Posts by Jonathan McCulloch

@Liuke

"Ryanair are a no frills airline and they don’t pretend to be anything else. You get what you pay for and with Ryanair you pay for everything; you could call it itemised billing. They have the right to offer a service at whatever price and on whatever terms they choose. We have the right to decline their offer."

At last, some bloody sense.

I love Ryanair. I fly with them often and can't fault them -- I get exactly what I pay for and they do exactly what it says on the tin.

-- Jon

@Mike

New and shiny: I'd be amazed if you didn't have some niche quirk you'll pay anything to indulge. Most of us has. Mine is books. I am the world's easiest person to sell a book to and I rarely care how much I pay.

Yet anyone trying to sell me, say, a home homeopathy kit won't have a chance (because it's bullshit).

My point here is anyone trying to sell anyone anything they're not predisposed to buying is wasting time and money. Unfortunately, most of the marketing you see (and hate) is trying to sell arbitrary shit to everyone. Try to be all things to all men, and you end up being nuffink to no one.

I bet a well-crafted ad for something akin to Douglas Adams's dark glasses which would prevent you seeing any advert anywhere would catch your attention, right?

Doing your background research is good, and you're wise to be sceptical of "official" channels -- which is why creating a good product is indeed good marketing. In my own business, the only marketing I do is delighting my clients and informing my target audience (with a newsletter and a monthly column in a local rag). That's it.

Then, because I do a great job, I get referred to others all the time.

And those $97 ebooks... well... all the others don't but I've discovered the insider to an overnight Internet fortune... on AUTOPILOT!

It's here: www.IfItSoundsTooGoodToBeTrueYouCanGuessTheRest.com

Interestingly I wrote an 80+page ebook myself pointing out why these ebooks don't work but seem to ("survivor fallacy", etc).

Paris because she's been about a bit and probably has more testimonials and referrals than I have.

-- Jon

@ MIke

I have people say this to me all the time, and I believe you and they are telling the truth as you see it. And you may well be right. For me to argue would be pointless because it's an unfalsifiable hypothesis and so invalid.

However, I'd be surprised if you or anyone else save a genuine psychopath is immune from all advertising and marketing. You'll see why in a moment.

But let's say you're right. It doesn't make any difference.

Here are some observations:

1. Most of the advertising you describe is shit. I'm not surprised it turns you off. It turns most people off -- and it doesn't work. A "good" ad is one making the advertiser money. The ads you see on the box and in the paper, etc. are usually put together by Brylcreemed BMW drivers with red braces and over-large expense accounts. They know very little about marketing at all.

2. You say you'd research the stuff you want to buy. Good. Thing is, Mike, good marketers provide just the information you're looking for. Good marketers rarely try and sell anyrthing. I don't, for example. I offer information and service and when people are ready to buy... I'm the guy they think of. A savvy firm selling computers will stop worrying about the event of selling computers and start concentrating on the process of building relationships with their ideal clients. I define marketing as anything anyone perceives about your business. In the case where Mike is doing research, marketing to Mike means providing quality information and making it easily and obviously available. It means serving Mike without expectation of making a sale, but rather of giving him the means to make his own mind up. Are you really telling me you'd be immune to this kind of "wow" treatment if a firm truly bent over backwards to make your research easy?

3. Advertising/marketing is a numbers game. A good mail to a responsive list will typically pull between 5% and 10% response. A cold list, maybe 1%. A really HOT list, 60%, 70% and more (my personal best is 56% on a £6,000 item). But this still means in the main 90% of people or more DON'T buy. People like you, Mike. But -- here's the thing -- we don't care about you. I'm not being rude here, just realistic. As a marketer, the only people whose opinions count are the ones giving me money. Why would I care about anyone not interested in what I have to sell?

As I said: most commentary about marketing on forums like this (and slashdot) is made by people who really don't know what they're talking about.

I don't mean that to be insulting, and I'm not directing it at you specifically. It's just the way things are.

-- Jon

Web 2.0, making money and social immune systems

Chaps,

I suspect you have this all wrong. I'm a marketing fellow, albeit less conventional than most, and I know something about the subject.

First, Web 2.0: people are making money out of Web 2.0 and social websites, but it's much less obvious than the examples you're seeking, perhaps. There are reasons I think most of their business models suck the big one, but that's another story.

The reason most advertising on social network sites (probably) flops has nothing to do with the sites or the concept and everything to do with the fuckwits in charge of running the ads. Look in your local Yellow Pages and you'll see literally thousands of flopping ads (because they all look the same and talk in terms of services rather than what it does for the buyer).

A counter-example: the Snorg-Tee ads on FaceBook. Exceptionally well targeted and, I suspect, very effective.

Advertising and marketing as a virus. Maybe. Like Dawkins's memes, perhaps. But advertising and marketing is much maligned and usually by people who really don't know what they're talking about.

The substance of marketing is the same everywhere: emotional connection. Science has pretty much proven what we marketers have known empirically for a long time: we decide emotionally and justify after the fact with logic. It works the same in all industries.

People aren't so much resistant to the form of marketing as they are unseeing of the message because a winning formula is mercilessly copied and done to death. Do your research and you'll see the marketing doing best is nothing more than recycled strategies and techniques from 1937 or so. There IS nothing new, not really, and there are reasons for that.

Please don't pretend your IT businesses are any different, because they're not. To stroke the emotions of an IT geek is an easier job than you might think (I was one once). You might laugh and pretend superiority over Paris and her, um, "high society" foibles, but the same emotions are at work in YOU when you get all hard and sweaty over the 500TB drive with automatic scrotal-massage you can slip into your pocket.

Same emotions... different triggers is all.

The reason it's all the same is the emotional connection, and that's buried in the limbic system and we share it with all the mammals.

You can believe me or not, but I actually study this stuff (because it's my business) rather than assume a position of snobbish superiority.

-- Jon

@RickyTheRiot

"All I am saying is I would like to see that evidence for myself before believing it was a virus targeting this person specifically."

Who mentioned it being targeted at him specifically?

The law is quite specific (and sometimes this is actually the way it pans out): you're innocent until found guilty beyond *reasonable doubt*. The presence of the malware was confirmed by at least two computer forensics experts (copy implies it was possibly three) *including* those hired by the prosecution, and they all concluded the same.

That's about as far beyond mere "reasonable doubt" as you can get.

-- Jon

You can't cheat an honest man

There's a lot to be said for this maxim. I'm in marketing (spare me the vitriol, please), and I'm heartily sick of the "Success Peddlers" and their wares. You know the stuff I mean -- buy this $97 downloadable ebook and you can make millions practically overnight, live in some exotic location in a mansion, drive fast cars and have pina-colada served to you poolside by even faster women who have improbably large breasts and flexible legs, to boot.

What's the difference?

Nada.

In both cases you've got someone wanting to make something for nothing.

What they're both selling is hope -- and it's hope sold by appealing to greed.

Paris? Because she lives the lifestyle the Success Peddlers promise.

-- Jon

@Mark

Errr... what? Can you write that again in English?

I have never said anything about Pratchett's books. Not once. Nor have I said anything about not liking "it" if it was me or my family (and I'm not even sure what the "it" is here. If "it" is Alzheimer's, then you're damned right I wouldn't like it, but I also wouldn't give two hoots what people said about it, either). So I'm not quite sure what nerve you think you've hit, Mark, but whatever keeps you happy, mate. Personally, I get the feeling you make this shit up.

See, if you actually *read* what I did write, you'll realise what I'm doing is a. being objective and b. tangentially defending free speech (OK, it's not strictly "free" because the good people at the Reg own the site and ultimately they have the final say what goes up here, and that's entirely right and proper).

As for Terry and his friends reading this and not liking it: so what? That's unfortunate, but neither I nor anyone else can help that since we're all responsible for our own feelings. More to the point, freedom of speech is about defending the right of people to say the unpleasant and unsavoury things, not the nice ones. I've not once bashed Terry here. Nowhere. Not him, not his books. Not a thing. Nor have I made light of his situation.

Yet, even those who have: it's not mutually exclusive to wish to express one's sorrow and regret at Pratchett's situation yet also to say you think his books are illiterate bilge. If you thought his books were crap last Saturday it's not the case his statement revealing his Alzheimer's suddenly changes your opinion as if by magic.

If you're really suggesting you can't post anything here unless you're both saying how awful it is and how brilliant his books are you're potentially depriving Terry of some considerable emotional support for his plight (because of all the people who might want to say "Gee, Terry, I didn't like your books much, although I feel for you and your family and I wish you the very best in the difficult times ahead").

Anyone who'd want to stop people posting those sentiments -- and I'm not saying you do, necessarily -- must actually be Satan made flesh. Watch when they step out of the shower: they'll be steaming AND leaving hoof-prints.

Probably.

-- Jon

@Mark (twice).

1. I never said I didn't like his books. If you can show otherwise, I'll pay £1000 to a charity of your choice.

2. I never "took him down a peg". If you can show otherwise, I'll pay another £1000 to a charity of your choice. Whoever it was up above had it right when he said most of the comments here are selfishly couched in terms of "oh my... what am I going to read NOW?!".

3. Terry Pratchett is not your mother. If you can show otherwise, I'll pay £1000,000 to a charity of your choice, and dig out both my kidneys with a rusty spoon and post the video on YouTube. Plus I'll re-enact those 2GirlsOneCup things with my dog.

4. My mother is dead. We've already had her funeral, so you're a bit late.

5. Your posts are subjective and emotional. Mine are rather more objective. Nothing "makes" it sad for you, and nothing "makes" you unhappy. You're a big boy. Take a bit of responsibility for yourself and your feelings, there's a good chap. You sound like a girl. Or a leftie.

6. How would his choice of sexual partner give us "more leeway" to insult his books than the manner of his dying? More to the point, I think I missed the bit where you were voted Grand Poobah and we had to get your permission and seek "leeway" to express our opinions.

7. Who said I've ever uttered the words ""you'll be sadly missed"? You know absolutely nothing about how I feel or think about my death or anyone else's. You're projecting your own feelings onto others and inventing all sorts of complex-equivalences. Are you sure you're not a girl or a leftie?

Pratchett having Alzheimer's is a shit and really isn't fair. Then, it's not "fair" my son has cerebral palsy. It's not "fair" I'm, 42 years old and 5'5'' instead of 22, 6''2' and helpless sex-slave to a rich, 16-year-old bisexual pneumatic-blonde nymphomaniac Danish supermodel.

It's not "fair" it's not Fair it's not FAIR!

But that's the way the universe works. We can play only the hand we're dealt, Mark. And, Pratchett getting Alzheimer's is objectively no better and no worse than anyone else getting it. Subjectively, for whoever gets it, it's no party.

And let's face it: they're the ones who really count in all this. I'm fairly confident the people actually going through it as sufferers and carers really get the shitty end of the stick. I only ever met one person who was looking forward to dying, and she was a nun. With exquisite irony, she recovered from her near-fatal illness and is still alive and really pissed off about it.

So in the midst of all the wailing and gnashing of teeth on here and the self-pitying, just stop and think who this really affects: Pratchett himself and his family. They're the embuggered one here, and kudos to him for taking it as well as he seems to have.

I'm not sure I would have such fortitude.

-- Jon

@Danny

"Common decency would say that this comment page should be left to those who wish him well."

Wishing him well has nothing to do with saying good -- or bad -- things about his books. Terry getting Alzheimer's is no more or less awful than it is for anyone else whose kind and decent (and if you think it's somehow worse because he's intelligent, then that says more about you than you perhaps would like to reveal).

I wish him well. Why would I not?

I might be a tit, but I'm my own tit.

-- Jon

@Danny

"This is for people who want to wish him well and thank him for the entertainment he has provided them over the years."

No, this is a place for making *comments*. That you don't approve of some of them is neither here nor there.

Just for the record, I have no opinions about anyone's comments, including my own. Not even this one.

-- Jon

life is like a gorilla’s left hand...

>why does this always happen to the talented people who are genuinely nice?

It doesn't. We just tend to hear about it more when it's someone famous than we do when it's some anonymous street-sweeper from Nottingham.

Yet it’s a typically human trait to feel the tragedy of talent struck down in its prime is somehow worse than the tragedy striking the ordinary man or woman. Somehow we feel it’s worse if someone born disabled is also born beautiful. We feel more comfortable if they’re ugly. It fits our image of how things “should” be so much more closely.

But to the individual concerned it's no worse. Anyone with Alzheimer's is in for a rough time of things, and from their individual perspective it's probably no different if they're Terry Pratchett or the abovementioned anonymous street-sweeper from Nottingham.

Life is like a gorilla’s left hand: it’s neither fair nor right. Shit happens. Not a lot we can do about it save take it philosophically. As Pratchett himself puts it, “I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else”; more often than not, we don’t know when this is going to be and there’s bugger all we can do about it.

An “embuggerance” indeed.

Since there’s nothing we can do about the ultimate destination, the only choice we have is how we make the journey.

What I really want to know is who nabbed embuggerance.com yesterday.

-- Jon