"What we've got here is...failure to communicate," laments the captain of Road Prison 36, played by Strother Martin, in the 1967 classic Cool Hand Luke, starring Paul Newman.

    The real problem, of course, was Luke Jackson's failure to obey.  But that nuance is largely ignored by Corporate CEOs, Brand Managers, entrepreneurs, and other advertisers who jump from one ad agency to the next in search of just the right communications.

    The Captain's next line was less memorable, but more accurate: "Some men you just can't reach."

    Indeed, no matter how well-researched or slickly produced your advertising, no matter how heavy your media buy, some people just cannot be bludgeoned into compliance.

    I can't count the advertisers who've lamented to me, "We have a unique situation here..." referring to some quirk, oddity, or regulatory anomaly in their category.

   "Every unique situation is exactly the same," I've learned to reply.  "Not enough people agree with you."  There are more Luke Jacksons out there than most advertisers care to admit.

    Should you find yourself in a unique situation, you have three options:

    1)  Find people who do agree with you.

    2)  Change your prospects' minds.

    3)  Change your own mind.

    Option 3) is inevitably the most profitable, but is rarely embraced until millions of dollars have been wasted on 1) & 2).