IKEA: "We want you to design a simple ad."

Copywriter: "Hold my beer..." 😏

This Ikea billboard was seen on Oxford Street in London....I love it because it's soooo simple, yet everyone knows what it's for because of IKEA's iconic big blue bags.

Hilarious side note, a few years ago New York made a policy where you couldn't bring dogs on the subway unless they could fit in a bag.....and people used big IKEA bags to skirt this rule 😂

On January 15th I completed 2 months of eating no added sugar (and had a bet with my friend Sam Parr for $1,000 to keep us honest)! 

On that day we pigged out on sugar, then committed to another few months of no added sugar.

I ate a huge slice of cake, ate 5 cookies, around 3 cups of ice cream, and at least 15 pieces of chocolate....and I felt very sick after it all 😂

TO BE HONEST.....this was not that hard.

All through Thanksgiving and Christmas I didn't have a single bite of cookie, cake, pie, or dessert.

I didn't even try the cookies and cake I decorated (I'm especially proud of my Grover cookie) 😂

Once I stopped eating added sugar for 2-3 days the cravings went away. The HABIT is hard to kick (not eating dessert when everyone else is).

This may become more of a permanent change for me in the next year.

Sugar is my uncontrollable vice. It's hard for me to "just eat a little" and stick to that. I always eat wayyyyy more than I intend, and then feel bad about it.

I'm slowly seeing less-and-less benefit to it.

I see more benefit in drinking alcohol (because it's fun) than consuming added sugar.

Check it out, this guy built 20+ tools over 4 years before finding one that’s starting to work!

Look at his list of projects:

Lesson #1: Try lots of stuff. Pivot quick. Act fast.

Lesson #2: The real winner here is GoDaddy for all those domains 😂

"The post-economic nerd" is one of my favorite people...because even with wild success and no need to work, they remain curious and creative and active and often still code or go down rabbit holes of interest.

One of my favorite ones is a guy named Jason Cohen. He started TWO unicorn companies:

• Smart Bear: Finds bugs in software -and-
• WPengine: Managed Wordpress hosting

These are both billion dollar companies, super profitable, and still growing. His blog is one my favorites on the web: longform.asmartbear.com

I recently did an interview with Jason I'll send out on Monday.

We asked some people where they plan to write more in 2024, and here's what people said:

The answers were in this order:

1. Blog: 36
2. LinkedIn: 31
3. Newsletter: 29
4. Twitter/X: 25
5. Facebook: 23
6. Journaling: 21
7. Instagram: 17
8. Medium: 17
9. YouTube: 15
10. Other: 13
11. TikTok: 8
12. None: 6
13. Reddit: 3

Blog, LinkedIn, Newsletter, and Twitter/X were the big winners:

Super interesting!

My favorite category of fiction books is “Hard Science” where the story is obviously fake but the physics are real.

My current read I'm super into is “House of Suns.” 

I’m halfway through the book and gripped!

I'm open to more hard science suggestions if you have them.
 

Good morning! Let’s re-do this classic 1950’s David Ogilvy ad for Schweppes Tonic Water →

Here’s the original…

Let’s give it a more modernized headline 😂

What if we made it more seasonal and festive??

Let’s give it a totally different 90’s vibe (AI):

Let’s make it a little more eye-catching.
…get it…EYE catching 😏

Let’s make it tropical feeling 🌴

That was a fun exercise!  🙂

I love seeing local flyers like this in the wild because :
$2 worth of printing
+
$2 worth of tape
=
Thousands of eyeballs and thousands of dollars in revenue.

Here's the world’s top podcasts from 2023:

It's interesting that each one is from a specific individual:

Saw my buddy @thesamparr taking an evening stroll with the baby, and definitely thought he was wearing a bullet-proof vest 😂

Jay Leno accidentally gives some great marketing advice when talking about the CyberTruck's controversial design.

Reminds me of the quote: "Dare to polarize; it's better to be loved by some and hated by others, than to be forgotten by all."

Jay Leno says: “I just watch people get angry and either hate it, or love it. Bob Lutz told me when the Viper came out, half the people hated it an half the people loved it. But we’re not selling cars to the half that hate it. If you have 100 people that means 50 of them are buying it.”

It reminds me of this quote: “In a world full of ‘meh,’ be a ‘wow’. Blandness gets lost in the noise, but boldness has a chance to be heard.”

And also this quote: “If you try to be everything to everyone, you’ll be nothing to no one. Dare to polarize; it’s better to be loved by some and hated by others than to be forgotten by all.”

Which of these is the better name for an agency that does newsletters and high converting content marketing?
A.) Copy10x
B.) Kopy10x
C.) Email10x
D.) Content Fun
E.) CopyGang
F.) Kontent
G.) Optimize Upgrade
H.) Upgrade
I.) Upgraders
J.) Generate
K.) ConGen
L.) Show Don't Tell
M.) BuildUp
N.) Rebuild
O.) GoBig
P.) BigCheck
Q.) Create10x

Reply and let me know which you like! Or you can tell me they're all "meh" or give me your own suggestion!