Herschell Gordon Lewis shares a little copy class.
William of Ockham should have been a direct marketer. Maybe he was. Many of us moonlight openly or surreptitiously in a second pseudo-profession. And, in the 14th century, media choices were sparse enough to assure readership of anything that appeared in what then was considered ‘print’.
We all have [...]

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 . . . according to chapter 36,407, says Herschell Gordon Lewis.
We assume we’re professional communicators. The very word ‘professional’ implies knowledge beyond that of someone who aspires from outside our little half-world to join us.
So when an email shows up in our daily batch, and the email is headed, ‘22 Quick Tips for Better Email [...]

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Herschell Gordon Lewis shares a little copy class.
Assumption: You’re a sophisticated marketer. Parallel assumption: You aren’t surprised to see junk-authoritarian statements by junk-authorities, in trade publications.
An absolute ‘given’ is that when a technique or a medium   or a procedure or a development becomes the darling of self-proclaimed avant-garders, we can anticipate sniping as the next step. [...]

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Hershell Gordon Lewis adds copy class to the back page of the new newspaper: DMI News Extra.
May I superimpose what I hope is a redundant supposition onto any preconceived notions or prejudices you may harbour?
That supposition: Copywriters are wordsmiths.
I hope you agree that’s redundant. After all, what are we other than glorifiers? What we glorify [...]

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Yes, it is. And let’s not kill it, says Herschell Gordon Lewis.
Advance your time machines 100 years. Will a marketing historian — or an anthropologist — deliver a lecture on the ongoing developments in direct marketing and begin the discourse with: “Do you remember a substance called ‘paper’? Your grandmother may have told you about [...]

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. . . in as many words as possible is something that infuriates HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS.
If you’re a veteran reader of this publication, you know I’ve been pouting and spouting in its pages for some 20 years – and more recently online.
During that period, I’ve attended numerous conferences (and, in later years, Webinars) in which the calibre of information ranged [...]

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 Herschell Gordon Lewis says there are marketers who sour the grapes others have nurtured. 
Sophisticates know ‘The Little Foxes’ as a stage play and subsequent movie based on the script by Lillian Hellman. Although on occasion small theatre companies still produce the play, the plotline is usually lost in history, because both play and movie date back [...]

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Herschell Gordon Lewis debates the disadvanges of opening the floodgates to social media.
The social medium MySpace had a good year. It lost only US$128 million last year. That’s only $28 million more than it lost the previous year.
The owner, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, isn’t happy. His pioneer social medium, once dominant, has lost ground against principal competitors [...]

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. . . or one of the winners? Herschell Gordon Lewis shows why the successful copywriter examines every word.
I was putting my too-heavy laptop computer back into its bag.
This session at the USA Direct Marketing Association’s annual conference (October, San Diego) had been reasonably successful, judging by attendance and participation. But apparently I hadn’t [...]

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Herschell Gordon Lewis reminds us of pre-web rules that are still highly pertinent.
Inevitably, as a marketer sophisticates his or her communications with both existing customers or clients and prospective customers or clients, sophistication leads to self-stroking.
Just as inevitably, self-stroking puts target-individuals outside the mix, instead of squarely in the centre.
The Four Great Laws may be [...]

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