Dear Charter:

We've been together for more than seven years now and for the most part I have been very happy. My cable, internet and phone all work as expected a majority of the time and even when I've had problems your customer service people have been surprisingly friendly and helpful.

Yet every week or so I get a little note from you in my email that's clearly intended for someone else.

How dare you.

Aside from the really lousy copywriting – "what you're majorly into" is just wrong on so many levels – this email only reminds me how little you actually care about our "relationship."

For seven years I've spent countless hours and thousands of dollars to keep us together. I can't quit you. I must have your precious high-speed internet. Sure I could stop there but then I wouldn't be able to waste all that time watching bad reality shows, irrelevant sporting events and rigged cooking competitions in stunning high definition that come to me courtesy of your coaxial cable.

But, according to this email you're just not that into me anymore. Your love light has turned to new customers who must be better than me since you're willing to let them have you for nearly half of what I'm paying.

Have you ever thought just once about how that makes me feel? Sure, everybody loves the new kid in town, but what about those of us who have stood by your side through the service outages, billing errors and four hour installation windows?

What do I have to do to get your attention? How can we rekindle our relationship? Here are a couple of thoughts.

First, just show a little compassion and stop making your ogling of other customers so obvious. Could you please make sure I don't see the messages you send intended for others who catch your eye?

Second, you know what I watch. You know what I like. How hard would it be to give me a little something-something every once in a while? I wouldn't mind a free on-demand movie or access to the occasional Red Wings game. Use that big data of yours and surprise me.

I'm not asking for much. Just the attention I deserve.

It's not me, it's you

What Nike understands so well that few other brands understand is that it's not about them.

It's about you.



Their brand and this campaign is relevant after 25 years because it's not about their patented design, their special materials or even the sports stars that endorse their products. It's about that little voice inside of all of us that says, "Get up. Get going. Go further. Go faster." It's about our desire to reach that next level, whatever that level is for us as individuals, while acknowledging the possibility that our potential is beyond what we can even imagine today.

They found that truth about the connection between their products and their users and it became the core of their brand.

What's the truth about your customers? What do they want not from you, but from life? What makes them tick? How does your product help them achieve that? Answer those questions and you'll be on your way to creating a lasting brand.

A writer's writer

My connection to Elmore Leonard, though tenuous, goes way back to the late '60s.

He lived near us in Birmingham, Michigan when I was seven or eight.

Later when I was working at Campbell-Ewald advertising, I learned he had been a copywriter there as well. Rumor has it, he penned his first novel behind a closed office door while he was supposed to be writing copy for Chevrolet.

I only really knew him through his writing.

His work is clean, compact, and seemingly effortless. For those reasons, some don't consider him to be a great writer. I consider him to be great precisely for those reasons.

He knew how to grab attention, create characters, write dialogue and craft stories that sucked you in, all without drawing attention to himself.

He told the story, never getting in the way of it.

As someone who writes for a living – albeit at a very different level – I can only admire his work and hope to learn from its craftsmanship.

Over the past two days, I have seen many celebrations of Leonard's work, but this does it best for me. It's a compilation of all the opening lines he's ever written in published novels and short stories.

What can we learn from these? The importance and power of a strong opening.

They're so good, I need to reread those I've read already and get my hands the ones I haven't.

It's a good thing I have a lot of travel time coming up.