ONE Is All You Get!

I recently placed an ad for a client in a special section of a local newspaper. The quarter-page ad cost $365. The issue previous we had run a half-page ad, for $725.

When I requested a few extra copies of the most recent special section from our ad rep, so that our staff could include them in their presentation portfolios, she told me they "had not received many copies of the newspaper" so she could only give me ONE copy.

ONE copy! We spent $365 on an ad that we can only get ONE print copy of.

I guess this is all part of the cost-cutting measures being emo,oyed by the newspaper industry, which too late figured out it missed the digital train and are now trying to catch up on foot.

Or more like crutches, with service like this.

Who Cares?

[from Seth Godin's blog]
At the post office the other day, a guy wearing a beautiful handmade scarf finishes his transaction and starts away from the counter.

A small nail holding the molding apparently isn't hammered in all the way. It catches the scarf, pulls the threads and ruins the scarf. The man turns to the counter, looks at the postal worker who took his money and says, "There's a loose nail here, it just ruined my scarf."

Tim, the postal worker, beaten down, tired, given up, stands behind the counter and barely makes eye contact. "Oh."


When you allow (yes, allow) all humanity to be stripped from your day, all day, then what?