How to toss $35 million down the drain

->-> How Leo Burnett got away with it

In 2009 Tropicana, the orange juice company, decided it was time for a rebrand.

As a result, Tropicana’s estimated sales dropped?20% in two months?before they decided to go back to their familiar design.

Once people have got an idea of you fixed in their heads it’s impossible to shift.

How do I know this?

And why should you care?

Because if you want to succeed in business, big-time, some things are not enough.

It’s not enough to understand Google or Facebook. It’s not enough to understand copy. It’s not enough to understand direct mail or email or advertising or design or telephone marketing.

To reach the top you must understand how everything works.

• What a brand does for you.
• Research – and why it fails.
• What sells, what doesn’t and why.
• What makes things easy to read.
• How incentives work.
• Why most people get their marketing back to front.
• How to test.
• Little tricks that cost nothing but make money.

Everything.

These things are the fruit of nigh on 60 years’ success - and failure.

Often with my own money – and sometimes misery.

I gravely wonder whether anyone else has a greater range of knowledge.

Born of helping to sell everything you can think of - and some things you can't, like forged Chagal paintings (yes!).

But why did I mention Leo Burnett?

Because his agency – where I once worked – redesigned the Marlboro pack and repositioned the brand to become the world’s biggest brand in its category.

I was commissioned to write a film about this when I was much younger. It was so revealing it was only shown once to the Philip Morris board - then locked away.

And I tell you why Burnett was able to break the rules.

This is partly because in 1963 I met and was taught by the man who wrote the original Marlboro advertising, with one of his colleagues.

He was the chief original source for the main character in Madmen.

Among other things, they taught me how to present successfully.

Did they do a good job?

Join me at The Final Fling and you will find out.

But please, make your deposit now.

Tickets are selling fast.

Best,

Drayton