My Mother the Marketer at 97

Ever had something puzzle you only to understand what it means weeks later?

My brother Paul flew in to celebrate our Mom's birthday. We gave her a huge birthday hat to wear with big fat candles on the top, and rolled her to a handsome dining room on the grounds of the nursing facility.

During the course of the meal, we took out our smartphone and played all the videos friends and family had sent her, singing Happy Birthday, Betty!

She was so happy with each. At some she held the phone cupped in both hands to her chest. Some she tried to kiss back. Some she started talking to, "I'm so happy to see you!"

I left my reading glasses on the table. Mom reached for them and put them on. She seemed delighted. I asked, do you need them to see? Worrying she might need glasses now. But no, they didn't help her to see better. In fact - we could tell, if anything they blurred her vision. Mom insisted on keeping them on.

I wanted to take a few pictures, but not with her wearing my glasses. They oddly put years on her face. Mom on the other hand was quite content to keep them on. Why?

Taking a break between soup and cake, wearing the glasses, her animated face became pensive. She pressed her fingers together and brought them to her lips. Mom closed her eyes. When she opened them, it was only to look down (which she doesn't do.) She didn't look at either Paul or me (which she's always doing.)

The glasses didn't make her see more clearly.

Why did she insist on keeping them on?

And why did she after a while close her eyes with a pensive look and pursed lips?

Weeks later (the Ides of March) it came to me.

STEPPING INTO ANOTHER PERSON'S SHOES

Not shoes - glasses

A Pisces, Mom always claimed she could see the other's point of view. She claimed the two-headed fish made it easy for her to look at both sides. Growing up, that annoyed me. And having embraced 19th-century Romanticism early on, I couldn't relate

By putting the glasses that are mine onto her own face, my mother was trying to figure out how I might think!

Eddie Shleyner in his newsletter Very Good Copy (which is very good) recently makes this point about copywriting

"Copywriting is not art -- the way music is art, or painting is art, or literature is art -- because while you can't make art with someone else in mind, you also can't make an ad without someone else in mind."

Figuring out how the other person thinks. Isn't that the holy grail of marketing.

By stepping into the metaphor, my Mom keeps on teaching me.

CODA

Paul rolled her into the gift shop. Ladies there were taken by her birthday hat, and by her. One of them asked very nicely how old was she today? Mom raised her hands and said, "I don't know! One?"

#marketing #rolereversal #copywriting