ABOUT ME: Starting at 12 years old, I helped my dad “moonlight” in the mail order business by writing copy, buying media and fulfilling orders while he worked his day job on Madison Avenue. A decade later, I joined my father in his new full-time agency —Barry Blau & Partners, later renamed Blau Marketing Technologies —which we grew into the world’s largest independent direct and digital agency.

We were first known as a financial agency, acquiring 16 million credit card accounts for Citigroup and winning billions in assets for Dreyfus and Sanford C, Bernstein. Then telecom, handling MCI, British Telecom and 5 of the original 7 Baby Bells. Then healthcare, launching Oxford Health Plans and Merck’s DTC channel. And, finally, technology, as IBM’s largest integrated marketing agency, reinventing Big Blue’s go-to-market strategy around the world.

After we sold the company, I launched Customer Growth, which you can read about elsewhere on this site. But, before you do, read the amazing story below of my father, who not only taught me practically everything I know, he taught the entire corporate world how to profit from a once obscure marketing model.

ABOUT MY DAD: Barry Blau was one of a handful of visionaries who transformed direct marketing from its beginnings in mail order and subscriptions, into a ubiquitous discipline practiced by just about every business large enough to have a marketing department.

He bridged the two main currents of late 20th century marketing: the TV-focused “creative revolution” on Madison Avenue, and the equally revolutionary growth of direct marketing, propelled by advances in computer technology. To this day, most marketers have their feet on one side or another of this marketing divide, but Barry embraced both.

He began his career working for the mail order legends Max Sackheim and Cecil Hoge, moved into TV brand advertising in its Mad Men era heyday at SSC&B, and finally switched back to direct to build Ogilvy & Mather Direct, and then his own agencies — Barry Blau & Partners and Blau Marketing Technologies. His timing was excellent. He rejoined direct marketing at the time of its most explosive growth, catalyzed by rapid advances in computing power, 800 numbers, credit cards and, of course, the internet.

No five principles can sum up anyone’s career, but anyone who worked with Barry will all recognize these:

1. Return on Investment (ROI) is the only true measure of marketing effectiveness.

2. Live testing is essential because in market research, what people say isn’t what they actually do.

3. The adage that “creative only drives 20%* of response”is false. If the creative fails, you will get 0% response.*

4. Breakthrough creative: a) generates pertinent attention; 2) builds depth of awareness; 3) demonstrates a unique selling proposition.

5. Everyone needs to “have fun while the work gets done!”

Finally, Barry believed that creativity imbues every great marketing strategy, not just the words and pictures in the ad. For example, it was supremely creative for Google to monetize their search engine by selling short-text ads in context with the search terms. Even though the ads themselves do not look particularly creative, they “work like gangbusters” — a term my dad would frequently use. Conversely, it was totally non-creative for the newspapers to assume they could just shrink a conventional print ad (perhaps make it move a little, too), stick it in the middle of an online news story, and then imagine it would work as well for advertisers as well as the old print ads.

To sum up, Barry Blau embraced technology, and demanded hard results, he insisted that any form of advertising is creative advertising, because it all boils down to crafting a message that resonates in the customer’s mind. There’s no mathematical formula, and no software algorithm, that can do that.

At least for now.

* For as long as I can remember, marketing pundits have been citing the “40-40-20 Rule,” as if it’s gospel but in fact with practically zero evidence to bear it out. The claim is: 40% of response is due to media selection, another 40% to offer (price, incentive, premium), and only 20% to the creative ad itself. Most credit this to an obscure 1950 book by Ed Mayer (1907-1975), an early direct marketing author/lecturer. Problem is, no one can find the book! It was hardly a best seller, and last I checked there was a single, extremely mutilated copy listed for sale online at $150. Regardless of whether Mr. Mayer ever wrote about such a“rule,” the truth is: 1) Whatever evidence there is to back it up dates 70+ years ago. 2) It’s not a very helpful rule to use when building a new campaign, as you will need to develop 100% of everything.