#8 BANKSY: Invisible Artist, Self-Marketer, Multi-millionaire

http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2018/05/13-banksy-invisible-artist-self.html

 

Issue #8 - Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Posted by Denny Hatch

BANKSY: Invisible Artist, Self-Marketer, Multi-millionaire

One of the very few snapshots of the elusive Banksy affixing his painting onto a bare wall in the Brooklyn Museum.

“I’ve wandered round a lot of art galleries thinking, ‘I could have done that,’” Banksy once wrote. “These galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires. The public never has any real say in what art they see.”

One day Banksy discovered his sister throwing a large number of his paintings into trash, “and I asked her why? She said, ‘It’s not like they’re going to be hanging in the Louvre.’”

Banksy was inspired. “I thought, why wait until I’m dead?”

During one week of March 2005, Banksy slipped into four major New York City Museums—The Met, MOMA, American Museum of Natural History and the Brooklyn Museum.

Using very strong glue, he stuck onto unused walls brilliantly painted, weirdly wild pictures such as the faux 17^th century portrait below shown hanging (briefly) in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum.

One amazing result: hundreds of gallery-goers paused in front of these elaborate put-ons and then moved on without a clue they were being had.

Curators eventually removed the pictures. But Banksy could claim his works had hung in major museums.

The Bristol Mural

One morning in late June 2006, the city of Bristol awoke to find a Banksy mural high up on a blank wall of the Brook Young People’s Sexual Health Clinic, “one of the biggest providers of sexual health advice for young people in the U.K.,” according to the clinic.

The mural was executed in the dead of night atop a 20-foot ladder. Banksy created a tense scene in which a cuckolded man—presumably a husband—angrily is looking out the window. Behind him, looking worried and guilty is his wife in scanties. Hanging off the windowsill is her stark naked lover.

Brook Clinic’s medical director Annie Evans e-mailed Banksy to say her team at the clinic are “bouncing with joy.” She wrote, “Did you realise how utterly appropriate your latest subject matter was, given what goes on in the building?... Thanks a bunch and we’ll do our best to look after it.”

Fame and Fortune

Over the years, Banksy has blitzed the UK with hundreds of graffiti images in myriad styles: 17^th century realism, Impressionist, Op/Warhol, Pop Art, comic book and cartoons from silly to sinister, happy to horrifying, always outré and outrageous.

He has also produced an avalanche of paintings and lithographs for sale. He even decorated a live elephant for the opening of his American exhibition in Los Angeles.

His works have sold at auction for six figures up to $1.1 million at Sotheby’s, Christies, Bonhams and, of course on eBay

Banksy has never been officially photographed and operates in the deep shadows.

Takeaways to Consider

• By covering the UK with brilliant graffiti—giving away his art FREE!—Banksy generated massive media coverage worldwide.

• He is a master of creating wants.

• He is currently worth $50 million.

• He welcomes Visitors.

###

Word count: 500

#7 Getting Your Prospects to Say "Yes"

http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2018/05/7-getting-your-prospects-to-say-yes.html

 

Issue #7  — Wednesday, May23, 2018 

Posted by Denny Hatch


 Getting Your Prospects to Say "YES!"
     

Check out these small ads from HARRY’S that have been blitzing my iPad since the weeks before Christmas, 2017.

Each reads like the title of business article—either about Gillette or the razor industry.

Click on HARRY’S Read More >> in the Gillette ad above and you are buried in 833 words whining about Gillette, lawsuits, ownership, market cap and the mean things Gillette said about poor little HARRY’S. Here’s HARRY’S lede paragraph:

Since we launched HARRY’S in 2013, we have certainly attracted the attention of Big Razor. First, Gillette came after us immediately after we launched with a 'front pivot' patent lawsuit (later dismissed by Gillette). Then, more recently they created an entire advertising campaign claiming that most guys leave HARRY’S after trying us (false).

Yawn.

HARRY’S founders—Jeffrey Raider and Alex Katz-Mayfield—are not interested in telling you how they can make the daily nuisance of shaving blissfully easy, more convenient and save you a ton of money to boot.

Rather they seem to be saying… oh, maybe… gee, let’s start some kind of relationship so we can engage with you about the razor business.

“I don’t want a relationship with the guy who sells me aspirin. I just want my headache cured.”  

—Emily Soell, CEO, Rapp & Collins

Denny Hatch’s Test Ad for HARRY’S

Years ago, Direct magazine (now defunct) had a fascinating column by master copywriter Tom Collins of Rapp & Collins. He would take a so-so ad currently running and turn it into a marketing jewel.

Competing agencies were, of course, pissed off mightily, but Tom was a lot of fun and very instructive.

With 55 years in direct marketing, I’m taking a page from Tom’s playbook. Here’s a test ad written and designed by me to run against HARRY’S sphincter-tight corporate efforts.

Takeaways to Consider

• Old rules for print absolutely apply to digital.

• “You must appeal to emotions and self-interest.”

   —Pat Farley, Freelancer

• Always make an offer.

• "The offer should be so attractive only a lunatic would
    say no." —Claude Hopkins, legendary copywriter

• “Make it quick and easy to order.”

   —Elsworth Howell, Howell Book House

• “The prospect doesn’t give a damn about you, your 
    product  or your company. All the matters is: 'What’s 
    in it for me?'"  
    —Seattle Guru Bob Hacker

• Always listen to W-I-I FM.

• Is it a good idea to tell the prospect what dirt the competition 
   is spreading about you? 

###

Word count: 400

#6 The World's Greatest Banker

http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2018/02/6-worlds-greatest-banker.html

ISSUE #6– Wednesday, May 16, 2018

The World’s Greatest Banker

Posted by Denny Hatch

Frank Brock, President, First Bank of Troy Idaho

In 1960 Troy’s population was 555.

Frank Brock’s bank had 6,000 active accounts.

He had customers in 45 states, and around the world as distant as Pago Pago and American Samoa.

Frank Brock knew precisely what business he was in. "I am in the business of providing financial services for my customers—from cradle to grave.”

Brock’s Very Personal Approach

Brock knew virtually all his customers by their first names. His day was spent on the phone with customers, clipping newspapers and dealing with correspondence. Whenever a customer married, died, moved away, gave birth, etc., Brock sent a personal remembrance.

The current buzz phrase for this: “Continuous Event Marketing.”

Acquiring New Customers

When a customer’s child reached age seven the family was invited for a personal tour of the bank where Brock met them at the door. (The vault was a favorite.)

At the teller’s window Brock presented the kid with a crisp new $1 bill. The child gave it to the teller who created a savings account passbook. The teller gave it to Brock who—with a flourish—presented the child with the  passbook.

Customers for Life

In high school the kid opened a checking account. Later at college... in the Army... after discharge with a job in a distant town or another country... he always kept his accounts at the First Bank of Troy.

Hey, he knew the president.

• If he needed cash, it immediately would be wired to him anywhere in the world, no questions asked.

• A mortgage application was slam-dunk.

• Wherever that kid was in the world, Frank Brock was his personal banker.

• When a customer came upon hard times, Brock did not send threatening dunning notices, nor pile on interest. Brock's people always worked out the problem.

What Happened

Frank Brock died in 1975 at age 74.

In the mid-1980s former teller Bob Hemmings phoned the bank and reached the chief cashier with whom he had once worked. By then the bank had been acquired by a larger bank.

"Is the new president still going over the customer lists the way Frank used to?" Hemmings asked.

"Aw, no. We're so busy with paperwork and dealing with the computer, nobody has time for customers anymore," the cashier said. 

He added, "But, you know, maybe we should."

In 1988 the bank was acquired by Key Bank and designated inactive.

American banks, banking and bankers have never been the same since.

###

Word Count: 403