kardashians become famous?” is because I was talking with a client last week when I said, “Vulnerability – letting people see you ‘real’ – is the only currency that can purchase real trust.” Then I spontaneously added, “You have to choose between being vulnerable or going full Kardashian.”I thought I had invented a new phrase, but as it turns out, “going full Kardashian” was already a thing.Google has its own definition of what it means to “go full Kardashian,” and Indy posted that list in the rabbit hole for you.But this is my list:If you believe, “Whoever dies with the most toys, wins,” you are in danger of going full Kardashian.People are more important than possessions.If you believe that looking good is more important than doing good, you are in danger of going full Kardashian.Beauty, fame, and wealth are outside your skin. Kindness, generosity, and joy are within.If you believe it’s okay to do things that are unethical, immoral, and destructive as long as you are doing nothing illegal, you are in danger of going full Kardashian.A society grows great when old people plant trees under whose shade they will never sit.I try to surround myself with tree planters. Jeremy Grigg is one of them.In our weekly Friday gathering of like-minded men, Jeremy said,“When a business is evaluating whether or not they can trust you, the attributes they are measuring are, 1. Ability, 2. Integrity, and 3. Benevolence. These are their unspoken questions: ‘Are you good at your job?’ ‘Will you tell me the truth?’ ‘Are you truly trying to help me?’ Most of us focus on ability to the exclusion of integrity and benevolence. After all, when you are petitioning to win work, you want to make sure that the person who can do it for you is actually competent at their job. But in the longer term, honoring your promises, which is integrity and most importantly, giving a damn about the success of what they’re trying to achieve is what really determines whether you are the sort of long-term partner that they’re looking for.”Jeremy is an international consultant to multibillion-dollar IT services companies.Natalie Doyle Oldfield studies the drivers of customer loyalty and business growth. She says that half of all customers are willing to pay more for the same product or service if the seller has earned their trust. According to Natalie, “Trust is the critical value that top companies rely on to secure their market dominance and drive their growth.”I know for a fact that what Natalie is saying is true.I’ve been helping people do it for more than 40 years.Roy H....

Last week’s Monday Morning Memo included a photograph of a diamond pendant and the promise of a $1,000 cash prize to whoever could use AI to write the 60-second radio ad that would sell the largest number of that pendant for Valentine’s Day.I was given that photo by a jewelry client. In a moment we will look at the 60-second radio ad I wrote for the client before I issued the AI prompter challenge. But first, here are 10 things I have learned from the advertising results (and lack of results) I have seen during my 40 years as an ad writer.The most effective ads don’t sound like ads.Most jewelry ads are filled with cliches and schmaltz.The Large Language Models used by AI are educated by the most often used phrases.This is why jewelry ads written by AI are filled with cliches and schmaltz.Most of the ads written by AI are better than what the average citizen would write.The average citizen has not received specific data about the results delivered by each of the thousands of ads they have written during the past 40 years.My challenge to AI prompters included a photograph of the pendant, but none of the ads written by AI were specific to that pendant.Specifics are more persuasive than generalities.The non-specific ads written by AI sold only the idea of a diamond pendant; an idea that can be fulfilled by any diamond pendant sold by any jewelry store, anywhere.Advertisers who use these “generalized” ads are not advertising for their store alone, but for all their competitors as well.Q: Would the AI radio ads “work”?A: If what you mean is, “Would they generate a result?” Then yes, but that result would not be the highest and best use of your ad dollars. Not by a long shot.AI is great at a lot of things, but effective ad writing is not among them.Radio cannot reveal visual images except in the imagination. That’s what makes radio the perfect medium to deliver this ad. It is the radio ad I wrote to sell that specific pendant:JACOB:  David, have you seen it?DAVID:  Oh yes! I’ve seen it.JACOB:  What did it say to you?DAVID:  There is only one thing it CAN say.JACOB: Sometimes an artist will say something incredibly specific without using any words at all.DAVID:  We’ve all heard music that can tell a story without words.JACOB: And we’ve all seen paintings that can tell a story without words.DAVID:  But this time a jewelry designer did it.JACOB: The moment you see it, you know what it is saying.DAVID: I understood the message immediately.JACOB: [slowly] “The long and the short of it is we’re in this together.”DAVID:  “The long and the short of it is we’re in this together.”JACOB:  It has wit, and whimsy, and humor, and warmthDAVID: and commitment.JACOB:  It made me smile when I saw it.DAVID: Me, too.MONICA: [SFX cell phone ring] Hello.SARAH:  Did they see it?MONICA:  Oh yes, they saw...

The General Social Survey has been conducted every second year since 1972 and the most recent one contained both good and bad news about us. GOOD NEWS: Our bonds with our families and friends are as strong as ever.BAD NEWS: The bridges we once extended to strangers have collapsed.Jesus talks about a socially unacceptable “Samaritan” man who sacrificed his time, energy, and money to help an unconscious stranger who had been robbed and left to die at the side of the road. According to Jesus, two different religious people had already seen the wounded man, but crossed over to the other side of the road so they could pretend they hadn’t seen him.They saw a stranger in need and felt nothing.Empathy – feeling the pain of others – is the price we pay for being fully human.The internet promised to bring us closer together through instantaneous, worldwide, one-on-one communication.But then came the algorithms, those digital sheepdogs that segregate us into echo chambers where every voice we hear sounds exactly like our own.The easiest way to build an online audience – or a church – is to criticize and demonize “them,” the people who are “not like you… not like us.” Algorithms will help you do this. All you have to do is craft a message that says, “All the world’s problems are caused by ‘them,’ and it is up to ‘us’ to save the future, and America, and the world, from ‘them.'”You don’t build bridges to people that you believe are “getting what they deserve.”Generosity and Inclusion are the tools of peacemakers.“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” – JesusDavid Brooks recently posted a YouTube video that will make you feel wonderful and give you hope.I hope you will invest the time to watch it. In fact, I challenge you to watch the first 3 minutes. The odds are extremely high that you will happily choose to watch the remaining 18 minutes.That YouTube video is titled “David Brooks: Making People Feel Seen: How to Do It Right.”I’m betting it will be your favorite 21 minutes of the week.It will also be a signal to the algorithm that you are headed in a new direction.Merry Christmas.– Roy H. Williams“If people looked at the stars each night, they’d live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day.” – Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes 

John Steinbeck wrote a letter to Carlton Sheffield about a conversation he’d had with his wife, Elaine.“Once I said to her, ‘I don’t want the barbarity of funeral for myself.’ And she said, ‘Don’t be silly. A funeral isn’t for the dead. You’ll simply be a stage set for a kind of festival, maybe. And besides, you won’t even be there.'”– Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, p 829Henry Fonda – one of the most famous actors of his generation – stood up at John Steinbeck’s funeral and recited a piece of a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson:Bright is the ring of wordsWhen the right man rings them,Fair the fall of songsWhen the singer sings them.Still they are carolled and said –On wings they are carried –After the singer is deadAnd the maker is buried.– Robert Louis StevensonWe know Henry Fonda spoke those words because Elaine Steinbeck, John’s wife, describes the scene in a letter to her friend, Jean Vounder-Davis.What will people say when you are gone? Will memories of you ring like bells in the hearts you left behind?How will you be remembered?You cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.The saddest eulogy ever carved on a tombstone said, “He Had Potential.”Will you be remembered for having a lot of money?“You can have money stacked to the ceiling, but the size of your funeral will still depend on the weather.” – Chuck TannerWill you be remembered as a selfish person, or a generous one?“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” – Winston ChurchillI have never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul trainer.“We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” – Paul’s letter to Timothy, ch. 6Will you be remembered as a critical person, or as an encourager?“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya AngelouThere is nothing standing in the way of you being a different person today than you were yesterday. Do you remember what I wrote to you in last week’s Monday Morning Memo?“Escaping the past is easy. The hard part is choosing to start over.”If we make the right decision, we’ll have more to be thankful for next Thanksgiving than we did this year.Ciao for Niao,Roy H. WilliamsDouglas Katz is a West Point graduate, a disabled Army veteran, and a culinary enthusiast (also known as a foodie.) Douglas, like many other people who suffer from limited mobility, struggled to use kitchen utensils that require upper extremity strength. Aided by an army of friends and military veterans, Doug retreated to his workshop to invent a new type of kitchen knife, the first in a series of “adaptive” kitchen products he plans to introduce. Doug is building a cutting-edge company (pun intended) dedicated to radical innovation and inclusive kitchen design. It’s happening and it’s happening right now, with roving reporter Rotbart and you at MondayMorningRadio.com.

The future is unknowable. The past is unrecoverable.If you are anxious, you are living in the future.Don’t live your life in an imaginary tomorrow. Find joy while it is still today.If you are depressed, you are living in the past.Escaping the past is easy. The hard part is choosing to start over.Let me give you The Seven Secrets to Crystal Days:Do not let the perfect become the enemy of the good.“Perfectionism may look good in his shiny shoes but he’s a little bit of an asshole and no one invites him to their pool parties.” – Ze FrankGood enough, by definition, is good enough.Learn to celebrate the ordinary.“Celebrate! Celebrate! Celebrate!” – Dewey JenkinsSuccess and failure are temporary conditions.“Do not let either of them define you.”The most precious thing you can find is a friend.“A friend is always loyal, a sibling that helps in times of trouble.”Hatred is the only luxury more costly than an enemy.“Hatred is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”All the little things in life add up to your life.“If you don’t get it right, nothing else matters.”Autumn is upon us. Cold air sweeps summertime over the hilltop fast and sharp like an old woman sweeping dust out a doorway. The dust washes the landscape with brown and orange, speckled with rusty red, the colors of old cars whose enamel has been erased by the rain in the junkyard of time.I suspect Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes in the autumn. You remember what he wrote, don’t you?“Everything has its moment.There is a moment of ripening and a moment of falling away.A moment of being born and a moment of dying.A moment of planting and a moment of harvest.A moment of killing and a moment of healing.A moment of destroying and a moment of building.A moment of weeping and a moment of laughter.A moment of sorrow and a moment of dancing.A moment of scattering and a moment of gathering.A moment of togetherness and a moment of distance.A moment of finding and a moment of losing.A moments of grasping and a moment of release.A moment of ripping and a moment of sewing back together.A moment of silence and a moment of speech.A moment of love and a moment of hate.A moment of fighting and a moment of peace.”Autumn walks among us, quiet and invisible, like a Mexican ghost on the Day of the Dead.This is the time of year when I become reflective.Perhaps you do, too.Roy H. WilliamsAndrew Matthews has inspired more than 1,000 global corporations, including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Honda, and Citibank. In addition to that, Andrew and his wife produce uplifting books that have sold over 8 million copies in 70 countries and 48 languages by presenting timeless wisdom in fresh, engaging ways. This week, Andrew reveals his creative process to roving reporter Rotbart and explains how anyone – even you – can use that process to connect, inspire, and succeed in every nation of the world. Wouldn’t this be a great day to stop and recharge your batteries at MondayMorningRadio.com?

My observation during the past 40+ years as an ad writer has been that television and radio professionals spend so much time trying to sell television and radio ads, they have no time to learn how to make those ads work.When you know how to make ads work, and can prove it, television and radio are incredibly easy to sell.Instead of asking a salesperson to help you with your ads, let me tell you everything you need to know.“Q” represents your unspoken questions.“A”  represents my answers to those questions.Q: Who should I be targeting?A: I’ve never seen a business fail because they were reaching the wrong people. But I have seen lots of businesses fail because they were saying the wrong things in their ads.Q: Are you saying you don’t believe in targeting?A: The most effective way to target is to write ad copy that speaks directly to the felt needs of your customer. Targeting isn’t accomplished by reaching the right address, but by demonstrating to people that you feel the way they feel, and that you believe the things they believe.Q: Are you saying I can write ads that target specific types of people in mass media?A: Yes, but you get a lot more than that. Mass media reaches not only your target; it reaches all the influencers of your target. Is there anyone that you don’t want to know you, like you, and say good things about you? Every person is an influencer, and decisions are never made in a vacuum.Q: If targeting the right person is no longer my primary objective, what is?A: You want to become the solution provider that people think of first and feel the best about. When you say the right things to the largest number of people you can afford to reach with sufficient repetition, you become a household word.Q: Which media will work best for my business?A: The media doesn’t make your ad work. Your ad makes the media work. The media is just a vehicle that delivers your message, your ad. The wrong message will fail in every media, and the right message will work in every media. It is the message, not the media, that either works or does not.Q: Is there a proven way to create the right message?A: Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.Q: Can you give me some specific tips?A: Sure. Here are 4 of them.Talk to the customer about what the customer already cares about. Most ads answer questions that no one was asking. This is why people hate most advertising.Always say something new, surprising, and different. Never say what people expect you to say. Predictability is what makes ads sound like ads.Don’t just describe the process of what you do and how you do it. “We use only the freshest ingredients, and everything is made from scratch.” The process is informational. The outcome is motivational. Describe the outcome. “Food so good your head will explode.”Bad ads are about you and your company. Good ads are about your customer and their happiness. Ads filled with “me, my, we,” and “our,” are about you and your company. Ads filled with the words “you” and “your” are about the customer and the happiness you want to bring them.Q: Should every ad have a call to action?A: No, because if they did, your ads would be predictable.Q: Are you saying that NO ad should have a call to...

Billy Sunday was born in 1862, the second year of America’s Civil War. He died in 1935, during the Great Depression. Billy was a wildly flamboyant and controversial preacher, but he made an interesting observation:“More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent.”We’ll talk more about purpose in just a minute, but first we need to talk about possibilities.I will say it plainly:What you see in the mirror isn’t you.Look inside yourself and take inventory of what you find there.Realize that this is all you have to work with.Make the best of it.I will say it as Confucius might have said it:Gilded paper and bright ribbons adorn an empty vessel while gold hides in a rough wooden box.You will not find what is not there. But what lies inside you is easy to see.Everything within you is all that you have.Therefore, it must be enough.I will say it like an old warrior:Fancy uniforms don’t win battles.It’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters, it’s the size of fight in the dog.If you don’t have it in you, it doesn’t exist.Learn to use what you’ve got.This is how Yoda would have said it:Be invisible, you will.Inside yourself, you must look.Hmm. Flaws, you shall find.Magic, these are.I will say it as someone who loves you:You are the perfect you.No one else can be you as well as you can.You will be you for the rest of your life.It is time to discover what you can do.And now it is time to talk about purpose again.A sad voice inside you whispers: “Everyone talks about purpose, but no one can tell me what it is, or where to find it.”Quit listening to that whiner. Purpose is given to you by what you care about. Is there anything you care about?Of course there is.Are you ready for the real mind-blower?Purpose is given to you by everything you care about. You are overflowing with purpose. The problem is that you care about so many things that you are having a hard time choosing a purpose.Here is the good and happy news: You can have more than one purpose!In fact, you already do; and you have what it takes to make a difference.How many differences do you want to make?Pick two or three of them to get started. You can add other ones later, when you have taken these first ones as far as you choose to go. Sooner or later, you’ll choose a few that will sink deep roots in you.Every oak tree begins as an acorn.Now go. Get started.Roy H. WilliamsPS – “It is better to burn the candle at both ends, and in the middle, too, than to put it away in the closet and let the mice eat it.” – Henry van DykeDavid Sauers used to be a commercial banker, but today he runs a service business with 50 branches nationwide. It’s not the type of business that most people dream about owning. The nature of his business – and the powerful lessons you can learn from his success – will be revealed in this week’s story. But here’s an interesting twist: In a private note to Roy, roving reporter Rotbart wrote, “I love unusual guests and David Sauers definitely fits the bill.” The roving reporter is at it again! MondayMorningRadio.com

One hundred and two years ago, Benito organized a March on Rome with the intention of forcing the king of Italy to yield the government to him. It worked, and Benito was appointed prime minister.Thirty-two-year-old Antonio had a problem with that, and spoke out against Benito.Benito got tired of Antonio’s criticism and had him thrown into prison, where he died 11 years later.But while he was still with us, he wrote 30 notebooks containing more than 3,000 pages of history and analysis. The prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci are considered by historians to be highly original contributions to 20th-century political theory.Wizard Academy vice-chancellor Dave Young brought Antonio to my attention last week when he forwarded to me a glistening quote written by this shackled young writer:“The old world is dying. And the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”Those words of Antonio Gramsci dance and sting like honeybees, don’t they?In return for his gift of Antonio Gramsci, I sent Dave a couple of the enthusiastic ramblings of American scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson:“I will defend AD and BC, year of the Lord, AD, ‘Ano Domini,’ and BC, ‘Before Christ.’ I’ll defend the use of those because a lot of hard work went into creating that calendar – the Gregorian calendar – which is now used worldwide. It’s based on a Christian construct, but it had a lot of very interesting science that went in behind it.I’m not just going to ‘swap out’ the words to dereligify it. I don’t mind leaving credit where it’s due.I don’t know any atheist that still uses AD and BC. They use ‘Common Era,’ CE, and BCE, ‘Before Common Era.’But who are they fooling? It’s the same numbers of years. They’re just trying to ‘paint over’ a religious reference.I don’t have that much objection to the religious participation in civilization.”But this next comment of Neil deGrasse Tyson serves as a sort of counterbalance to that first one:“Ben Franklin was the world’s most famous scientist in his day. But he’s not remembered in America as that; he’s remembered as a founding father.He invented the lightning rod.What’s the tallest structure back then? The steeple makes the church the tallest structure in any city. What is the most susceptible to a lightning strike? The tallest structure. So lightning was taking out churches left and right, and if you were the other church that wasn’t taken out, you had good argument for saying the people in the church that burned down were worshiping in the wrong way.Ben Franklin then invents the lightning rod, which does two things: It dissipates charges that build up under your structure that would otherwise be part of the lightning strike, and it sends them back into the air without the benefit of lightning. So that makes you less susceptible to begin with. And if the lightning strikes it, then it directs all of the charge through the metal and not through your house.So Ben Franklin does this, and churches are no longer destroyed by lightning, even if they’re hit, and he’s accused of heresy for thwarting the will of God.”Neil deGrasse Tyson is famous for his atheism but he vigorously defends the use of the Christian system of dating the history of the world in years that count backward and forward from the day that Jesus was born.Benjamin Franklin doubted the divinity of Jesus, but he invented the lightning rod to make sure that churches did not burn down. And they accused him of heresy for it.*As I consider articulate Antonio and bumbling Benito of Italy, I recall the words of a delightful American writer who was born in the same year Antonio was born. When she was accused of being too critical, the delightful Dorothy Parker responded:“How could I possibly overthrow the government when I can’t even keep my dog down?”Me...

As you round the corner and see your destination, the inconveniences of travel evaporate from your mind.Poof. You are here now, and everything is new again.Your children will carry the joy of this place wherever they go. The adventures we have for them are unimaginable.Leave them with us. We promise they won’t miss you.Everything you see here is real. This is not a Hollywood facade.Now you understand why we don’t have to advertise.You knew you were in love before you got here. Your partner knew it, too. But neither of you are prepared for the wonder of how deeply in love you really are.Remember. We promise the kids won’t miss you.It takes only about 20 seconds to read those 118 words, but they leave a hovering question mark that vibrates with curiosity. Where is this place? What is “Everything I see here…”? What caused me to experience “the wonder of how deeply in love I really am”?I didn’t have to provide those details, because I knew you would.“Begin with a happy outcome” is one of the secrets of the world’s best ad writers. You must illuminate the imagination of the customer and cause them to supply the details that you have no way of knowing. The customer is the star of a movie you are directing in their mind. Cause them to see themselves smiling joyfully. The hovering question mark that vibrates in their mind is called customer engagement. Lights. Camera. Action.Great companies puts their energies into the creation of a process that will ensure the happiness of their customer.Then they insist that their ad writers describe every detail of that process until there is nothing left to surprise and delight you. Until the customer desires the outcome, they have no interest in the process. If you want them to watch your movie, make sure it begins with a happy ending.Several things were ungrammatical in my 118-word call-to-action,one of which was a shift from past-tense to present-tense within a sequence of connected sentences. “You knew you were in love before you got here. Your partner knew it, too.” The past-tense verbs within those two sentences take you into a possible future and cause you to look back at an experience you have not yet had. Then I shifted into present-tense verbs. “But neither of you are prepared for the wonder of how deeply in love you really are.” Your mind is now imagining the experiences you will share at this place you have never been, and don’t know how to get to. I never said it was the most romantic spot on earth. You did.Roy H. WilliamsDuane Scott Cerny is an expert on dead people. (Or, more precisely, he is an expert at selling their possessions when they’re gone.) A best-selling author, music producer, lyricist, and newspaper columnist, Duane runs Chicago’s largest antiques mall and fully understands the formula for business success. Thanks to his ability to listen closely to his customers and adapt to ever-changing tastes, Duane is celebrating his mall’s 34th anniversary this year. “Not only is Duane business savvy,” says roving reporter Rotbart, “he is a born entertainer and storyteller. I had a marvelous time doing this interview.” The time is now. The place is MondayMorningRadio.com.

Calvin is looking up into a star-filled sky when he says to his tiger friend Hobbes,“If people looked at the stars each night, I bet they’d live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day.”My friends are Calvin. I am Hobbes.Last week Hobbes was complaining to Jeffrey Eisenberg about his frustration with a company that had “upgraded” its website, making it impossible for Hobbes to buy what they were trying to sell. Jeffrey responded like Calvin,“The only things that matter online are Motivation, Momentum, and Friction. It sounds like this company has introduced so much Friction into the buying process that your decision to purchase has lost its Momentum and your Motivation is about to disappear. Am I right?”Jeffrey’s summary was so piercingly accurate that all I could do was vibrate my head up and down in a sort of big-eyed, high-frequency nod.Motivation, Momentum, and Friction are the only three dials that matter on the e-commerce machine.Turn the knobs of the first two dials all the way to the right.Turn the knob of the third dial all the way to the left.Stand under the spout where the money gushes out.Enjoy being rich.The next day I got a text from Tim Storm.” I think this needs to be understood: We are literally time travelers.”A few moments later, a second text appeared.“I don’t use drugs, but that felt profound to realize.”Tim is right, of course. Physically, we are 3-dimensional creatures traveling through a 4th dimension called time.Friends say insightful things if you’re listening.Perhaps the most impactful thing a friend ever shared with me happened 48 years ago. He said,“Depression is unfocused despair. You can rise above it by trying to help someone else. When you see a person who is sad or worried or afraid, take a few minutes to encourage them. Forget about your own problems and focus on theirs. Find a person who needs help and help them! If they’re trying to carry something heavy, help them carry it. If they need someone to help them scrape bubblegum off the bottoms of school desks, help them do it. When you make a series of little differences, you win a series of little victories. Keep this up and the cloud over your head will fade away and the sun will shine again. This has always worked for me. Perhaps it will work for you, too.”He was right. It has always worked for me.Perhaps it will work for you, too.His name was David. You would have liked him.Roy H. Williams