Our song began in 1971 when Hunter S. Thompson wrote about the end of the 60s. He may as well have been writing about the end of a love affair. “We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can […]

“Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Has it been five years? Six? It seems like a lifetime —the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of… but no explanation, no mix of words or music […]

Read more about rowdy Ryan Patrick.Check out the positively professional podcast, Mash Matters.

  Sotheby’s is selling an important original manuscript by Neal Stephenson, one of the wizard’s favorite authors. The video below is an interesting one. 

Click the book cover to continue down the rabbit hole. Click this link to read Manley’s Chatbook. A few weeks ago, I walked with the wizard to the front door during the ice storm that hit Austin. We opened it, and there stood Manley Miller. The airlines had canceled his flight. A few minutes later […]

When the wizard and Princess Pennie bought this 400-year-old renaissance trunk at auction, Christina Gressianu volunteered to pick it up near her home in Colorado, store it, then drive it to the Wizard of Ads partner meeting in Fort Worth. Christina is a highly celebrated and award-winning photographer. During the weeks the trunk was stored […]

Michael Kaeding had no idea how to run his family business when his father unexpectedly passed away. “I had no preconceived notion of the way things were supposed to be done,” Michael recalls. “We just started to naively solve problems, and that was the magic.” Today Michael is the CEO of a company that designs, builds, and […]

William Hackett-Jones sent this to us with the following note: “Simon Patterson is a friend who has been writing a song a day for about 2 years now. Today’s offering is one for the writers and translators of the world. Indy, if you could add a link to his Patreon, I’m sure he’d be over the […]

Luis from Mexico and Wicho from Guatemala with the wizard’s mom,who lives just a block away from the restaurant.The video below opens with Dennis Collins of Miami talking with her. 

“If you’re like me, you whip out your phone to look up a recipe. Unfortunately, this is where things usually go horribly wrong, because it’s never that simple.” “Nine times out of 10, clicking on a recipe search result will rarely give you the actual recipe right up front. Instead, you’re stuck reading (see: ‘panic-scrolling’) […]

The insightful musings of tech writer Stephen Wolfram underscore my belief that using ChatGPT or any other LLM for ad writing will almost certainly create predictable ads that blur you into your category. The goal of an ad writer is to differentiate the brand, not make it sound similar to all the others. – Roy H. […]

Four obstacles prevent most people from becoming persuasive communicators, whether in print, in front of an audience, or on video. And those obstacles are SNEAKY obstacles. That’s the conclusion of Michelle Gladieux (Glad-ee-oh), a communication consultant with 18 years of experience teaching at the highest levels. “The ability to dazzle an audience is far more accessible than […]

“The Kraken visual branding is gorgeous, from the logo to the colours. (Whoever designed the logo, I want to kiss you on the lips.) They played with the concept with such form and grace. When I look at the logo, I know it is alive. But what if I told you that what makes the […]

  “Following John Turner’s death in 1987 a suitcase was passed to them by his widow, Betty. A quick glance revealed family photos and other pictures taken for his camera club, and it was consigned to the loft for 30 odd years… It is believed the pictures were taken while Turner worked as a property manager, […]

“One of the first things I noticed about the man I’d eventually marry was that he spoke in clichés. Clichéd clichés, too, the kind favored by greeting cards and motivational speakers: Absence makes the heart grow fonder; what you can believe and conceive you can achieve; teamwork makes the dream work.” “Honestly? I wasn’t into […]

Quixote is fantasy verging on absurdism. Sancho is reality as dull as dirt.  This is the split-world we two-legged apes exist in: Fantasy & Reality. Fantasy is conjured in our collective minds.Reality punches us in the gut.Emotion is the bewitcher that rules both kingdoms. You can wish upon a star but it won’t take you […]

A fact is information minus emotion. An opinion is information plus experience. Ignorance is an opinion lacking information. Stupidity is an opinion that ignores a fact. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. One last thing: BS is a factless opinion expressed with flair. – Tom Grimes, Waterboy of Amarillo

Entrepreneurship is like jumping off a cliff and building an airplane on the way down. The entrepreneur out in front has others following them off the cliff, bringing necessary parts with them. Experienced entrepreneurs know how to build a plane better and faster than they did the first time. Entrepreneurs see the ground as that […]

Entrepreneurship is like jumping off a cliff and building an airplane on the way down. The entrepreneur out in front has others following them off the cliff, bringing necessary parts with them. Experienced entrepreneurs know how to build a plane better and faster than they did the first time. Entrepreneurs see the ground as that […]

  Ten years ago, scientists discovered “a geometric, jewel-like object at the heart of quantum physics.” This jewel-like object is called the amplituhedron (cool name, right?) and it, “dramatically simplifies calculations of particle interactions and challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental components of reality.” * A theoretical physicist at Harvard, Jacob Bourjaily said that when using the amplituhedron, “The […]

“There is a feeling among the people who speak Irish that the language is something priceless, like a precious stone kept in the pocket. You don’t speak Irish; you have your Irish. It’s wonderfully exact. There is a word for the roof of a dog’s mouth (carball) and the steam rising from a fermented haystack […]

Jacob Williams, the youngest son of the wizard and Princess Pennie, is the mastermind behind the 2-year project called RomanticSpotsInAustin.com. If his pilot program proves to be sustainable, there will soon be a RomanticSpotsinYourTown.com, assuming of course that your town is at least as big as Laurel, Mississippi and you live somewhere in the U.S., […]

Burt Bacharach Medley: Knowing When To Leave; Make It Easy On Yourself; Always Something There To Remind Me; I’ll Never Fall In Love Again; Walk On By; Do You Know The Way To San Jose, sung by the irreplaceable Richard and Karen Carpenter.

“Today’s 52-card deck preserves the four original French suits of centuries ago: clubs (♣), diamonds (♦), hearts (♥), and spades (♠)… Some historians have suggested that suits in a deck were meant to represent the four classes of Medieval society. Cups and chalices (modern hearts) might have stood for the clergy; swords (spades) for the […]

  Princess Pennie has had a team of people building this website for 24 months and it will launch next week. Now that the programming is done, the next steps are to create a romanticspotsin_______.com in every city as large or larger than Laurel, Mississippi. The US and Canada and Australia will be first, but […]

Thank you, Tim Miles, for bringing this SuperBowl ad to our attention – Indy and the Tiny Tribe

Dave Young, Vice-Chancellor of Wizard Academy in Austin, risked life and limb to climb onto the Stardeck of the Wizard’s Tower perched on a plateau 900 feet above of the city of Austin so he could take this photo and make this video for you! Dave is Awesome. – Indy Beagle I’ve been trying to […]

“Why armadillo racing?”– SS Sparky Sparks“Marshall the Goldsmith”– JP Engelbrecht“Stop Torturing Toddlers”– Susie Marcks“At a crossroads”– Robert Topping“It finally happened”– Earl Lindgren“One bloodied Bible”– Joshua Harrison“Find a way”– Jack Heald“We do anything”– Dennis Barton“Pssst. Yeah, you.”– Mark Savage“Something smells funny”– Cory Davis“Money’s not it.”– Ron Nakamoto“What exploding banana.”– Gary Watkins“Somebody once said”– Pyotr Belov“You’re halfway […]

This is the initial billboard that Stephen Semple put up for a client.It became a series of billboards that was a conversation back and forth.

“Change Your Path.”– Hugh Benham“You’ll want one.”– Leo Edelstein“I am lost.”– Dana Guerra“Ease his pain.”– Thom Sauber“I said yes.”– Jack McManus“Could be worse.”– Tim Durkin“Darryl did it.”– Darryl Robinson“Leader’s One Job.”– Bob Kinnison“After 33 Years.”– Jordan Craig“She said yes.”– Jay Mead“Benedict knows you.”– Kathy Nelles“It’s always monkeys.”– Chris Cowan“Death comes softly.”– Tom Davis“Sales Goals Amiss.”– Caroline Chavez“You […]

“Look out belief.”– Tim Storm “Pumpkin killed again.”– Jeff Sexton “Meet my moose.”– Jan Raven Stitt “It’s finally over.”– John Linsmeier “Your confusion detonates.”– Eran Strickland “I could lie.”– Luisa Fernanda Toledo “Well that’s interesting.”– Craig Arthur “She got caught.”– Mike Sanders “Jeremy, everyone knows.”– Judith O’Broin “You Thought Wrong.”– Asia Gregg “I am bad.”– […]

  Place / Decoration / Pasta Tahiti Grafitti Ziti Serengeti Confetti Spaghetti Eswatini Bikini Linguini Chartwell Church Bell Clamshell A game invented in the wizard’s private laboratory by Brad  Whittington, Ian Rogers, and Roy H. Williams, Feb 3, 2023

Dale Carnegie, Earl Nightingale, Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, Blaine Oelkers. “Blaine who?” Blaine is not yet as widely known as those other motivational luminaries, but he does have one huge advantage over them; he is alive and inspiring a new generation of businesspeople those other legends did not live to see. Stop, listen, and learn […]

Hi Roy, Hi Indy,   Thanks for the sneak preview of the Monday Morning Memo. I was particularly drawn to your statement, “Most ads are not written to persuade…” The human brain is really good at filtering.  We ignore anything we are used to seeing.  This is why the first time we drive to a […]

  If you are my friend now or a friend I am yet to meet,regardless of our differences, I like you for being you.And I always will.I don’t care aboutHow rich or poor you areThe colour of your skinYour religionYour sexual preferencesWho you vote forYour views on COVID or climate changeYour sporting preferencesWhether you like […]

Recently Unleashed, ChatGPT is often described as “Google on Steroids” On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 4:24 PM Cedric Yau <cedric@wizardofads.com> wrote to the other Wizard of Ads partners:   Hi Partners!   My friend Mikhail and I are expanding our expertise in NLP (Natural Language Processing) to include the latest technologies like GPT3 and […]

“I just spent three days at VidCon, the annual social media convention in Anaheim, hanging out with a few thousand current and future internet celebrities. And it’s increasingly obvious to me that the teenagers and 20-somethings who have mastered these platforms — and who are often dismissed as shallow, preening narcissists by adults who don’t […]

On Mon, Jan 30, 2023 at 7:03 AM Charlie Moger <charlie@wizardofads.com> wrote:   Hi Indy,    Those Corvette pictures revved up my mental wayback machine. Back when I was a baby radio promotion guy in the 80’s, I worked at an ABC radio station in Houston: 97Rock. It was my first big-time radio gig—and, at […]

Seven Secrets of Social Media Success There’s a difference between knowing how to use social media and knowing how to leverage social media. Using social media won’t do anything for your business, cause, movement or sales. Leveraging social media will. You can’t leverage social media if you don’t know how to create share-worthy and follow-worthy […]

When a publishing house releases only one book a year, you know it will be a blockbuster. That’s always been the case with award-winning Bard Press, which has brought out 18 business bestsellers over the past 25 years. This year the boutique imprint has tapped authors Ed O’Malley and Julia Fabris McBride, whose book on leadership, due […]

  CHAPTER ONE: We  assume that every plumber can plumb, right? We assume that any A/C company can make the house warm in winter, cool in summer. We assume that every jeweler can sell us a diamond, and a lawyer must know the law, or he wouldn’t have a license to practice. So how do […]

1. Facts  2. Numbers 3. Hands 4. Words These have definitely poked around in my head today – it actually made me think about the personal training clients that I have, and the part that I get most excited about is when I get to introduce them to new information, and even better, when I’m […]

Look for “Vengeance” with B.J. Novak on Amazon Prime. Stay with it. You will definitely enjoy this movie.

Don’s Very Bad Week A note to the wizard from his close friend in Carson City, Nevada The gods have been screwing me over recently. I think they are paying me back for my previous questionable behavior. We have 3 feet of snow on our property, 5-foot drifts. Cold weather makes it all white cement. […]

Does Your Have Company Core Values? There are only three reasons to have a list of core values.      1: Inspire and reinforce “on-brand” behavior from employees.     2: Assist in the orientation and onboarding of new hires.     3: Inform investors, customers, and other interested parties of what they can expect from you. […]

CHAPTER ONE: Most ads are not written to persuade. They are written not to offend. This is why most ads are flaccid, impotent, and ignored. EXAMPLE: a few of you mentally raised your eyebrows at the words flaccid and impotent. You would tell me those words should be changed. Perhaps I should shorten it to say, […]

Prior to “a statement that triggers more questions than it answers,” “Third Gravitating Bodies” were the things I could never explain to others as clearly as I saw them in my mind. I failed for 22 years, but I finally figured out how to do it. “The Power of the Universe at Your Fingertips” is […]

Companies are pouring big money into programs that teach “soft skills,” such as employee training, human resources, community outreach, and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.) But do they get their money’s worth?Jack and Patti Phillips developed a method for determining the return on investment for programs like these and it has become the most-used evaluation system […]

Lately I’ve been trying to explain to uncomprehending faces how the most powerful opening lines are never questions, but statements that trigger more questions than they answer. I am certain those uncomprehending faces are my fault. I fear the idea I am attempting to teach may be bigger than the teacher trying to explain it. […]

“Let’s Paper the House” I was once 16 years old. I’m not proud of that, but it was unavoidable. You’ve got to be 16 before you can move on. Do you remember – during the Covid lockdown – when toilet paper and eggs were like diamonds and gold? Back in my day, toilet paper and […]