33 TIPS TO GET US THROUGH THE 21ST CENTURY

2. Stuck with a $850. lunch tab? Put it in as $8500. The company accountant will go nuts. When he does, just say, "No, no, that's $850. not $8500". He'll sigh with relief and leave. 3. Never buy your daughter a horse. They're expensive because they're covered in genuine leather. 4. Don't be afraid of advertising research. You can be just as wrong as any $500,000 research study, and for a lot less. 5.When writing, always keep a civil tongue in your cheek. 6. Avoid cliches like the plague. 7. There's a time for hard sell. When the house is on fire, you shout: "Fire!" You don't say; "Large crimson flames and heat are devouring flammable objects in this place". 8. Never buy a car from someone named Chick. 9. Avoid eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the beach when it's windy unless you're really into mineral roughage. 10.Don't think of words and pictures as ideas. They are just the little wagons that carry the ideas. 11. Be prepared to quit over the loss of a good idea. 12. Take out every word which doesn't alter the meaning of what you've written. 13. Murder your darlings. If a favourite idea or phrase doesn't work after numerous attempts, throw it out and get another. 14. Always write to someone. Never write at them. 15. Resist the obvious. 16. Marketing is numbers and things. Creative is feelings and people. 17. Mystery is hard to test. And in TV commercials, sometimes it's in the little spaces in the middle and around the edges where the mystery lives. It's as much the things left out as the things put in that makes television provocative, and persuasive. 18.We suffer from the substitution of systems for thinking. Tell someone you can't make a meeting. Say:"I can't go, I must think".Sounds crazy, doesn't it? That's because we don't take time to think. 19. Question all systems. The system used to breed racehorses has resulted in no discernible lowering of racing times for the past 75 years. Why? Because the system allows no wild cards, no random accidents to happen. The winners run in the ghostly hoofsteps of their ancestors. The winning thoroughbreds are used for breeding. The losers, who may be better than 99% of the winners, are doomed to celibate pastures after having their balls shot off. 20. Write 30 second television commercials until 60 seconds seems as long as Titanic. 21. Think of typefaces as language inflection. 22. Don't get hung up on advertising style or camera lenses or old movies. 23. If you want to run a camera, take a course. It you want to shoot beautiful film, go and see and feel life. You can always get someone to push a camera button for you. 24. Never let a deadline get in the way of a great idea. 24a. Never let a headline get in the way of a great idea either. 25. Write as close to the deadline as you can. That way they won't have time to change your stuff. 26. Participate in the creation of the strategy and you'll have an easier time executing it. 27. Don't base your career on what's been done in advertising. Base it on what hasn't been done. 28. Decide whether you want to project a message from the TV screen or draw the viewer into it. 29. Always present your own stuff. 30. Do not confuse noise with power. 31. Relax. Take it easy. Who wants to be killed hurrying to a Cheez Whiz planning meeting? 32. When enclosing a self-addressed, stamped return envelope with your novel to be sent to a publisher, remember to write in Futura Extra bold: Another publishing error from Prentice-Hall! (or whatever other publisher can’t recognize your brilliance when it hits them in the face). 33. Stop thinking we're living in a time of incredible change. My mother saw more profound change than I. She started before electric light and lived to see people on the moon, pop tarts, boogie, the sinking of the Titanic, Hydramatic Drive, AM, FM, television, the refrigerator, the vacuum cleaner, the world's biggest depression, Mac Powerbooks, Hitler, thousands of young Canadians killed in WW1, thousands of young Canadians killed in WW2, the Holocaust, fluorescent lights, nylon, Aids, the thong, polyester, fibreglass, pollution, the atomic bomb, terrorists, Boeing 747’s, and The Concorde SST.