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The Monday Morning Memo

In 1977 Gary Gilmore chose to be executed by firing squad. When asked if he had any final words, he said, “Let’s do this.”

Meanwhile, Professor Richard Evans of Houston was teaching skills about how to resist peer pressure and other social influences. His solution? “Just say no.” Nancy Reagan decided to champion that slogan and it became the cornerstone of her husband’s War on Drugs.

Most of the ad writers my boss admires have long since passed away, but one remains. Dan Wieden is 76 years old. I doubt he has ever heard of the wizard, but it is obvious that Dan believes what my boss believes.

In every ad-writing class he teaches, the wizard tells his students, “Take your inspiration from wherever you find it, no matter how ridiculous.”

Dan Wieden believes that, too. While Gary Gilmore’s “Let’s do this” and Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no” were tumbling around in in his mind, Dan put together 3 words that became so famous they are now enshrined in the Smithsonian: “Just do it.”

I promise I’m not making this up. Dan has told that story numerous times.

And now I’ve told it, too.

– Indy Beagle

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Random Quote:

“Humans crave patterns. The reason pop music is successful is because almost every song is immediately familiar before you get more than 10 seconds into a first listen. Between the formula of European classical scales and chord progressions that have gelled over hundreds of years and the driving heartbeat rhythms that stimulate our internal organs at the right decibels, listeners are immediately hooked in by familiar structure and themes that have likely been ringing in their ears since they were in the womb. And with the pervasive nature of pop music, where everything is a remix, a feedback loop has been created in which songs are successful because they are familiar, so in order to be successful, songs are created that play on our sense of familiarity.”

- Patrick Metzger, from The Millennial Whoop: A Glorious Obsession With The Melodic Alternation Between The Fifth And The Third

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