Spent the first quiet Sunday afternoon I've had in awhile drinking cans of Schlitz beer and plowing through articles, photographs and ads my dad had written in the 1950s, '60s '70s and '80s.
I separated the stuff into two piles: The stuff I could bring myself to throw away (I'm sorry, Dad)—and the stuff I'd leave up to Scout to throw away.
But as I tenderly built that latter pile, I allowed myself to hope there would be a few items she might decide pass to her children. And I tried to decide which ones they would be.
In case she's ever reading my blog for guidance in the matter—and of course my blog will be on the Internet for eternity—my recommendation for a Tom Murray keeper is "the secret of advertising," which might as easily be called "the secret of communication."
Adorned by a photograph of a white mannequin head chipped away around one eye to reveal a real human beneath, it reads:
Each of us wears a Halloween mask all year long.
We have to, to keep our nerve endings hidden. To keep our hopes, our fears and our prides and prejudices, our irrationalities and our cry-buttons from hanging out for everyone to stare at.
Or step on.
We wear these shells to work, to lunch, to meetings, and to church. We always keep them handy for when friends drop in. And adjust them for which friends drop in.
It's this shell, whether it be button-down, Edwardian, or denim, that confuses a lot of us in advertising. If we're not careful, we find ourselves writing to the mannequin, instead of to the man inside, which often makes our ad cute but not convincing, beautiful but not believable, "swinging" but without substance.
Shell-talk forgets that inside each of us , no matter how old or young we are, is a person who is worried about his money, his age, his happiness, his family, and whether people like him. Or hate him. Or worse, simply ignore him.
The secret of advertising, then, is to crack the shell, to talk to the man inside the man.
Simple it is, but easy it isn't.
It takes an uncommon understanding of people, great sensitivity and skill, and the discipline to use them every single time.
But it means the difference between an ad someone skips over and an ad someone reads all the way to the end.
Postscript: The life-size mannequin head in the photograph sat on a shelf in my dad's darkroom throughout my childhood, and it occurs to me that this object, and the idea it was made to convey, probably did as much as anything to make a communicator out of me. What, I'd like to hear, made a communicator of you? —DM
I just LOVE questions like this!
I got to be a communicator courtesy of two people:
1) My mother, who, when I first started to talk [I’m told earlier than the norm – how surprising!] decreed and enforced a “no baby-talk” imperative for me. That meant if I wanted water, I had to ask for “water” not “wa-wa”, etc. People are always horrified and accuse my mom of being terrible, but for my part, I am deeply grateful, because it meant I learned how to use words correctly from day one, and it’s stood me in good stead ever since.
2) Miss Lajoie – my 4th grade teacher, who, upon reading one of my earliest compositions in english, told me that I was “very good at writing” and that if I worked at it I might be a writer someday. I somehow doubt that she envisioned “corporate communications” as the sort of writer I’d become, but nevertheless her encouragement, critiques and advice are absolutely what got me started writing all the time and in all kinds of materials. I’ll forever think of her fondly as starting me on my ultimate path and seeing a talent in me that I might never have discovered without her.
I think it was falling in love with story telling…either having my mom read to me at a young age, or hearing her tell a story to people, then learning how to tell my own stories, both verbally and through writing. Once I discovered I could continue to do that and get paid for it it was a simple decision.
It just took me until 30 to figure that out.
Those are some pretty humble tales, you two.
I wish I had come to my work with such humility–I can put words together, I can tell stories.
Nope, I started out (not all my dad’s fault, but he did have an air of superiority that he did not discourage in his offspring): I’m the smartest person in the world and I’ll teach everybody how stupid they all are.
It’s taken me about 20 years and lots of hard knocks to get to the sensible and wise place you were when you started: I’m a storyteller.
David – your last reminds me of a favourite quote of my fave quotable – Mark Twain:
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”
We live, we get smacked down a few hundred times, we learn. As long as you got to Eileen’s and my state of Yoda-like wisdom eventually, that’s all that matters.
What were you saying about “humble”??
I started out as a megalomaniac, and worked my way humble. You, Ridley, seem to be headed down this road in the opposite direction!
HA!
This comes from veteran speechwriter Liz Mitchell, who lives in Brigadoon, which is only now getting high-speed Internet:
I hesitate to jump from the profundity of the “shell” to my own story, but mine, too, involves my father. He was in j-school in Athens GA in the 1920’s (yes, he was old when he had kids!) and his dad made him leave and go to dental school. He had a good career as a dentist, getting into management during a long Navy career, but writing was always his passion. When I was a kid, he edited every essay, report or English paper I wrote, which of course made me love to write (he was a kindly editor, not a slasher!). He always kep a dictionary at the dining room table, too, and I don’t think a family dinner went by without his checking at least one word for us.”