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The Monday Morning Memo

Melvin the Lion

July 12, 2010

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https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/2a3d4938-1b50-4710-83d0-023edc5a72af/MMM100712-MelvinTheLion.mp3


"The winner is determined when..."

A couple of weeks ago Sean Taylor attended a high-class function to receive the Melvin Jones Award on my behalf. Melvin Jones founded the Lions Club International and his award is the highest honor the club can bestow. You can’t win the MJ Award unless you’re a Lion – which I’m not – so the board of directors voted to make an exception for me.

Yes, yes, it sounds like I’m boasting but I’m not. I’m making a full confession.

The wiener dog races we sponsor each year in Buda, Texas (population: 2,404) made $120,000 for the Buda Lions club this year. More than 600 wiener dogs arrived from all over America to compete for our 6-foot tall, first-place trophy. Each year’s race has been bigger than the last for 12 consecutive years.

My company, Wizard of Ads, Inc. comes up with a theme each year, designs the posters and T-shirts, writes and records a silly radio ad and pays for the oversized trophies. 

The Lions International website says, “Lions meet the needs of local communities and the world. Our more than 1.35 million members in 206 countries and geographic areas are different in many ways, but we share a core belief – community is what we make it.”

Sounds good to me but I fear there’s been a horrible misunderstanding: You see, I cheated.

Have you ever seen kids playing football, baseball or soccer on a playground? The winner is determined the moment the captains choose sides. Pick the right players and you win. Pick wrong and you lose.

I won 12 years ago when I refused to sponsor anything but the wiener dog races.

“But Truck City is sponsoring the wiener dogs.”

“Sorry, it’s the wiener dogs or nothing.”

“Won’t you reconsider?”

“No.”

“You’ll be helping a really good cause…”

“Get Truck City to sponsor the precision lawn chair drill teams or the riding lawnmower races.”

“Trust me, Mr. Williams, you want the riding lawnmower races. Do you remember the episode of Home Improvement when Tim-the-Toolman-Taylor was going to race riding lawnmowers with Bob Vila and Tim put a jet engine from a Chinook helicopter on his lawn mower?”

“Sure.”

“We’re going to have that lawnmower – the actual one from the TV show – in this year’s race. And it’s got a real jet engine.”

“Sorry, but it’s the wiener dogs or nothing. Convince Truck City to sponsor the lawnmowers.”

Truck City was magnanimous and changed their sponsorship to the riding lawnmowers. I wasn’t willing to risk my reputation as an ad consultant on anything but a sure bet.

The lawnmower races and the lawn chair drill teams were abandoned when the wiener dogs began to gain serious national momentum.

The source of the misunderstanding – and the root of my confession – is that everyone assumes we could have aimed our mighty firepower at the lawnmowers or the lawn chairs and made them just as successful. But I know it isn’t true.

We won the game when we picked the wiener dogs.

This is the dirty little secret of advertising: you determine the success of the campaign when you pick what you’re going to promote.

Have you been settling for precision lawn chairs and lawnmowers? Repent of your sin. Demand the wiener dogs.

You’ll be amazed how much better your ads work.


Roy H. Williams

A child or grandchild from 12 to 16 years old?
The two of you need to be at the Young Writer’s Workshop later this month. We lose money on this class each year but we continue to host it because it’s important. Take a look. 


PS – Weird Coincidence:
Pennie and I were unable to pick up the Melvin Jones award in person because we were attending an auction to buy an ancient, 500-pound marble lion from India. The next time you’re on campus look for Melvin chillaxin’ in the shade in front of my office. Melvin is one happy, mellow lion. Look in his eyes and you will suspect, as I do, that Melvin may in fact be a Doobie Lion.

 

 

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Random Quote:

“

The Old Man and the Sea is the story of a fight between an elderly, accomplished fisherman, Santiago, and a really big fish. Like… HUGE. The story opens with Santiago suffering eighty -four days without catching a fish because he’s the unluckiest son-of-a-bitch on planet earth. Honestly, if you were in a boat for eighty four days, it’d be hard to NOT catch a fish… even by accident. Santiago was so unlucky that his apprentice, Manolin, was forbidden by his Ma and Pa to fish with him. But as The Fresh Prince used to say, ‘Parents Just Don’t Understand’, So the boy visits Santiago’s shack anyway. Ignoring the inherent risks of unsupervised playtime with an elderly man who talks to himself, Manolin helps out, moving Santiago’s fishing gear, making food and talking about baseball. Especially Joe DiMaggio; who used to bump fuzzies with Marilyn Monroe. The next day, Santiago tells Manolin that he’s going way out into the Gulf Stream. WAY OUT north of Cuba, Lady luck is returning! On the eighty-fifth day of his crappy luck, Santiago drops his lines, and by noon, gets a bite from what feels like a big•ass fish. He’s sure it’s a winner. He fights and fights and fights but can’t pull the monster in. Santiago’s leaky old boat is pulled by the fish for two days and nights as he holds on for dear life. Even though he’s bloody and beat, Santiago begins to appreciate this mighty adversary. He starts calling him “brother” or maybe even, “bro.” It’s sort of a love story if you really think about it. And like most romantic comedies, the reader pictures a delightful outfit changing montage, followed by the inevitable interspecies wedding. But on the third day, Santiago is freakin’ EXHAUSTED, and decides he just wants the fish to do what he says and not always swim wherever it wants. So he stabs it. With a fucking harpoon. It’s a mess. Super gross Blood everywhere. Because, like many men his age, Santiago has difficulty expressing his emotions and fears with words instead giving in to base desires and imposing his gigantically terrible positions on any given subject through unblinking violence. Typical. Anyway, he straps the marlin to the side of his skiff and hits the road home, ready to act like a total show off to everyone and probably gouge people on the price. But guess what? Pretty soon sharks begin to attack the bleeding marlin’s carcass, because as we all know, life is a tragic opera and just when you think you’ve finally found something good and true, sharks come along and rip it all to fucking shreds while dry-humping your dignity with their crazy weird shark dicks. Sure, Santiago tries killing a few of them, but drops his harpoon because his hands are just as old as he is. By nighttime, the sharks have pretty much eaten the entire marlin, Only a bleach-white skeleton remains, silently mocking him in the murky darkness. Santiago realizes he’s still unlucky, REALLY unlucky. (Duh!) He calls the sharks, “dream killers”. Which isn’t really all that fair. I mean, the sharks were just doing their job and the marlin… Jesus, don’t even get me started on the marlin! It was just hanging out one day, minding it’s own business, maybe thinking about ways it could be a better provider for it’s family and WHAM! Harpoon in the brain. Who’s the “dream killer” now, fuckface? The hypocrisy is pretty much boundless at this point. Eventually Santiago makes it ashore. Leaving the bones of the marlin and the boat, he hobbles to his shack. He makes it home and crashes, like I said – he’s super tired. The next morning, a group of fishermen gather around Santiago’s boat. One measures the skeleton and, holy shit shingles! It’s over 18 feet! The head of the fish is given to Pedrico (strange that this is the first mention of him) and the other fishermen ask Manolin to send their glad tidings to the old man. Manolin brings Santiago newspapers and coffee when he wakes and they decide to fish together again. Many years later, there’s a Red Lobster Restaurant in nearly every city in America, offering a casual dining experience and convenient parking.

“

- title card at the end of Deadpool 2, sent to us by Jeff Sexton because he knows we love Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea

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