Where do ideas come from?
[This is me writing for Circulation Management]
If you’re successful in circ management, you’re undoubtedly familiar with statistical regression analysis. The Rosetta Stone of data that works to reveal drivers of response at their source — in ways you can identify, measure, and replicate. It’s a powerful technique about which I understand too little.
What I do know is if you want to be a success in circ creative, you may want to engage in an equally powerful marketing discipline: cultural regression analysis. It, too, can unlock a fountainhead of resonate ideas you can use to inspire creative promotions that are unusually motivating.
I barn-raised this technique back in the late ’80s when given the assignment to beat a Bill Jayme** control for High Technology Business magazine by its Circulation Manager, Mark Hollister.
Newly on my own as a freelance creative, and intimidated by the challenge, I mined my client’s media kit in a deadline-desperate search for an idea. There I learned High Technology Business’ prime reader was male, in his early forties, with a degree in business, science or engineering.
While not as brilliant as the subscribers I sought, I was handy with arithmetic and could man a Bowmar Brain. Working backwards, I soon realized my target customers were graduates when Dustin Hoffman was The Graduate. 1968’s top-grossing film.
More than a mere movie, this was a cultural landmark. A defining moment that separated a generation from its parents. A shared, iconic experience I could tap like a reflex action.
“Plastics!” became the headline of my 9 x 12 carrier envelope — appropriately a polybag — which featured a movie still of Dustin Hoffman. And free-issue tokens showed through a window next to the “Do you know a good opportunity when you see one?” subhead.
Larger than a lingua franca among readers of High Technology Business, I had stumbled upon a good idea for any publisher trying to connect with prospects. We’re all defined by the culture that marinades our coming of age — from our Wonder Years to our Wonder-Why Years — roughly that impressionable span between 13-30.
You can use cultural regression to unlock the meanings and emotions in the lives of your prospects. Simply take the demos of your target audience, do a little subtraction, and soon you’ll be reeling in the years until you find a subscriber’s “Yes, that’s me!” sweet spot.
Ask yourself: What were the top songs and ad jingles? Who were the celebrities and rock stars? Who won elections, games, and headlines? Here’s a handy starting point to help you discover what your back-to-the-future readers are made of.
Now I would like to report that my package for High Technology Business was a giant killer. Not so. Neither Bill Jayme nor I could save a title faltering from the demise of key, slow-to-go-micro advertisers like Digital, Data General, Prime, Wang, and their fellow Route 128 dinosaurs.
The magazine was soon sold off. And soon after High Technology Business shuttered. But the idea of cultural regression analysis took hold and consistently helped me connect with subscribers.
Indeed, I discovered the idea was hardly original to me. And in the hands of others, it was becoming something of an industry. Ken Dychtwald used it to create Age Wave and found himself a foremost archeologist-cum-scout of Boomers. While David Frum’s perceptive romp through the ’70’s How We Got Here revealed it as “the decade that brought you modern life — for better or worse.” Bobos In Paradise by David Brooks traced how the melding of bohemians and the bourgeoisie created today’s most influential and spending-ist subscribers. All while Trivial Pursuit made a rather profitable game of cultural regression analysis.
But for my money, the best way to put the idea into action is to cast your title as a star. While intended as a cultural critique, Neal Gabler’s book Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality is a good read on how to be a different kind of circulation director. Marketing your magazine as the main actor in the screenplay your subscribers are privately living.
Cultural literacy at its best.
Well worth a test.
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**Bill Jayme is the legendary copywriter who is to magazines what Bill Bernbach was to automobiles. May 18th is the anniversary of Jayme’s death in 2001. “Cruel Friday” was Ray Schultz’s warm tribute at the time. One of my many undeveloped ideas for a new magazine is Obit: Life’s Lessons. If it ever got launched, Bill Jayme would be a cover boy again.
