My chief at McMurry, Scott Accatino, e-mailed me last week to warn me that he'd put a rather ginormous ad for the Cicero Speechwriting Awards on the Vital Speeches website. "You can still get the most important [editorial] stuff 'above the fold,'" he said apologetically.

Clearly, Scott forgot for a moment that I'm not just a editorial tyrant. I'm an editorial tyrant whose dad was an adman. An adman who used to tell of a technique for selling clients on ads:

1. You show the client you've thought deeply and broadly about his product and his customer.

2. You write and design a great ad.

3. You blow the ad up to "oh-my-God size."

This way, when you unveil the ad, the sumbitch is so big, the client exclaims, "Oh my GOD!"

It's a start.