TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

1. Imaginative Sterility

   The Jamie Lee Curtis Syndrome

   Nike and Mike&John Paul, the Frito Bandito, Pierce&and Almost Everybody Else

   Lee Iacocca, Look What You Did

   Hara-Kiri: 21^st-Century Style

   "Please Stay on the Line for a Self-serving Message"

   Reader's In-Digest-ion

   Where Does an Alien Go to Register?

   Idiots' Delight

   New Uses for Software Campaigns: A Limp 3 1/2-inch Floppy

   Hit-and-Run Appeals to Fragments

   The Peanut Gallery: A Digestive Directive

   Our Version of the Boston Tea Party

   It Ain't Necessarily So: Ten Creative Myths

2. Process/Technology Abuse
   

   Marquis de Sade, Author of Owner's Manuals

   Invasion of the Term-Throwers, Part I

   Invasion of the Term-Throwers, Part II

   Invasion of the Term-Throwers, Part III

   What a Surprise: Nobody Is Responsible

   Before We Had "CRM," We Actually Had Customer Relationships

   CRM by the Pound

   Darwin Was Right: The Evolution of Motivators

   Will the Real Sax Lewis Please Stand Up&?

   Some Attitudes Just Don't Compute: Smart Uses of Smarter Tools

   They'll Never Know the Difference"

   Sweet Sue!

   A Really Simple Way to Connect with Your Customers: Shipping and Handling

   Some Really Dumb Uses of Really Smart Tools

3. Language Abuse

   Basically, I'd Like to Define This as a Paradigm Shift

   Cell-Phone Phonies

   But Wait, There's More!

   L.O.L.: Take Out the Periods and It's Short for Lollygagging

   A Blockbuster of a Marketing Mistake

   The Importance of Saying "Important"

   Free at Last? Well, Sort of&Except&

   An Embarrassment of Riches

   When It Comes to Award-Winning Artists, We Mean Business. Let's Shake on It

   If Your Caddy Zigs, Does Your Jaguar Jag/ Does Your Saab Sob? And How about a Pap Test for Your Volvo?

   Rocket and Roadmaster, Where Are You?

   Lawyers on Skateboards

   Aw, Come On, You Know Better than to Use These Words

   I Admire You, You Rascal, You

   If John Caples Were Alive Today, He'd Be Turning over in His Grave

   Standing on Our Heads, Riding the Tsunami

   Let's Be More Niggardly with Our Euphemisms

   New and Improved: A Good Old-fashioned Home-made Original

4. Customer Abuse

   Service with a Snile

   Get out of My Face!

   Your Call Is Important to Us. Please Rot on the Line.

   "And How Are You Today?" "Terrible, Thanks."

   The Decline and Fall of Telephone Manners

   Au Revoir to an Old Friend

   Latest Online Service: Customer Elimination Department

   Retail Riddance

   High Tech, Low Tech. The Breitling Chronicles

   The Large Type Giveth & the Small Type Taketh Away: That *$%#@*Asterisk Strikes Again

   Is It Any Wonder They're Skeptical?

   Where Is Ed McMahon Now That We Need Him?

   Vee Know Where You Liff!

   Here's Your Official Survey: We Need Your Opinion on Latvian Flag Design

Post Mortem

Index