From Perry Marshall's Email Travelogue
----
Harold Holt was the first modern world leader to
be eaten alive by sharks.
I'm not making this up. On November 17, 1967, the
Australian Prime Minister went for a swim in the ocean
and...well, just vanished. Never seen or heard from again.
"Presumed drowned" say the Aussies. With toothy
grin and a casual shrug, I should add.
In the US, if El Presidente mysteriously vanished
in the surf, they'd fire the Secret Service director
and launch a $100 Million investigation. (You can just
imagine the top ten list on Letterman.)
The Aussies named a swimming pool after the
poor guy
They've got a strange sense of humor over here
For example, yesterday I was strolling down
the sidewalk, enjoying the clear air and the sunny
afternoon and a 7 foot snake goes slithering by:
http://www.tannah.net/photos/mr_snake.jpg
I said to myself, "Self! This is not something
you see every day in Chicago. You need to stop
and let Mr. Snake pass by unimpeded."
Then an Aussie says to me, "Would you like me to pick
him up for you? Actually those are quite friendly."
I politely declined his gracious offer, suggesting
that instead of playing with a seven foot snake, perhaps
we could have tea and biscuits instead.
It's not just snakes and sharks that you need to
watch out for here in Oz. They have teeny tiny spiders
whose venom is so potent, it can kill a Rhinoceros.
But since they don't have Rhinos here, those spiders
kill people instead. Ever heard of killing two birds
with one stone? To a spider, 1 Rhino = 10 people. But once
again, the Aussies don't seem to mind. "Oh, don't worry
mate, if the spider bites you, it won't hurt for very
long at all."
Then there's the Portuguese Man-Of-War Jellyfish.
The last time a guy encountered one of those, the
man was still screaming long after he was unconscious.
"Never worry, mate, I've lived here 46 years and
nothing's ever happened to me. Hey, would you like
a Vegemite Sandwich?"
I tried Vegemite. Hmmm, how shall I describe it?
It's made out of yeast. Tastes like a blend of
castor oil and spackling paste.
N o t e s F r o m t h e X 1 0 S e m i n a r
Only a few minutes ago, Alex Mandossian finished his
segment on writing copy. He talked about verbs
vs. adjectives.
Verbs are good.
Adjectives are bad.
A mediocre copywriter uses lots of adjectives:"Casey
hit the ball so hard, it went over the fence."
A good copywriter uses powerful verbs and paints
a picture: "With bases loaded, Casey slammed the ball
out of the park."
A famous Leo Burnett Agency study revealed that
24.1% of the words that appeared in 62 failing ads
were adjectives.
The Ten Commandments, handed down to the prophet
Moses by God in 1800 BC, are the most famous lines of
persuasive copy in world history. Alex notes that
only 10% of the words in the Ten Commandments are
adjectives. He concludes, "If it's good enough
for God, it's good enough for me."
John Carlton has a course called "Kickass copywriting
secrets of a Marketing Rebel." So I think I'm going to
write my own course called "Kickass copywriting secrets
of God."
I n T h e G o o g l e D e p a r t m e n t
Yesterday I gave installment #1 of "Google AdWords:
Your Launchpad for World Domination."
Soundbyte from yesterday: Lester Wunderman isn't
a 'famous guru', but at age 84, insiders in direct
marketing respect him more than almost anyone else.
He's kind of like the Peter Drucker of DM. He invented
the book of the month club, the Columbia Record & Tape
Club, and he's the mastermind behind the American
Express card.
A few years ago in an obscure trade journal,Wunderman
made a brilliant observation: "Traditionally,
marketers had the list of customer names and were chasing
the customers. Now with the web, customers have the
list of business names and they're chasing the marketers.
It's a complete reversal."
How true this is. Ten years ago, only a handful
of visionaries were talking about 'permission marketing'
but now it's the rule. Ten years ago you couldn't enter
a world market in 10 minutes but today you can.
P e r r y T h e R o c k S t a r
Remember that Joe Walsh song "Life's Been Good To Me
So Far"? It goes 'It's hard to handle this fortune
and fame - everybody's so different, I haven't changed.'
Deep down I'm still a geek, but a trip to a
stylish clothing store can make me *appear* to be a hip
guy. I can go to Oz and pretend I'm a rock star. Last
night I had dinner with six ladies. (They needed help
with their Google accounts, and I took pity on them):
It's a rough life, but somebody's gotta do it.
Tune in next time for more tales from Oz.
Stay Frosty!
Perry Marshall
