January 12, 1999
New ones Monday through Friday

A Memo

From: Dick Miracle The Miracle Group To: H. Peabody Briggs Calzone Ventures Dear Peabody, Glad to see you've taken up the suggestion we made in the work plan about gathering testimonials for your product. Client-side participation like this is just the kind of Dynamic Change Engineering I touched on in my book. However, I think we should take another look at the text of the specific client statements wrt the overall image we're projecting: IT'S JUST LIKE PEZ - FOR THE OTHER END! NICE 'N' TITE, JUST THE WAY I LIKE 'EM! I THOUGHT IT WAS CHOCOLATE UNTIL I TASTED IT! These are compelling statements, but do any of them give us a clear sense of what the product is? Let's meet up at your earliest possible convenience to make sure we're all on the same page as to the specific product refs being made in all outbounds. The next testimonial seems to lose a little conciseness on the tail end: THEY WERE EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED TO MAKE THAT DEADBEAT BASTARD PAY FOR 23 LOVELESS YEARS OF PAIN! Hey, you never know! Being cheeky worked for Taco Bell! I just don't know if such an attitude-driven approach is the right thing for a non-established (yet!) brand. As for the next one, we really hit a strong note with the headline: TAKE IT FROM A PROUD VETERAN! But I'm pretty sure the teaser text underneath ("They sprayed us with some shit over there; all my kids have asthma, I get blackouts, all my nails fell out, and it's not all a coincidence" etc) takes the focus off our product. As for the last one, I think the Yes-I-can message is strong: NOW I'M PRESIDENT OF YOUR ASS! This still may need a little massaging to make it less of a "hard sell," but I know we're on the right track. Please contact me asap so we can get this new marketing campaign into a condition that meets your specs and start moving it out the door. thanx, Dick

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Tomorrow:

The return of Reader Mail