The whole idea of organic food used to baffle me. Except for things like salt and calcium, pretty well everything we eat is organic. But, apparently there’s organic and then there’s Organic, with a halo over it. It means that whatever it is (tomato or tomahto, egg or chicken) it’s grown with no chemicals, insecticides, genetic manipulation, or drugs and all the chicks and ducks and geese can scurry free of cages while cattle and sheep and goats get nothing but grass and hay and maybe oats.

Pigs? Who knows? Maybe Organic slop.

Places like Whole Foods have built huge businesses selling mostly Organic food. Piggly Wiggly, Krogers and Safeway sell mostly organic with some Organic, specially packaged in special sections. At much higher prices.

Is making a point of buying Organic worth it? The short answer is no. The long answer is noooo.

Is selling Organic worth it? Hell yes.
I’m thinking maybe we should use soy ink on mailers and stamp “Printed with Organic Ink” on the OE.

My online thesaurus came up with a “no results found” for wellness. The Encarta dictionary says it means “physical well-being especially when maintained or achieved through good diet and regular exercise.”

My 35-year old Random House dictionary apparently never heard of it.

The OED says that wellness is the “state of soundness, good health.” Its first reference for the word is 1605 when Sir A. Johnstone used it.

The OED calls wellness a nonce-wd which sounds like a scholarly way of saying it’s bullshit. The OED hints that wellness is the opposite of illness which makes sense but we already have words for that. Wellness seems to be the precious way of saying health.

In the real world, wellness has never been much more than a marginal word. But when you Google wellness you get 114,000,000 hits, including a ton of references to alternative medicine and things like Wellness® Cat and Dog Food, Wellness.com, and a National Wellness Institute. This isn’t just bullshit, it’s the Augean Stables.

There’s a lot of that going around these days and I worry about the healthness of the good old English language. But if it helps sell things to the people who want to pay a lot of money, then what the heck.

Lysol and Clorox both make something called bacterial wipes and they’re sold side by side at Costco. Here’s the sticker Lysol slapped on the cellophane wrapping three of its packages.

I had to go to Philadelphia for Passover and I’m not even Jewish. I rented an Alamo car at the airport for a couple of days. I always rent from Alamo and don’t know why. Maybe because of those cool “All the miles are free” commercials back in the 90s.

Alamo’s online “estimate” for the rental was $223.28. MasterCard billed me about $335.

I’m not surprised there was a screwup because when I returned the car the lady who logs in the returns out in the lot said her portable receipt machine wasn’t working and I had two choices: get a receipt at the kiosk (which meant schlepping two sets of luggage ‘way across the lot and lining up) or have the receipt emailed to me. I fell for the easy way.

When the bill from MasterCard arrived, I emailed Alamo to ask what’s up and back came the answer:

Thank you for your email. I have reviewed the account and you were charged for our Fuel Service Option and two additional hours. Being that the car was returned on a full tank of gas you received a credit for the difference. The credit of $39.47 was processed and will appear on your credit card within seven to ten business days. I will like to apologize for the misunderstandings and I have attached an update receipt to this email. If you have any other quesitons or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Hmm. I wrote back:

Thanks,
I‘m a little puzzled about the two extra hours, too. I think it was the reverse and that I returned the car two hours before it was due. The lady who was checking in the cars in the lot did not have her receipt machine, or at least it wasn’t working. I suspect that someone in your crew got around to logging it in a few hours later. I could have marched over to the building to get a receipt but I was hauling luggage for two and the shuttle bus stopped right where we were and the driver, very nice guy, waved us in, and off we went. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t receive the promised email receipt.

Quick as a flash, this came in:

Thank you for your email. I apologize if there was an error with the charges on your account, also I understand fully your concern with the luggage and the fact that the shuttle was present at the time. However, it is best to always get a receipt for your rental so that we can discuss any charges at that time. If you have any other questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Moving on, there’s just one question: Hertz or Avis?

I can’t change channels quickly enough when he comes on. Fifteen years ago, the only thing I’d have hired him to pitch was a competitor’s product. But that’s because I’m an idiot. Max Appel, not an idiot, hired Mays in ‘95 to pitch Orange Glo and made millions.
Now I think of Billy Mays as a lesson in DM humility, a perfect example that the fact that I (or you or anyone else) doesn’t like something is irrelevant. The only question is … does it work? A Billy Mays pitch works, not on me but on enough people to make a huge difference. Now he’s got his own TV show. It’s called The Pitchmen.

We all know who got us into this mess: arrogant idiot-thieves in government and arrogant idiot-thieves in financial services.

Apparently under the impression that there really is a free lunch, we keep electing idiot-thieves to pass staggeringly stupid laws and then use them to force compliant, short-term- brainWall Streeters to change their business model from wealth creation and preservation to something closer to the Ted Kaczynski model.

Meanwhile, we curtsy and cling to Emily Dickinson’s thing with feathers.

How on earth do you appoint the kind of regulators who ignore all the warnings about a Madoff? How do you pass laws that force mortgage companies to make loans to people with no assets and almost no income?

How the hell do you show your face in public?

Could the results possibly have been worse if we’d fired the FUBAR-whiz Masters of the Universe at AIG, Citi, Merrill, etc. 10 years ago and replaced them with Bangladeshi rice farmers?

It never would have occurred to the farmers to create toxic assets. They would not have paid themselves zillions. There’d have been no private jets, no limos, no million dollar office makeovers, no conferences in Saint Bart’s and no credit default swaps!

What does this screed have to do with direct marketing?

Not long ago, direct marketing had a simple mantra: test, drop what doesn’t work and do more of what does work. We knew that if we did it right, patiently, carefully, honestly and professionally while constantly learning from experience, our own and others, things would always work out fine.

Had the arrogant idiot-thieves done that, the USA would still be an economic powerhouse. They didn’t. They kept doing insane things because they really and truly believed – and still do! – that they know what’s best, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Sometimes I think there are direct marketers out there falling into the same trap. There’s an aura of arrogant contempt for common sense in our industry.

“Plan? I need this out there now!”

“What do you mean test? I thought you knew what you were doing.”

“We put together a committee and …”

“Postcards are cheap, let’s do more of them.”

“The Internet and email are free.”

“Email all the people who might have a credit card and keep emailing them.”

“LTV? Are you nuts? I have quarterly numbers to reach.”

“That’s great creative; my daughter loves it.”

“Who cares what happened in 2004? That was then, this is now.”

“Segment, Schmegment.”

If we’re getting arrogant, maybe it’s time to call Dacca to see if they can lend us a few rice farmers.