This week it was my privilege to be interviewed on the Lendio.com podcast. The topic was direct response marketing in today’s online world with regard to what works, how to know, and the role that intuition plays. 

The interview lasts about 36 minutes and, yes, I do say so myself, listening is time well spent. Listen to the 36-minute podcast by clicking here now.

The interviewer was longtime friend, associate and former RESPONSE Agency Creative Director Ty Kiisel. Early in the interview, I got a kick out of how he cleaned up a well-known expression about opinions. It shouldn’t have been surprising, then, that the interview’s end fell to the cutting room floor. That was the part where, switching gears, we spent a few minutes on my new book, co-written with Joanne Hanks, “It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass: Confessions of an  Ex-Mormon Ex-Polygamist Ex-Wife. It’s a funny but disturbing, and, I think, important inside look. Lendio included links on the podcast page, however, which I appreciate.

the organization troubled me. They seemed the antithesis of fairness, human rights and, for that matter, common sense. I told them we could not in good conscience take them on as a client.

Their subsequent behaviors and public statements repeatedly validated removing our hat from their ring. Their statements about Sundance, though most recent, are by no means the most damning example.

In a much earlier incarnation of this blog, I wrote of the encounter. I did not cite the half of my concerns. (Nor do I see any need to do so now.) It sufficed me to say, “This was not the first time that I walked away from a client or prospective client. But it is the only time that I have left thinking, ‘I hope they fail.’” (Click here for the post.)

Note to the rest of the world: Not everyone in Utah thinks like the Sutherland Institute seems to believe we should.

The Responsible Use of Color

It all started with the dentist’s direct mail. As you might expect, it was laden with photos of beautiful people showcasing perfect smiles. Yet something was missing. Namely, people who weren’t Caucasian.

Last time I looked around, much less checked U.S. Census Bureau data, I found that non-Caucasians account for more than a third of our nation’s population. Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, they all grow teeth.

But since that was just one direct mail piece, I decided upon an exercise. I piled all of the past few days’ worth of direct mail, most of it from national advertisers, on my desk. Then I counted the photos and illustrations with people in them. In the final tally, 89 percent showed white people only, six percent showed non-whites only, and five percent showed both.

Further indulging my gluttony for punishment, I grabbed two mass-circulation magazines and counted anew. In one, a news magazine, 71 percent of ad photos with people in them showed whites, seven percent showed non-whites, and 22 percent showed both. The other, a general interest magazine, was less encouraging. In every ad with a photo of people, the people were white. Period.

Purely from a marketing standpoint, an advertiser who depicts customers of just one race risks losing sales, since those who are excluded may fail to identify with the ads, or even take offense. But from a human standpoint, the concern runs deeper. While the human ability to spot small differences proves useful for mushroomers who wish to avoid poisoning themselves and for children who need to keep family members straight from strangers, it proves harmful when societies needlessly separate into “us” and “them.”

Needlessly is no exaggeration. Decades after the hippies sang about filling the world with love, buying it a Coke and treating one another as brothers and sisters, science has borne out the “brothers and sisters” part. Evidence from mitochondrial DNA shows that any two people from any two points on the globe share not just ancestors, but lots of them. And that on average there are more genetic differences between members of the same race than between races themselves.

Advertising that is more inclusive will appeal to more people. Better and beyond that, advertisers have a powerful opportunity to reinforce the fact that humankind really is one vast family. Let’s not waste the opportunity.

I doubt that the dentist intended any slight. Everyone could do with the occasional reminder. We hope this one serves. 

—Steve Cuno

 
Like many professions, whether selling is honorable depends on what’s for sale and on the methods one employs to sell it. Either way, in the interest of lightening up, check out this delightful cartoon by Tom Cheney, published in The New Yorker.

 
And now AIG, which by all rights should have gone and deserved to go bankrupt, is threatening a lawsuit against the U.S. Government, which spared it that fate. Why? Because the government’s terms were “too severe.”

Your brand is not what you claim. It is what you do. Never mind what AIG claims these days. I don’t like what AIG does. 

This morning an AIG insurance offer arrived in my inbox. And since my brand is not what I claim but what I do, what I did was gleefully consign AIG’s email to JUNK.