by david allan van nostrand | Sep 15, 2025 | Advertising, Misinformation traps, Shaky Science
When they called themselves the Sales Department, they had only one job. It was selling the company’s products. Salesmen, saleswomen, and salespersons who missed their sales quotas lost their jobs.* Now that they changed their name to marketers, their job is to...
by david allan van nostrand | May 20, 2024 | Advertising, Americana, Human Behavior, The Wayback Machine
What is Burma-Shave? On November 14th in 1860 in Coburg, Germany, Gottfried Kirch was the first to discover a comet by using a telescope. On December 4th of the same year, 1,000 kilometers away in Rome, a hen laid an egg that had an irregularity on its shell that...
by david allan van nostrand | Oct 9, 2023 | Advertising, Human Behavior, Language, Using Information
Who Is David Ogilvy? The New York Times said David Ogilvy was the Father of the Soft Sell The hard sell is the in-your-face way of selling products. It’s the strategy employed by timeshare salespeople, car dealers, Billy Mays, and the Bass-O-Matic. The hard sell’s...
by david allan van nostrand | Jul 1, 2019 | Advertising, Research, Unintended Consequences, Using Information
The most common ad testing research waits until the very last moment to do the fastest and cheapest research possible. Paid study subjects are shown an ad that has been slickly produced and is ready to go. The only purpose of this research is to make sure the...
by david allan van nostrand | Jul 31, 2017 | Actively observing, Advertising, Items in the News
The next time a prescription drug ad comes on, turn the sound off and watch the scenes of happy people enjoying active lives with families, friends, and pets. The next time that ad runs, leave the sound on, close your eyes and listen. You may discover how the list of...
by david allan van nostrand | Jun 5, 2017 | Advertising, Human Behavior, Research
Three Ways To Test Ads For those companies that bother with advertising testing research at all (fewer than you think), there are three basic ways they go about it. The most common is the Disaster Check Here companies do one or two quick focus groups after creating an...
