One of the basic axioms of Marketing Wisdom is that wise marketers win customers with wit, humor and entertainment. One of the latest examples of this is series of ads promoting AT&T’s Family Talk program with Rollover Minutes.

Like AT&T’s other recent stellar ad campaign, the Alter Ego series (More Bars in More Places), the Rollover Minutes campaign features excellent writing, fine acting and a wonderful choice of characters – especially the casting of the mom and the oldest son. As the series progresses, the ads increasingly emphasize the tension between the mom’s frugality (“Rollover minutes are still good!”) and the son’s obstinate insistence that the Rollover Minutes are old and therefore useless. (“Mom, these minutes are from September”).

I’m guessing that the campaign’s focus on the interaction between the two characters evolved as the series progressed. The two initial spots featured the entire family with mom, dad and the two sons in the kitchen eating. In the first spot, mom finds the discarded minutes in the trash and in the second spot milk is spilled on the minutes. Later spots feature just the mom and the son. The most recent spot ends with a silent glare-off between the two, which exquisitely portrays the mom’s anger at her teen-age son’s rebellion.

So, what’s the point? First, like the spots in AT&T’s Alter Ego campaign, these spots bear repeated watching that reveals nuances in the performances. This is no mean feat when you consider that the dramas are only 30 seconds long. As an aside, this is yet another example of commercials that are vastly superior in writing, casting and production to many of the TV shows they interrupt.

The second point is that the spots do an excellent job of conveying the advertiser’s message in a memorable fashion. Let one be tempted to pass over this point too quickly, the hold grail of television advertising has always been memorability.

And third, both AT&T campaigns show that paying close attention to the details of dialogue, casting, wardrobe, and set design matter when doing any kind of movie regardless of the length or budget.

One final point – unlike of the arch and hokey devices employed by all too many packaged goods commercials since before television was broadcast in color, the drama depicted in each of the spots in both AT&T campaigns derive its effectiveness from finding the humorous and/or ironic possibilities in common, real life experiences.

Perhaps the essence of Marketing Wisdom is found in the definition of wisdom itself. Wikipedia’s article on wisdom contains a useful list as a guide to identifying wisdom in another:

“A wise person can discern the core of important problems.

A wise person has self-knowledge.

A wise person seems sincere and direct with others.

Others ask wise people for advice.

A wise person’s actions are consistent with his/her ethical beliefs.”

Fair enough. Now let’s see  what happens if we modify these five statements by substituting the word “successful” for “wise” and “company” for “person.”

A successful company can discern the core of important problems. And provide reliable and effective solutions. Since primitive man began divvying up his tasks so that he could focus on, say, fishing confident in the knowledge that another was skinning his previous catch, and yet another was cooking it, enterprises have been born and thrived on meeting peoples’ profound needs.

A successful company has self-knowledge. By differentiating its strengths from its weaknesses a business can concentrate on doing what it’s best at. All too many companies expand to the point of incompetence. Jay Chiat, who founded Chiat Day Advertising and is by many accounts one of the pioneers of modern advertising, once remarked when discussing the growth of his agency, “Let’s see how big we can get before we get bad.”

A successful company seems sincere and direct with others. In other words, its marketing messages avoid hype, borrowed interest and self adulation. As with individuals so many companies, in their pursuit of “importance,” forget that they are still human. Sharing one’s humanity was, is, and will always be one of the basic tenets of successful communication.

Others ask (a) successful company for advice. A hallmark of industry or business category leadership is that others recognize you as an authority. Because of this, the urge to claim leadership is so strong that the FTC regularly has to slap down advertisers for false claims of superiority. Smart businesses constantly reassess themselves, evaluate the results honestly, and invest in improvements to their products and services.

A successful company’s actions are consistent with his/her ethical beliefs. Lately it seems that financial companies, in particular, succeeded by avoiding ethics altogether, though now that the weasels have been dragged from their holes ethics may enjoy a renaissance. However in many other industries a determined commitment to critical standards has turned brands into adjectives for quality or excellence. Once the benchmark of American cars, Cadillac fell on hard times and the brand declined dramatically. Lately however, the company pulled up its shocks and reemerged to reclaim its position as a preeminent luxury car.

I believe that not just Marketing Wisdom, but some kind of Marketing Defense is called for now that advertising spending has shrunk to the point where my local daily newspaper is down to just two sections: Bad News and Sports.

There haven’t been too many voices of optimism in the last few months amidst the overwhelming chorus of Jeremiahs, but I have found some cheer from Warren Buffet with his much cited quote: “The time to be afraid is when others are greedy, and the time to be greedy is when others are afraid.” While Mr. Buffet was likely talking about investing strategy, his words seem to me to apply to many more aspects of life…including marketing.

It’s Monday morning as I’m writing this and in my e-mail I find the weekly update of Brandchannel.com, which is a must-read website / newsletter / blog for anyone toiling in the marketing field. Granted, it’s produced by Interbrand the self-proclaimed “world’s biggest branding resource,” but the self-proclamation notwithstanding, the site is a trove of useful information.  One such nugget is an article by Kevin Randal, Director of Brand Strategy & Research at Movéo Integrated Branding, a brand consulting and marketing communications firm based in

Speaking of my local two-section daily paper, buried amongst the gloom and doom in today’s edition was an article mentioning that Fed Chief, Bernanke was predicting that the recession will “probably” end this year if banks loosen their purse strings. I suggest that businesses unfreeze their ad budgets as well. Some modest ad spending with the resulting expansion in newsprint would be a strong signal that American commerce isn’t taking French lessons.

“Could my recommendation be tinged by more than a little self-interest,” says the grumpy guy in the back? Just so you know I’m not an “ad agency,” which means I don’t commission paid media and therefore have no stake in any media buying. Nor am I a great fan of the local media who readily offer free ads to advertisers so that the advertiser has no need to hire folks such as myself.

What I am is a passionate believer in the value of marketing and the fundamental need for commercial ventures to communicate their goods, services – and most importantly – their benefits to others…whether or not I’m involved in the process.