One Thing & Another

Word for the Wise

 Pinguid (PING-wid) – fat and oily. Here’s a lovely sentence from The Bunsby Papers by John Brougham that includes it alliteratively: “Peter was pinguid, plump, and plethoric – she was thin to attenuation.”

Did You Know… ?

If you add up all the numbers from 1 to 100 consecutively, the total is 5050. Keep that in mind. You never know when it will come up in conversation.

 

From My “Work-in-Progress” Basket

Principles of Wealth: #5 of 61

Wealth and income inequality are realities that exist in every economy – even those committed in principle to the distribution of wealth.

Many people today, believing that equality is an intrinsic and achievable good, seek to flatten financial inequalities through government programs and social action. A smaller group, sympathetic to the notion of equality but less trusting of governmental solutions, seek to create substantial personal wealth and then distribute some of that to others. Still others are dubious that financial inequality is intrinsically good and practically achievable. And a final group is sure that equality is intrinsically bad and can only be partially achieved and that only by severe repression.

My view is that human nature is innately opposed to equality. You can, by force, make a community financially equal for a moment in time. But an hour later, individuals within that community will get to work recreating inequality. Some will seek to have more. Some will be satisfied with what they have. And some will seek to have less.

This is the fundamental reason why history has shown us that the goal of achieving financial equality has never been achieved or even attempted.

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The Most Interesting Ad in the World

Do you remember the Dos Equis commercials about The Most Interesting Man in the World?

They were very big for a long time. They may still be running. I can’t say. I don’t watch TV anymore.

If you haven’t seen them, imagine this: A rugged-looking, silver-haired man who is always surrounded by beautiful women. In one version of the commercial, he arm-wrestles a Banana Republic dictator. In another, he releases a grizzly bear from a trap. In still another, he explains that even his enemies list him as their emergency contact and that the police often question him just because they find him interesting.

Fun stuff… and memorable… but not exactly original.

If you are a student of advertising, you know this is a knockoff of David Ogilvy’s famous ad campaign: The Man in the Hathaway Shirt.

That was a great one. With a great story behind it…

It was 1951. Ellerton Jette, a shirtmaker from Waterville, Maine, had the crazy idea of growing his little local business into a national brand.

How could he do that?

He had no clue. But he had an idea: He had heard about the advertising prowess of David Ogilvy. So he booked a meeting with him.

“I have an advertising budget of only $30,000,” he told Ogilvy. “I know that’s much less than you normally work with. But I believe you can make me into a big client of yours if you take on the job.”

If he’d stopped there, Ogilvy would have thrown him out of the office. But then Jette said something that sold the great salesman.

He said, “If you do take on the job, Mr. Ogilvy, I promise you this. No matter how big my company gets, I will never fire you. And I will never change a word of your copy.”

Stop right there…

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