LEAP DAY FLASH SALE to celebrate the 18th birthday of a splendid man

This is a great day for one of my oldest friends - Daz Valladares.

It is his 18th, which is weird, because he looks much, much older.

That's because he was born on February 29th. Leap Day.

If you don't know Daz, well you should get to know him if ever you want to get great deals on media.

He runs Britain's largest independent media planning and buying business.

When he arrived he had nothing; he used to work 18 hours a day to make ends meet.

He is one of the most generous people I know. I have many world class hangovers to thank him for. It actually took about 30 years before I could find a way of paying for lunch when we met (which was pretty frequently).

We met in 1975, when I was at one of my lowest ebbs (there have been two or three). I actually wrote an e-book to explain how I managed to crawl out of that particular hole and make a few quid.

If you buy this book - which is half price for just today - I will be able to buy him a good birthday lunch, and have a bit left over.

Whilst you will know a few useful things I learned, like:

- How to get started - even if you are a natural born procrastinator like me
- How to stay focused
- The question you must answer before you start any new venture
- How to plan
- And how to carry out your plan
- Your biggest asset in business
- How to have a smart office and not pay rent (perfectly legal)

And if that's not enough, I was quite amazed when I saw how much was in the book.

- How to position your brand as profitably as possible
- How to sell your business
- What mistakes to avoid with a few entertaining horror stories
- A little known marketing fact about PR
- How I sold my agency for a few million
- Surprising news about mergers and acquisitions

All this is information I wish I had acquired a lot, lot sooner.

Because it would have saved me God knows how much money, misery and confusion. And I would have worried so much less

You don't have to worry, though.

If you don't think the book delivers 100 x its price to you in profits during the Leap Year, simply let me know, any time and I will happily refund your money without a quibble.

Go here to buy it now.

Here's a comic (and lying) name for a business. Plus, yes, bankers really DO p**s away your money - and a countdown or two

Are you jaded and bored, or easily entertained? I get fun practically everywhere I turn.

Last night I watched a BBC 4 programme - Sicily Explored - a gastro-historical feast about one of my favourite islands followed by the latest Camilleri story. Three hours of sheer delight.

But one thing never fails to deliver little bites of pleasure. It is the endless stream of brazen lies from the internet hucksters. For example, an email from the Land of Useless Exclamation Marks saying "drayton, as promised here is your Video Secrets Revealed Download!" They say "Professional video is a must when trying to create your own Brand!"

No, it bloody well isn't. Quite a few brands have been built without them: walk round any supermarket or department store and you'll see some. In fact there is a fair bit of evidence to suggest that unprofessional videos are more convincing and may do more for you.

But the best bit of that email is the name of the illiterate senders' website: EliminateMLMfailure.com. If anyone wants to know how you do that, the answer is simple. Don't get involved. Or, if you must, start your own.

Before that they sent me a message saying "drayton, thanks for joining our VIP list!" - which of course I never had - before explaining that their new scam will be the largest MLM launch online. Nice to know that besides ripping me off with some dodgy rubbish they're going to con me on some video deal.

One thing I always imagined until they proved me wrong was that it was impossible not to make money by running a bank. I am full of s**t, as you know from reading this blog - but so are they, it seems. See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106237/Loo-view-The-dizzying-heights-bankers-ivory-tower-toilet.html.

You will notice that part of the story talks about a very tall building. Tall buildings are often harbingers of catastrophe. Years ago Sears Roebuck moved into what was then the tallest building in the world - and almost immediately got into trouble. The minute you start thinking more about your office than your customers, you're in trouble. I actually share an office - which I only visit once a week, to general relief.

That banking story was sent to me by Michael Rhodes who sends me so much interesting stuff, I'm thinking of making it a regular feature.

Another regular feature of this is my repeated intention of moving over to Wordpress - but I'm worried that you'll all desert me. Both of you. I think I'll start one of those wonderful countdowns with a ticking clock.

Talking of which, if you want to make the savings on my EADIM tapes, the opportunity ends at midnight, Pacific Time. I didn't actually tell you much about who was involved, but here's a bit more.

Besides Rory Sutherland who is so funny and perceptive that I have heard he's about to star in a TV series and Steve Harrison, the world's most awarded direct copywriter, I did something nobody ever seems to do.

I explained the whole scope of marketing and the roles of all 12 disciplines. You cannot succeed knowing only one or - even more ludicrous, only part of one. The kind of people who think that are perfect MLM prospects.

Money comes from customers. Martin Chillcott, formerly a top dog with American Express, M & G, Thomas Cook and others talked about them.

Brian Thomas, whom I once hired because he knew a lot more about marketing than me, probably still does - and explains what you need to know with wonderful clarity.

Michael Leander, founder of MarkEdu is such a witty commentator on what's really happening online that I've had him speak every year.

I flew in Mike Marshall from the U.S. - a good investment because he explained a lot about the internet that I never understood - and made us all laugh in doing so. How nice to meet someone who writes software and speaks English.

Marta Caricato, the only PhD I know in marketing besides Steve Harrison, explained how to plan. Formerly with Coral/Eurobet she worked with me for 7 years before moving to the largest direct investment firm in Britain, Hargreaves Lansdown where she works directly with the founder.

Bill Fryer, whose agency gets you better results, or you don't pay, shows you how to optimise everything. Peter Hobday of Subscriptions Strategy Magazine - to whom I always turn when working in that particular minefield - made us all think.

And, to add a little tone to proceedings, Rowan Gormley, co-founder of three Virgin brands with Richard Branson and now boss of the wildly successful naked Wines business, made a cameo appearance.

When I promoted the event I made two guarantees.

One, if by lunchtime on the first day people didn't think it was worth twice what they paid, they could have their money back plus travel expenses. Two, that you simply will not find any group of speakers of this calibre anywhere in the world. Nobody disagreed or wanted a refund.

If you reply now to the one-minute questionnaire here you qualify for the discounts I promised - and I'll tell you more during the week. But this opportunity ends at midnight, Pacific Time.

Friday’s assorted marketing garbage: what IS going on these people’s heads? And some beautiful writing

If Smirking Dave wanted to know what is going on outside the Great Dream Cocoon in which he lives he could do a lot worse than take a walk around Bristol.

One feature besides the groups of half-dressed drunken sluts and their lurching soul-mates most nights is the large number of empty office buildings, failed restaurants and so on. These have spawned some sad attempts at "creativity" by estate agents. I've started collecting them, as the two examples here show.

The one with the lady and the dog needs no explanation and there can be no excuse. The other one promising a bit of WOW is fatuous without further comment; but even more so if you realise that it is stuck on a fine old building in Queen Square, Bristol's largest and grandest, with buildings dating back to the 18th century. It is the last place you would find WOW - or want to, even if it would do you any good.

Other examples of promotional garbage I came across - or which came across me - are an e-mail this morning from some people called the Advertising Club. They are nothing of the sort. They are some recruitment people who want me to take part in a salary survey.

They say "Let your voice be heard! Your perspective matters!" You can always spot bad copy a) by the irrelevant application of exclamation marks and b) by poor use of language. The copy begins, "As a strategic member of the workforce, we invite you to participate in our annual Salary and Job Market study."

What on God's green earth is a strategic member of the workforce? What the hell has perspective got to do with me telling you what I earn? Kindly piss off.

The same school of copy is clearly responsible for a poster at London Bridge tube station, headed, "Work in a fast-paced multilingual environment". And what, pray, does that conjure up? Lots of demented souls rushing about aimlessly, pausing intermittently to gabble at each other in any one of sixteen different languages? Sounds like environmental hell to me.

Re Smirking Dave, how hilarious that Emma Harrison his "Work Czar" - whose idea of motivating people to work is to pay herself £4 million - is caught up in a fraud enquiry. Did Camron not do any checks? The company has undergone five serious investigations into financial irregularity since 2005. But doing your homework is anathema if you believe in government by gesture

The more I see of Cameron, the more I realise that he really is like his idol Tony the Greedy Bliar, but not quite as good at misrepresentation. How fortunate that his opponent Miliband is as poor at opposition as he was himself.

Incidentally, this idea of appointing Czars for everything is, like a lot of bad ideas, just copying what doesn't work in America. Do any of these people realise just how many of the Czars were murderous bastards or reactionary incompetents and that the last one got slaughtered with all his family?

The people who can change things in a society are not tax-dodging multi-millionaires who have nothing to prove. And giving them silly titles won't help either.

But let us turn with relief from the ridiculous to the sublime. I am very keen on books about crime, especially Italian ones. Italian crime has a sophistication and ingenuity all its own, and so does Leonardo Sciascia. His books are so good that she who governs my every step studied them at University.

I have just read and re-read with growing joy a sentence in one of his books describing an important man who has been interrupted in his morning routine by a visit from the police.

"There hovered in the air around him an irritation at being compelled to delay his customary, almost legendarily punctual departure for the offices of United Industries, from whose top floor, as though in confidential familiarity with heaven, he took the daily, almost invariably correct, decisions which kept the whole country on the road to affluence and well-being; even if it was besieged on one side by the spectre of poverty and on the other by that of plague."

It is very hard to manage a paragraph that long without losing the reader, and my heart goes out to the translator, but that phrase "in confidential familiarity with heaven" really made me happy.

Sciascia does require one to use the brain, but if you like something easier, try Andrea Camilleri. Very funny and very good - the best living Italian crime writer. They have made TV shows out of his books.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/oct/14/featuresreviews.guardianreview31

Have a splendid weekend.

Mindless Meanderings in the Shiny Marketing Wonderland: Who Else Walks on Water? Plus a Mickey Mouse Job Opportunity

I don't know why but I get invitations to speak in little spurts. You know how these things are - like waiting for buses. You stand in the freezing cold for twenty minutes, then three come all at once. You can't get on one because it's full, and the other two sail on past.

Anyhow, I have four invitations on the boil at the moment. What to talk about? One person said they had heard I was very funny, and could I be so for an hour? Another asked me to talk about The State of Direct Marketing. A third asked me to teach people what they need to know in a morning.

I think I could do something very similar for the first two, as every time I have contemplated the state of direct marketing in the last 40-odd years I have found it hilarious.

My younger daughter used to love books called "Lemony Snicket's A series of unfortunate events". This pretty much sums up what I have seen of direct marketing. When I first got involved everyone talked about it, but hardly anybody knew what it was, let alone how to go about it. Lucky for me, as I wrote a book to explain both and have made a modest living ever since as a result.

This pervasive ignorance did not stop people making absurd claims to extract money from clients who for the most part to this day don't take kindly to study. Not much has changed, as far as I can make out. Yesterday I was invited to befriend someone on one of the social networks. This was how they described themselves:

"An established marketer with a thorough understanding of Brand, Strategy, ATL, DM, CRM and Digital. Drawing from extensive experience both Client and Agency side in the UK, Europe and Australia."

Pretty amazing, eh? But there was more, under "Specialties" came the following modest list: "Integrated Communications, Digital Marketing, CRM & Loyalty, Strategy & Planning, Financial Management, Team leadership, B2C and B2B, Retail, Tourism, Finance & Insurance, Telecommunications, Beauty, FMCG."

Giants walk among us, friends.

Anyhow besides being asked to crack jokes here and there, I saw an ad yesterday reading, Picture yourself with a New Job at Disney English. Next to it was, Drayton Bird Newest Employee Disney English. It also showed my picture in case I don't know what I look like.

Well, of course, I look ghastly. But I see that the film of "Lemony Snicket's A series of unfortunate events" won an Oscar for Best Make-up. Maybe that is the solution. I have little doubt that the person whose talents I listed above can do that, too. After all, the word Beauty was included.

But do I want to go to China to teach English in a Mickey Mouse costume? Maybe not.

I cannot leave you without mentioning that if you want to know what marketing, and direct marketing in particular, are all about, you should go here.

A competition to find the biggest crooks and fools. Who would win? And an investment puzzle

I don't know what quirk in me makes for this never-ending fascination with rogues and fools.

Anyhow the funniest things I read on Saturday covered both. First, a headline saying "FTSE settles above 5,900 on Greece optimism."

It is my sincere belief that anyone who thinks Greece is not going down the pan is a fool.

And second an email from a charitable well-wisher which read:

This Money Maker is Going CRAZY!!

And it has something for EVERYONE!

1) Don't spend a cent, and learn how to become more successful - online and offline!

That means absolutely FREE!!

Actually you will get $10 in your account to start... on the house.

2) Be passive and...
Triple your money in a few months!

3) Promote actively and...
Earn hundreds per month, right from the start!

Earn thousands per month, with just a little more time...

There's nothing like it on the web!

This is not quite true, actually. There's a LOT like it on the web and clearly a lot of fools fall for it.

But there are also a lot of fools in the investment world - a point beautifully made by the radiant Merryn Somerset-Webb a week or so ago.

"Invest in a Hedge Fund and you will get what you pay for in the sense that someone in Mayfair will randomly shift your money around to save you the effort of losing it yourself."

She then went on to point out that Private Equity Funds are if anything an ever bigger rip-off, as they charge you a thumping great fee whether they invest your money or not.

Years ago when I was writing stuff for an investment firm I read that you would be better off with a blindfold throwing darts a board than taking advice from the average fund manager.

Anyhow I don't understand what goes on in people's heads. Four months or so ago I asked if anyone would like to employ our services on a no-win, no fee basis.

The offer was to do with getting better results on the internet, with us sharing the savings or profits produced.

Quite a few people said yes, but few went ahead.

One who did go ahead has since saved over £50,000. Some of the others didn't want to share the necessary information - their analytics. Others, as far as I can make out, just found the idea of someone else making money out of them obnoxious.

There's nowt so queer as folk.