Six direct marketing trends

2

50% Of Web Traffic Will Come Through Mobile Devices Within 3 Years*

Mobile 50%

PC 50%

Year 2013

Source: *IDC

1. Mobile

Growth In Apple UU – New Zealand

2010 AdMob

45,193  

38,496  

 63,079    

 57,258    

 6,301    

0  

10,000  

20,000  

30,000  

40,000  

50,000  

60,000  

70,000  

iPhone   iPod  Touch   iPad  March   April   May   June   July  

iButterfly

http://bit.ly/fvCJ8K

4. Social Relationship Marketing

DraftFCB 2010

How things used to be

Canon

http://bit.ly/h6W6RP

2. Personalisation

DRAW

ATTENTION

Print George’s personal landing

page on direct mail

INTERFACE

Welcome George

to his own personal landing page or PURL

and interact

VALUE

PROPOSITION

Send George a tailored proposal based upon

his PURL activity

2 1 3

DraftFCB 2010

DraftFCB 2010

DraftFCB 2010

DraftFCB 2010

3. Data has become democratised

DraftFCB 2010

5. Make your customers direct marketers

DraftFCB 2010

http://bit.ly/eoByIo

6. Mail is alive and well Mr Sam SampleAcme Media AgencyPO Box 1234PonsonbyAUCKLAND

29 September 2009

Dear Simon

This letter is 34 pages long.

It will probably take you more than an hour to read. Seems ridiculous, doesn’t it? And yet, that’s exactly what our readers do every Sunday.

The Herald on Sunday is di!erent. After all, Sunday is the one day of the week when no one’s rushing to do anything. The kids don’t need to be dropped at sport. The housework’s done. The shopping’s done. You’ve now got at least 22 blissful hours ‘til Monday morning. There’s nothing but toast, co!ee and a leisurely read of the paper ahead of you. That’s why it’s no surprise that most readers spend more than an hour reading the Herald on Sunday.

Speaking of reading – there’s just one important thing we need to tell you before you settle in for a nice, long, relaxing read. It’s the Herald on Sunday’s fifth birthday in October, and we’re celebrating with a killer deal for your clients:

Book a full page and pay only $5K.

Yep, that’s a big saving. But you’ll need to give us a call as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. The first material deadline is this Friday 2 October. All placements need to be booked Run of Paper and placed within the month of October, and this o!er cannot be used in conjunction with any other o!ers. Many happy returns!

Now of course, the reality is, the last thing you have time to do right now, on a busy weekday, is sit for an hour reading a letter. So we’ll forgive you if you put this aside for later. But before you do, here’s some gumph from our brag-book in case you need to do the hard sell to your clients.

1. We’re award winning.

The Herald on Sunday has quickly established itself as New Zealand’s leading Sunday newspaper, winning almost every major press award over the past five years including:

At the PANPA Awards in Sydney this month, we also received a highly commended award for best Sunday newspaper in Asia and the Pacific.

the only New Zealand Sunday paper that was honoured. Turns out we’re just as award-hungry as you agency types.

2. We’ve nailed the perfect mix of news, reviews, and shoes.

hard to develop a newsy but entertaining Sunday read, aiming to break more stories on Sunday than anyone else, while also providing strong background features, better columns and more entertain-

the Herald on Sunday covers every reader group and is a perfect mix of hard, relevant and lively news, in-depth sport, investigative journalism – and a relaxed lifestyle Sunday read. And that’s exactly why the Herald on Sunday is such a good

you have a long copy story to tell, or a premium brand that deserves attention, the Herald on Sunday provides the relaxed environment not to just get noticed, but also actually digested.

3. Our numbers are good.

few worth sharing:

on 4 October 2009. It will be issue 261.

professionals, and business decision

the HoS each week.

newspaper from Taupo and north – a geographical area with around three quarters of New Zealand’s population.

times more likely to receive breakfast in bed with the Herald on Sunday than any other newspaper.*

Source: Nielsen Media Research. National

All people aged 15+.

*Okay, we made this one up, but it seems feasible don’t you think?

Right, that’s it for the sales pitch. Thank you for making it this far. You are hereby excused from further reading. But before you put this down, pick up the phone and book some full pages! Super. For those of you who do have time, it’s on with the read. Set your stopwatch and settle in to experience what it really feels like to read

you going to put on your timesheet if you do decide to read this at work? May we suggest the universally untraceable job number bound to bamboozle any agency

works. Try it. Or in these volatile economic times, another fairly safe bet is to write your time o! against “working on the big pitch”. There’s bound to be at least one

Pixels, pineapple rings and puppies.

online every day. It’s a great quick-fix way to find out exactly what you want to know – you can skim the headlines and click straight to the links that grab you. But there’s still nothing quite like the

gentle crackling sound of a newsprint page turning. Around 1.6 million New Zealanders still read the paper version of a newspaper each day. For all those seen heading for the men’s with a newspaper not-even-discreetly tucked under one arm

in the toilet at work is even LESS socially acceptable on a laptop. So the printed version will certainly be around for a little while longer yet.

lucky for your local chippie. The perfect example of genuine recycling in action, fish and chip shop owners were totally ahead of their time when they started wrapping up the shark ‘n’ taties in the pages of the daily news. And it was always an added bonus when you’d arrive home with your packet of hot greasy goodness and find an interesting article to read while you squeezed out the tomato sauce.

Of course, dual-purpose uses for newspaper are many and varied. How could you crank up a cosy crackling fire on a winter’s night without wads of tightly scrunched newspaper? How would you possibly house-train a puppy without piles of newspaper for him to pee on? How would South Islanders stop overnight ice forming on their car windscreens without sheets of newspaper? Then there are all those primary school papier-mache projects that wouldn’t get done. And where would guinea pigs, rabbits, and classroom pet mice live, if not in shredded newspaper?

But enough about burning, shredding and peeing on our stock in trade. The part of the newspaper you’re probably most interested in is the business end. The advertising. Yes, it’s true – without you, dear media darling, we simply could not exist.

Hurry up and get to the ads.

The very first newspaper advertisement

and read as follows:

“At Oyster-bay on Long-Island in the Province of N.York, there is a very good Fulling-Mill, to be Let or Sold, as also a Plantation, having on it a large new Brick house, and another good house by it for a Kitchin & work house, with a Barn, Stable, etc. a young Orchard, and 20 Acres clear Land. The Mill is to be Let with or without

Bradford Printer in N.York, and know further.” Not exactly a contender for the NAB awards, but probably quite e!ective in its own way.

The first full page ads didn’t appear until

every issue of the Herald on Sunday contains around 24 full-page ads – and that’s not including the supplements. If those early newspaper publishers could see our papers now, they would possibly go into immediate cardiac arrest. After all, the Sunday edition of the New York Times alone contains more information than a person 200 years ago would accumulate in their entire life.

We’re in the business of selling, too.

The di!erence between a good and bad front page for the Herald on Sunday can be anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000 sales. A strong front page is crucial – we have around three seconds to capture a potential reader’s eye while they’re out

literally use every centimetre of the front page to sell the paper – photographs, headlines, and content.

The biggest-selling Herald on Sunday ever was our General Election Special in

copy of that front page hanging in his o"ce. Other big sellers in the past five

started in 2006, and any late-breaking news

to more localised ‘spot-news’ stories like car crashes.

Celebrities sell front covers, provided there is a legitimate news angle. Otherwise they have a very comfortable editorial home in the Spy gossip pages. The All Blacks also sell well of course – but only when they’re on form and winning consistently. Yes, it’s sad but true that our so-called mad love of sport could better be described as a fair-weather friendship.

One little known fact about the All Blacks is how they got their name. It was actually a typo in the Daily Mail newspaper in 1905, which intended to describe the NZ team’s playing style as if they were “All

as All Blacks. And the name stuck. It probably helped that the uniform was all black as well.

Breakfast in bed and the importance of size.

Sunday is specifically designed for reading in bed. It was modeled on the latest compact newspaper designs in Europe – and the smaller, more convenient page size has been well-received by readers. Its compact size means you can easily rest it on your knees while you read, leaving your hands free for the co!ee and toast that has been delivered in bed by your doting partner.

at least the smaller size also makes it less intrusive for reading at a local café over your eggs benedict – although admittedly it’s not so good for hiding behind if you see someone you’d rather not. You’d better choose your café wisely.

Anyway. If we agree that this smaller tabloid size is so convenient, why are most newspapers so damn large in the first place? Some speculate it all comes down to

the British started to tax newspapers – not by the size of the publication, but by the number of pages. The natural response was to increase the size of the page, to fit more text for less.

But another possible explanation is that the original purpose of the broadsheet was for posting royal proclamations and o"cial notices, so early press publishers mimicked this oversized format to give more credibility and prestige to their words.Many daily newspapers around the world

are still printed in broadsheet format. The world’s most widely circulated English language daily broadsheet is The Times of India, followed closely by The New York Times, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Papers that have made the switch to an easier to handle compact size include very serious titles like The Times and The Guardian. So don’t let anyone tell you a compact is trashy.

It’s a prop! It’s a shield! It’s a date-recognition device!

Let’s not underestimate the infinite propping capabilities of the humble newspaper. For a spy discreetly arriving at a top-secret rendezvous with an informant, a folded newspaper tucked under one arm is a crucial method of stranger recognition. After all, what could be more dangerous for an international spy of mystery than asking the wrong person whether the goose flies backwards over sunset at noon? And if the spy fears his cover has been blown, the newspaper can quickly be opened up as a mobile shield, while said spy makes a great show of studying an article intently. For blind daters, the same “I’ll be carrying a newspaper under my right arm” trick can be employed to help identify the correct object of one’s potential a!ection, should

happen to be waiting at the bar.

Glamour, gossip and celebrities (and that’s just our sta!).

The gossip column has become one of the most popular sections of the modern newspaper. The Herald on Sunday boasts girl-about-town Rachel Glucina as its resident gossip monger – so entry to every event worth knowing about is pretty well a given. The idea of the glamorous celebrity gossip columnist was immortalized into popular culture by the fictional character Carrie Bradshaw, who wrote the Sex and the City column for fictional newspaper the New York Star. In real life, Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell did in fact write a similarly salacious column, which appeared in the New York Observer.

Rachel Glucina’s most infamous story for the Herald on Sunday was her undercover

06. Here are the highlights, in case you missed it:

“Is it easy befriending a Rolling Stone? Not exactly. There was the burly bodyguard in a bulletproof vest I met the night before the band’s Auckland gig last Sunday who said he was on the look-out for ‘’prowlers’’. ‘’You know,’’ he explained, ‘’paparazzi, journalists and young women who want to meet Mick and get their picture in the paper.’’ Oh God, I panic. I’m all three of those.

Langham Hotel, where Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie had arrived two hours earlier. I’ll be honest – I was on an o"cial undercover stakeout for the Herald on Sunday. Perhaps I might catch Mick flirting with a pretty girl. Maybe I’d see someone drink too much. Take drugs. It’s gossip,

the Rolling Stones entourage and crew – something had to happen.

low-key entrance into the bar – the others, I later learn, prefer to party privately in their rooms. ‘’They’ve got wives and family,’’ it’s explained. My girlfriend and I stay to drink Bollinger Reserve with the entourage while Mick is two seats away and, though I never get to speak to him, it’s all terribly exciting.

Next day, the bodyguard – Paris Hilton’s former protection – calls. Nice to have

up afterwards.”

if I’m happy with the seats. Happy? I was a personally-invited guest, sitting a handful of rows from the front and I’m partying with the Rolling Stones later. Happy was an understatement.

bodyguard whisks me aside and whispers

would I mind sitting and talking with him?

minutes, guests were turfed o! a couch, chairs had been drawn up and I was being beckoned to sit and await His arrival. Beside me is my undercover sidekick, Olivia Hemus, former model, social photographer, a snappy little camera

The wiry man in the dishevelled shirt and jersey around his shoulders looks little like the rebellious, arrogant, peacock showman I’d seen earlier on stage. He meanders around the bar then lounges on the couch next to me. And so the fun begins.

never stops. There’s no doubt he loves the company of women – young women particularly. He is an incessant flirt, but charming with it. And there is that Peter Pan complex. He’s smitten with our youthful enthusiasm and likes a bit of attitude. Though there is a universe of di!erence between our lives, he’ll compare his various exploits with mine. On my New York travel tales: ‘’Oh yeah, the Chelsea Hotel. I used to visit Dylan when he stayed there but that was before he made his money.’’

Mick is nothing if not cool but there’s still an appealing vulnerability about him.

his thin frame, crossing his outstretched arms across his chest. He commissions Alexander McQueen and Dior menswear designer Hedi Slimane – master of the thin androgynous look – to make his stage costumes. ‘’I’m getting new ones from Hedi when I get back to Europe,’’ he says. ‘’But I always have to stipulate to him not too thin, I have to be able to move on stage.’’

He calls the waiter for more champagne. But not for him, he’s on water. ‘’Three’s my limit and I’ve guzzled them back already tonight.’’ And that is just one of the surprises about the debonair but

Of course, the lovely Ms Glucina is not the only celeb on the Herald on Sunday

columnists is unrivalled, including the

Richard Loe, Sean Fitzpatrick, Peter Calder,

Hill Cone.

A few big breaks and you can keep the sex.

For you, dear reader, success is all down to reach and frequency. For us, success is a little like surfing: it’s all about getting the big break. This year the Herald on Sunday has broken a number of significant news stories, including:

David Bain retrial and acquittal.

The rush of excitement a journalist gets from making a really big break can be

claimed to be better than sex. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. A great pair of shoes, on sale, and they only have one size left – yours.

3. A head massage.4. Peking Duck.5. Ghostbusters on Blu-Ray.6. Tru#ed French Fries from Logan Brown

9. The final five minutes of the last episode of The Sopranos.10. Finishing Halo 2 on Legendary.

Newspaper crimes.

we might as well stoop to crime. Yes, newspapers are filled with reports on crime. But what about illegal uses of the newspaper itself? The first one that springs

kidnapping, after all, without a ransom note constructed from cut-up newspaper

a moment to think about precisely what it is you want to say. If you like, you can brainstorm with a pencil and paper… but remember to burn the evidence! No need to leave incriminating scraps of paper around your apartment or creepy sub-basement lair.

hours crafting your note, it’s important to remember that the average ransom-note reader will likely spend just ten to twelve seconds reading your hard work before breaking down into complete hysterics and waving your note helplessly in the air.

from countless other threats is the presentation. You should choose a design that is eye-catching, but not overly flashy.Remember, you’ve got only ten seconds to make a lasting impression!

withstand the rigorous wear and tear to come. Remember, a good ransom note will be passed around dozens of hands: friends, family members, and local, state, and possibly federal authorities.

cut up any old newspapers at hand. The careful, considerate ransom-note writer will pay attention to colour scheme and font compatibility. Mixing and matching various sizes, shapes, and serifs of your fonts could prove harsh on the eyes. Ultimately, you want the reader to smoothly and quickly get to the end of your note without ever stumbling over an awkward logo.

Taneski wrote about the serial killer stalking his hometown in Macedonia, his eye for detail was such that the story was soon riveting readers.

His inside knowledge of the murders of three women in the tiny town of Kicevo ensured that newspaper editors gave his columns prominence. But the mild-mannered journalist’s intimate accounts of the murders soon lead to

his inclusion of details police had chosen not to release. Unlike any of his journalist rivals, Taneski knew the type of phone cord the killer used as his signature weapon. He was arrested but committed suicide before he could stand trial.

The most notorious serial killer of all time also made good use of the newspaper:

involved extremely gruesome acts, such as mutilation and evisceration, which were widely reported in the media. Newspapers, whose circulation had been growing during this era, bestowed widespread and enduring notoriety on the killings because of the savagery of the attacks and the failure of the police to capture the murderer.

Rumours that the murders were connected intensified in September and October, when a series of media outlets and Scotland Yard received a series of extremely disturbing letters from a writer or writers purporting to take responsibility for some or all of the murders. One letter, received by George Lusk, of the

included a preserved human kidney.

Mainly because of the extraordinarily brutal character of the murders, and because of media treatment of the events, the public came increasingly to believe in a single serial killer terrorizing the

received by the Central News Agency. Although the investigation was unable to connect the later killings conclusively

Faster than a fast-growing thing.

The Herald on Sunday has been the fastest growing New Zealand newspaper over the past five years. On the subject of growing fast, did you know that the fastest growing

fingernail on the human body is the middle finger? The thumb is the slowest. The fastest growing plant in the world is bamboo, which can grow a staggering three to four feet a day. The fastest growing animal is the blue whale calf, which gains as much as 90 kg every 24 hours. Slightly disgusting, yet impressive.

The other thing that’s probably growing fast is your disbelief. As you make your way through this hour-long letter, unable to fathom quite how long an hour of reading really feels, you are also starting to realise how mind-boggling a task it must have been to actually compile it. An hour of reading is one thing. But to actually type

by now that the writing must have taken a little longer.

Yes, it’s a giant task – but it’s worth the e!ort. After all, without our media agency contacts, we would have no bookings for ads. And without bookings for ads, we would have no revenue. And without revenue, we’d have no paper. And without a paper, we’d have a whole bunch of journos out of work. And with a whole bunch of journos out of work, our cafes would be over-run with waiting sta! who’d wanna know exactly how you FELT when you ordered the French Toast. And that would just be annoying.

too seriously. After all, journalists are only number 34 on the New Zealand’s list of Top 40 Most Trusted Professions, according to readersdigest.co.nz. That doesn’t sound too bad – until you realise that number 35 is psychics, and number 36 is sex workers.

slimy Hollywood image of the reporter who’ll say anything to break a story? Probably the only consolation for us is that you marketing folk don’t even make it into the Top 40 at all! So we might as well all slink o! to Showgirls and read each other’s

You’re about twenty minutes into your hour of reading.

It’s time for some bad news. You’ve made it this far, and you’re still not even half way through. Yep, to sit and read for an hour means Herald on Sunday readers are a dedicated bunch, that’s for sure. Especially when you consider all the other ways you could spend that hour instead.

You could alphabetise your CD collection, for instance. Or scrub the grout between the bathroom tiles. You could make it to the supermarket – and back. You could take

vacuum while you’re at it. Or perhaps get the kitchen back into shape after the “few quiets” you enjoyed last night.

But instead of doing any of those things, our faithful readers are sitting in bed, or at a café, or stretched out on the sofa, doing nothing but reading our humble compact paper – and your clients’ glorious ads of course.

If you’re reading this at work, you’ve just spent twenty minutes of totally un-chargeable time. So what could you have been doing over these last twenty

making a cup of tea”. “Now drinking cup of

-room to pee out cup of tea”. “Now taking empty mug back to kitchen”.

Yip, it’s hard to imagine how we ever survived without social media. But if you’re not a member of the Twitterati, and you’ve already scrolled through everybody’s party photos on Facebook, how else could you have spent twenty minutes of downtime at the media agency? If you’re lucky, you have a pool table - or better yet, a foosball table. But that requires a colleague willing to play

Of course, another time-filler that just never gets old is self-googling. Simply type your name into google and find out if you’re interesting at all. At least if you don’t seem very interesting, you might find someone else with the same name who is. Don’t forget “pages from New Zealand” and “images” too.

Getting back to the point.

Any of the above options could have been a better use of your time than continuing to read this letter. Even we’re getting bored with it. But we can’t give up now – we’re trying to prove a point. And in case you’ve glazed over and completely forgotten what that point was, it was this: Herald on Sunday readers spend an HOUR reading the paper every Sunday – and an hour is a very long time indeed.

Admittedly the paper’s content is more stimulating than this. And it is rather nicely punctuated with photographs and ads. But still. You can forgive us a little creative licence for the purposes of proving a point.

Now, if you’ve made it this far you are one of the few. So you deserve a little reward for your e!ort. Next week, we will be letting everyone know about an extra 5th birthday celebration incentive we’re o!ering. But you, dear patient and long-su!ering reader, get to find out about it now. It’s a lunch

It’s at The Grove, which as you know is outstanding, and it’s worth five thousand dollars. Depending on how many you invite, that could be either an awful lot of champagne for your media team, or a modest lunch for every client you ever wanted to schmooze. To be in with a chance to win, all you need to do is take up our fabulous 5th birthday o!er: place a full page in October.

The other reason we chose to give away that little secret here of all places, is that it’s page 13. The number 13 has been tarnished as evil and unlucky, to the point where many streets have no number 13 – the letterboxes go straight from 11 to 15. But 13 is lucky for some, and in this case, it turned out to be lucky for you.

Superstition, scales, and dinner party trivia.

might as well cover o! horoscopes. The Herald on Sunday’s birthday is early October, which means our star sign is

or not, it’s hard to argue with how appropriate the Libran characteristics are for a newspaper:

“Libra is represented by a pair of scales - the only sign to be represented by an inanimate object. This says something about the Libra objective – to be fair and balanced in everything in a detached way. It is an air sign and therefore seeks an ideal. At its best, Libra can view complex situations, maybe emotionally highly charged ones, and come to a balanced view based on a fair consideration of all the options. However, it may take a while to come o! the fence! Come down in favour of one side of the scales and the other side goes up and Libra always seeks to restore balance.”

Famous Librans include Margaret

Nietzsche, Gwen Stefani, Eminem, Bob Geldof, and Brigitte Bardot.

list reads like one of those ultimate dinner party guest lists. Imagine sitting opposite

side of you! You might want to put Marg Thatcher and Bob Geldof at opposite ends of the table to avoid a food fight breaking out. But Eminem could probably have an interesting conversation with Martha Stewart about getting busted by the cops.

And Avril could give Nietzsche a good

second planet from the sun, and the sixth largest. After the sun and the moon,

sister planet. In some ways they are very

indicating relatively young surfaces. Their densities and chemical compositions are similar.

Because of these similarities, it was

might be very Earth like and might even have life. But, unfortunately, more detailed

important ways it is radically di!erent from Earth. It may be the least hospitable place for life in the solar system. So much for

mostly of carbon dioxide. There are several layers of clouds, many kilometres thick, composed of sulphuric acid. These clouds completely obscure our view of the surface. This dense atmosphere produces a green-

temperature by about 400 degrees to over

surface is actually hotter than Mercury’s despite being nearly twice as far from the

the cloud tops but winds at the surface are very slow, no more than a few kilometres per hour.

of water like Earth but it all boiled away, leaving the planet quite dry. Earth would have su!ered the same fate had it been just a little closer to the Sun. A scary thought.

between the Earth and the Sun, appearing as a large black dot travelling across the Sun’s disk. This event is known as a “transit

That’s even longer than this letter.

The Sunday roast and the Sunday drive.

the good old-fashioned roast dinner. Any meat and veges you like, as long as they’re served with stu"ng and lashings of gravy.

The origin of the traditional Sunday roast has been traced back to Yorkshire, England,

beginning of the agricultural revolution. It came about as the answer to a very simple need: families going to church on Sunday mornings wanted to return home at lunch time to find dinner cooked. They needed something that could be left to cook slowly for a few hours while they were gone.

The Sunday roast has come full circle back into popularity, with the Nana’s Roast chain ironically finding success as a fast food option for busy people who still want the taste of a home-cooked meal.

Another great Sunday tradition is the Sunday drive. Packing the family into the station wagon and driving to . . . well,

the streets at a cruising speed of 40kph at most.

Sunday tradition that has not survived quite so well. These days, the only reference to Sunday driving you’ll hear is a derogatory description of slow and erratic driving behaviour.

Sunday driving probably came about because people needed something

shop trading on Saturday and Sunday

Shopping hours were not liberalised until 1990. These days, shops may open at any time – with the exception of Good Friday, Easter Sunday, ANZAC Day and Christmas Day. Certain types of shops, such as petrol stations and dairies, are specifically excluded from this restriction and are still allowed to trade on these days.

However, outside the main cities, Sundays are still sacred after all – most shops close for the weekend on Saturday afternoons. Hopefully they still have access to their Herald on Sunday though – otherwise they’d be bored shitless.

Sunday hangovers.

It’s sad but true that many of our readers are nursing a pounding head when they pick up a Herald on Sunday at the dairy. Saturday night is party night after all. The term “hangover” was originally a 19th century expression describing unfinished business — something left over from a meeting. In 1904, the meaning “morning after-e!ect of drinking too much” first surfaced and has stuck ever since.

There has been much debate over the years as to whether there is such thing as a “cure” for a hangover. Simple consumption of foods such as eggs, which contain cysteine,

and water may be enough to replenish lost moisture and at least re-hydrate the body, making a hangover shorter. That’s why you still can’t go past a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich.

If you live in crawling distance to The

their Sunday brunch menu includes a well-spiced Bloody Mary – which if not a hangover cure, at least keeps that party feeling alive a little longer.

The name Bloody Mary refers to the blood-like colour of the cocktail. It is believed that inspiration for the cocktail

previously, a similarly red cocktail consisting of rum, grenadine, and Maraschino had been named after her.

Other sources trace the name to a waitress named Mary who worked at a Chicago bar called the Bucket of Blood. In 1934, the cocktail was called “Red Snapper” at the St. Regis Hotel. It was here that Tabasco sauce was added to the drink, and the name “Bloody Mary” eventually won popularity.

In the 1960s it became popular to serve the cocktail with celery. It also became popular to poke cubes of cheese into oranges with toothpicks, but thankfully that fad didn’t survive.

From Mary to Harvey.

hangover cure cocktail. But there are plenty of other cocktails with ridiculous names. There seems to be some kind of global conspiracy to get slightly drunk people to embarrass themselves in front of bar sta!:

“Ah yes, I’ll have two Slippery Nipples please”. “Er, excuse me, can I get another round of Quick F**ks?”

Then there’s the Screaming Orgasm, the

Death in the Afternoon, which is simply Absinthe and Champagne.

Cocktails go in and out of style, and drinking trends are easily influenced by the media. The Cosmopolitan became the biggest-selling cocktail in the world thanks to Sex and the City, and everyone knows

The phrase “shaken, not stirred” first appears in the novel Diamonds Are Forever

uttered by Sean Connery in the film

those words in the first film, Dr. No,

It was used in numerous Bond films thereafter with the notable exceptions of You Only Live Twice, in which the drink is o!ered stirred, not shaken. Bond, ever the gentleman and not wanting to cause his polite host embarrassment brushes it o!, telling his host it’s perfect. In Casino Royale, when asked if he wants his martini shaken or stirred, Bond replies, “Do I look like I give a damn?”

The thirty-minute mark.

what you could have done on a Sunday in thirty minutes. A wad of yesterday’s newspaper and a bucket of hot water with a splash of white vinegar is all you need to get the cleanest, shiniest windows ever.

But a Herald on Sunday reader would have only just finished with the Sunday Homes section and the juicy Spy pages, and would be moving on to the Insight section for more of a serious read.

Of course, some Herald on Sunday readers would by now be reaching for a pen and settling in for a serious Sudoku session. Sudoku became an international hit in 2005, and even though the puzzle had

was behind the huge surge in popularity.

Zen and the art of puzzle solving.

Over the next six years he developed a computer program to produce puzzles quickly. Knowing that British newspapers have a long history of publishing crosswords and other puzzles, he promoted Sudoku to The Times in Britain, which launched it on 12 November 2004.

The first letter to The Times regarding Sudoku was published the following day, on 13 November, from Ian Payn of Brentford, complaining that the puzzle had caused him to miss his stop on the tube. The rapid rise of Sudoku in Britain from relative obscurity to a front-page feature in national newspapers attracted commentary

The Guardian’s G2 section advertised itself as the first newspaper supplement with a

Recognizing the di!erent psychological appeals of easy and di"cult puzzles, The Times introduced both side by side on

4 included a daily Sudoku game in their Teletext service. On 2 August, the BBC’s programme guide Radio Times featured a weekly Super Sudoku which features a 16x16 grid.

In the United States, the first newspaper to

-

started publishing Sudoku in early 2005.

People are either into Sudoku or they’re not at all. There seems to be no halfway camp. Sudoku-ists become madly passionate.

Bobbi Bowman’s take on it:

“I have slowly realized that Sudoko teaches many of journalism’s best lessons: accuracy, attention to detail, the importance of looking for patterns and the fact things are not always what they appear to be. Sudoku appears to be about numbers. It’s not. There is no math in Sudoko. Zip. Nada. None. The numbers are simply a device to teach you how to think through a problem and arrive at the right conclusion based on the evidence before you. It teaches logical thinking.”

From numbers to words.

Even more popular than Sudoku is the crossword puzzle. Here’s a story from

Reader” of how crossword puzzles came to be – and why it took over twenty years for The New York Times to convince itself

writer for the game page of the New York

One winter afternoon in 1913, while trying to think up new types of games for the newspaper’s special Christmas edition, he came up with a way to adapt the “word squares” his grandfather had taught him when he was a boy. In a word square, all of the words in the square have to read the same horizontally and vertically.

the “across” words were di!erent from the “down” words. It was more challenging, since there were more words to work on.

December 21 as planned. And it was well-received. So many people wrote in to praise the puzzle that he put one in the paper the following Sunday, and again on the third Sunday.

Reversal of fortune.

Four weeks after the puzzle first appeared, typesetters at the newspaper inadvertently transposed the words in the title to read

months later, readers were so hostile that the paper reversed itself and decided to make it a permanent feature of the puzzle page instead. Though the puzzles were popular with readers, they were decidedly unpopular with editors. Crosswords were di"cult to print and were plagued with typographical and other errors. In fact, no other newspaper wanted any part of them. So for the next ten years, if you wanted to work on a crossword puzzle, you had to buy

Enter Simon and Schuster.

According to legend, in 1924 a young Columbia University graduate named Richard L. Simon went to dinner at his

and a cross-word devotee, she asked where she could buy a book of crossword puzzles for her daughter. Simon, who was trying to break into the publishing business with college chum M. Lincoln Schuster, told her there were no such books … and then it occurred to him he could publish one himself.

The next day, he and Schuster went to the

paper’s crossword puzzle editors. They would pick the newspaper’s best crossword

publish them in a book. The pair then used

Puzzle Book. It was literally an overnight

flocked to stores to get copies, and by the end of the year they had sold more than 300,000 crossword books.

The book turned Simon & Schuster into a

publishing house and the second-largest

craze. Crossword puzzles became a way of life in the 1920s. Newspapers started adding them to increase circulation. They inspired a Broadway hit called “Games of 1925” and a hit song called “Crossword Mama, You Puzzle Me.” An interesting spin-o! was that sales of dictionaries soared , and foot tra"c in libraries increased dramatically. The B&O Railroad even put dictionaries on all of its mainline trains for crossword-crazy commuters.

Crossword casualties.

Some folks were driven over the edge by the craze. In 1924, a Chicago woman sued her husband for divorce, claiming, “he was so engrossed in solving crosswords that he didn’t have time to work.” The judge ordered the man to limit himself to three puzzles a day and devote the rest of his time to domestic duties. In 1925, a New York Telephone Co. employee shot his wife when she wouldn’t help with a crossword puzzle. And in 1926, a Budapest man committed suicide, leaving an explanation in the form of a crossword

the craze died down. It took the New York Times to revive it. Today, more than 90 percent of newspapers around the world have crossword puzzles, and, according to a study by the U.S. Newspaper Advertising Bureau, 26 percent of people who read newspapers regularly attempt to solve them.

Setting the pace.

The New York Times crossword puzzle sets the standard that other puzzles follow. Here are just some of the “rules” that were established by the Times example:

that appear in only one word of the puzzle. Every single letter of the puzzle must be part of both a horizontal and a vertical word.

“diagonally symmetrical.”

more than one-sixth of the total design.

crossers” – that is, obscure words should not intersect one another.

Give us a clue.

In essence, a cryptic clue leads to its answer as long as you read it in the right

distraction and usually has nothing to do with the clue answer. The challenge is to find the way of reading the clue that leads to the solution.

A typical clue gives you two ways of getting to the answer, either of which can come first. One part of the clue is a definition, which must exactly match the part of speech and tense of the answer.

tasks of the solver is to find the boundary between definition and wordplay and insert a mental pause there when reading the clue

joined with a link word or phrase such as

Because a typical cryptic clue describes its answer in detail and often more than once, the solver can usually have a great deal of confidence in the answer once it has been determined. This is in contrast to non-cryptic crossword clues, which often have several possible answers and force the solver to use the crossing letters to distinguish which word was intended.There are many code words or “indicators” that have a special meaning in the cryptic crossword context. Learning these, or being able to spot them, is a useful and neces-sary part of becoming a skilled cryptic crossword solver.

Crossword setters often use slang terms and abbreviations, generally without indication, so familiarity with these can be useful. Also words that can mean more than one thing are commonly exploited: often the meaning the solver must use is completely di!erent from the one it appears to have in the clue. Some examples are:

cable, or the verb.

or a code-word indicating an anagram.

So there’s a challenge for you – if you’ve never attempted the Cryptic Crossword, give it a go this Sunday.

The forty-minute lunch.

By now, you’re about forty minutes in. How are you feeling, having spent forty

think what you could have done in these very same forty minutes. You could have

back at your desk, swaying pleasantly in the air-conditioned breeze.

Yes, even the vice-like grip of the recession has done little to dull our appetite for business lunching. The general consensus seems to be “we all gotta eat”. So tomorrow, when you’re o! to a posh lunch instead of wading through this letter, here are some things to bear in mind from business etiquette expert Catherine Franz:

1. Be in the present moment with whom-ever you are with. Limit glancing around the room. It’s a sign that you are looking for something better. There is nothing worse than having a conversation with someone who is half there.

2. Be on time. This sounds so obvious, but the percentage of people being late is over 65 percent. Don’t push your time to the last minute before leaving the o"ce so you will be late. Take some reading or work with you, arrive early, sit in the lobby, and work. The memory implant of your lateness will always override any request for forgiveness.

3. Turn o! your cell phone before entering the restaurant. No one around you wants to hear your conversation. Even if you let it ring, pick it up and then take it outside. Did you leave your lunch companion alone? This is just plain rude. If you have an “I don’t care” attitude about this, I’ll tell you a story about a lunch guest of mine who did this and the three prospects she was meeting didn’t even sit down. They saw her talk, she waved a 1-minute finger single to them, and they turned around and walked out. They wouldn’t even answer her phone calls or emails afterwards.

4. O!er your hand and give a firm hand-shake. Sometimes, people who don’t like to shake hands will not meet yours. Don’t think anything of it if they don’t, this is just their preference. And particularly don’t say something cute or funny.

5. Think of an opening statement to make as you are shaking hands. This is part of your first impression, so make it good. Always use the guest’s first name either at the beginning or at the end of the state-ment. For example, “Thank you for taking the time to get together today, Catherine.”

-troductions, highest rank rules over gender.

6. Small talk is important - don’t leave it out. The length of time for small talk depends on many factors. If you are in the presence of famous or very rich people and not in a social setting, then the small talk, if any, is going to be quick and short. It could be as short as one or two sentences. People who know how much their time is worth, or who are doing you a favour by being there, also fall into this category.

7inviting, you are responsible for the cheque. No matter how more well o! they are. If a joint meeting, ask at the beginning or when scheduling the lunch on cheque splitting.

the cheque splitting is a sign of profes-sional weakness. If you are meeting with someone who is giving you valuable advice, you must pick up the tab. A personal handwritten follow-up note is also appropriate. If they have saved or helped you make more money, send them a gift or gift certificate. If you don’t you will never get any more of their time again.

8.Immediately after sitting, place the napkin in your lap. If you excuse yourself during the meal, place the napkin on the left hand side of your plate or on the chair. This sig-

done, place napkin on the right of the plate and your cutlery horizontally across the plate to signal the server.

On the subject of dining etiquette, we all know not to talk with our mouth full, and not to gesture with our cutlery. But how would you get on in Afghanistan? Consider this rule: If bread is dropped on the floor while eating at a table, the bread should be picked up, kissed, and put to one’s forehead before putting the bread back somewhere other than the floor.

Early editions.

Do you remember the 1996 television series “Early Edition”? Set in the city of Chicago, Illinois, it followed the adventures of a man who mysteriously receives each Chicago Sun-Times newspaper the day before it is actually published, and who uses this knowledge to prevent terrible events each day.

A newspaper from the future is a plot device encountered in various other

science fiction or fantasy stories. An early example of this device can be found in the

Story of Brownlow’s Newspaper,” which tells the tale of a man who receives such a paper from 40 years in the future.

The 1944 film “It Happened Tomorrow” also employs this device, with the protagonist receiving the next days’

the Future” movie used a similar device, having the antagonist prosper after receiving a booklet of sports trivia from the future based upon which he could place bets. In the television series “Goodnight Sweetheart,” a man who is able to travel

to place wagers on sporting events of the 1940s by consulting the next day’s paper, which exists in his own era

The newspaper from the future, like any communication from the future, raises questions about time travel and the ability of humans to control their destiny. If the recipient is allowed to presume that the future is malleable, and if the future forecast a!ects them in some way, then this device serves as a convenient explanation of their motivations.

In “It Happened Tomorrow,” the events that are described in the newspaper do come to pass, and the protagonist’s e!orts to avoid those events set up circumstances, which instead cause them to come about. By contrast, in “Early Edition,” the protagonist is able to successfully prevent catastrophes

the protagonist does nothing, these

the future news may not explained, leaving it open to the reader/watcher to imagine that it might be technology, magic, or an

author writes of the newspaper “apparently it had been delivered not by the postman, but by some other hand”. No explanation is o!ered for the source of the future news.

Goofs, nincompoops and ga!es.

Described as the mother of all goofs, “Dewey Defeats Truman” was a famously incorrect banner headline on the front page of the Chicago Tribune. The date was 3

United States President Harry S. Truman beat Republican challenger and Governor

presidential election in an upset victory.

The paper’s erroneous headline became notorious after a jubilant Truman was photographed holding a copy of the paper during a stop at St. Louis Union Station while returning by train from his home in

DC. Truman’s joy was no doubt increased by the ga!e from the staunchly conservative Republican Chicago Tribune, which had once referred to Truman as a “nincompoop”.

In a retrospective article over half a century later about the newspaper’s most famous and most embarrassing headline, the Tribune wrote that Truman “had as low an opinion of the Tribune as it did of him.”

election, the printers who operated the Linotype machines at the Chicago Tribune and other Chicago papers had been on strike, in protest of the Taft-Hartley Act. The Tribune had switched to a method where copy for the paper was composed on typewriters and photographed and then engraved onto the printing plates. This process required the paper to go to press several hours earlier than usual. On election night, this earlier press deadline required the first post-election issue of the Tribune to go to press before even the East Coast States had reported any results from the polling places. The

correspondent and political analyst Arthur Sears Henning who had accurately predicted the winner in four out of five presidential contests in the past 20 years. Conventional wisdom, supported by polls, was almost unanimous that a Dewey presidency was inevitable, and that the New York governor would win the election handily. The first edition of the Tribune therefore went to press with the banner

As returns began to indicate a close race later in the evening, Henning continued to stick to his prediction, and thousands of pa-pers continued to roll o! the presses with the banner headline predicting a Dewey victory. Even after the paper’s lead story was rewritten to emphasize local races and to indicate the narrowness of Dewey’s lead in the national race, the same banner headline was left on the front page.

Only late in the evening, after press dispatches cast doubt upon the certainty of Dewey’s victory, did the Tribune change the headline to “DEMOCRATS MAKE

two-star edition. However, some 150,000 copies of the paper had already been pub-lished with the erroneous headline before the ga!e was corrected.

As it turned out, Truman won the electoral

and Dixiecrat candidate Strom Thurmond, though a swing of just a few thousand votes in Ohio, Illinois, and California would have produced a Dewey victory. Instead of a

both houses of Congress, the Democrats held the Presidency and regained control of both the House and the Senate.

In later years, the publishers of the Tribune were able to laugh about the blunder. As

approached, the Tribune had planned to give Truman a plaque containing a replica of the erroneous banner headline. However,

the gift could be bestowed. The Tribune was not the only paper to

Commerce had eight articles in its November 3 edition about what could be expected of President Dewey. The paper’s

Seen as Mandate to Open New Era of Government-Business Harmony, Public Confidence.”

If you like it, buy it.

In the United States, newspapers don’t just

own o"ce buildings and a whole lot of useless information. Oh no. They own things like baseball teams. The Tribune

Times own a share of the Boston Red

the company’s second-largest stakeholder. In addition to the Red Sox, this share also gives the Times a stake in Roush-Fenway Racing, the NASCAR team that fields drivers Carl Edwards, Greg Bi#e, and Matt Kenseth among others.

However, like the Tribune’s ownership of the Cubs, this arrangement might not last too much longer. Declining ad revenues have forced the Times to divest assets that aren’t related to its core publishing business, and reports have circulated in recent weeks that the paper is actively seeking a buyer for its share of the sports empire.

From small to big to just plain silly.

The Antarctic Sun has to be one of the most unusual newspapers in the world. Its circulation serves the scientists and others living and working in Antarctica. Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, The Antarctic Sun’s topics cover Antarctic current events, the Clothing Distribution Centre in New Zealand, and other topics of concern to Antarctica residents. The 10-year-old newspaper is published once a week, from mid-October through early-February, with occasional midwinter special editions.

However, the title of smallest country’s newspaper goes to L’Osservatore Romano,

population just under 900, but the 146-year-old newspaper is distributed daily in

cover page of the daily version carries the next day’s date, a practice that has been known to confuse some readers.

At the opposite end of the spectrum,

circulation in the world, at over 14 million. The paper is 134 years old and today publishes twice daily with multiple local

can catch up on the same news that’s in the Yomiuri Shimbun while simultane-ously learning English. The articles are in

explanatory notes.

And last but definitely not least, the world’s foremost parody newspaper was founded

feeling like a real newspaper, “America’s Finest News Source” sometimes tricks unwitting readers into believing stories

Unprepared for Mt. Rushmore Faces Coming Alive and Eating Everyone” and

Foetus.” Their web site, www.theonion.com, is well worth a look if you haven’t checked it out. The archive contains all The Onion’s content from the past nine years.

An hour of your life you will never get back.

As we approach the end of your hour of reading, it is worth considering: what is an hour, after all? Is there any such thing as time, or is a figment of our imagination? Among prominent philosophers, there are two distinct viewpoints on time. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence. Time travel, in this view, becomes a possibility as other times persist like frames of a filmstrip, spread out across the time line.

The opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of container that events and objects move through, nor to any entity that flows, but that it is instead part of a

fundamental intellectual structure

which humans sequence and compare events. This second view, in the tradition of Immanuel Kant, holds that time is neither an event nor a thing - and thus is not measurable, nor can it be travelled.

But assuming that time can be measured, what is an hour? The hour was originally

one twelfth of the time between sunrise and sunset or one twenty-fourth of a full day. In either case the division reflected the widespread use of a duodecimal numbering system. The importance of 12 has been attributed to the number of lunar cycles in a year, and also to the fact that

is also a widespread tendency to make

The Ancient Egyptian civilization is usually credited with establishing the division of the night into 12 parts, although there were many variations over the centuries. Astronomers in the Middle

observed a set of 36 decan stars throughout the year. These star tables have been found on the lids of co"ns of the period. The heliacal rising of the next decan star marked the start of a new civil week, which was then 10 days. The period from sunset

Three of these were assigned to each of the two twilight periods, so the period of total darkness was marked by the remaining 12 decan stars, resulting in the 12 divisions of the night.

The time between the appearances of each of these decan stars over the horizon during the night would have been about 40 modern minutes. During the New Kingdom, the system was simplified, using a set of 24 stars, 12 of which marked the passage of the night. Earlier definitions of the hour varied within these parameters:

sunset. As a consequence, hours on summer days were longer than on winter days, their length varying with latitude and even, to a small extent, with the local

hours are sometimes called temporal, seasonal, or unequal hours.

consequence hours varied a little, as the length of an apparent solar day varies

these hours it had to be adjusted a few times in a month. These hours were sometimes referred to as equal or equinoctial hours.

See solar time for more information on the

an accurate clock showed these hours it virtually never had to be adjusted. However, as the Earth’s rotation slows down, this definition has been abandoned.

There are di!erent ways of counting the hours. In ancient and medieval cultures, in which the division between night and day mattered far more than in societies with widespread use of artificial light, the counting of hours started with sunrise. So sunrise was always exactly at the beginning

end of the sixth hour and sunset exactly at the end of the twelfth hour. This meant that the duration of hours varied with the season. This type of counting is sometimes referred to, on astrolabes and astronomical clocks, for example, as “Babylonian” or temporal hours.

In so-called Italian time, or “Italian hours”, the first hour started with the Angelus at

after sunset, depending on local custom

numbered from 1 to 24. For example, in Lugano the Sun rose in December during the 14th hour and noon was during the 19th

hour and noon was in the 15th hour. Sunset was always at the end of the 24th hour. The clocks in church towers struck only from 1 to 12, thus only during night or early morning hours.

This manner of counting hours had the advantage that everyone could easily know how much time they had to finish their day’s work without artificial light. It was already widely used in Italy by the

or in some regions, customary, until the mid-19th century.

The system of Italian hours can be seen on a number of clocks in Italy, where the dial is numbered from 1 to 24 in either Roman or Arabic numerals. The St Mark’s Clock in

In the modern 12-hour clock, counting the hours starts at midnight and restarts at noon. Solar noon is always close to 12 noon, di!ering according to the equation of time

At the equinoxes sunrise is around 6am

In the modern 24-hour clock, counting the hours starts at midnight and hours are numbered from 0 to 23. Solar noon

equinoxes sunrise is around 06:00 and

For many centuries, up to 1925, astrono-mers counted the hours and days from noon, because it was the easiest solar event to measure accurately. An advantage

during a single night’s observing.

Sunrise and sunset are much more conspicuous points in the day than noon or

was, for most people in most societies, much easier than starting at noon or mid-night. However, with modern astronomical equipment, this issue is much less relevant.

Time is also of significant social importance. It has economic value

due to an awareness of the limited time in each day and in our human life spans.

The status of time.

The ability to measure time has become something of a status symbol. Up until the beginning of the 20th century, wristwatches were mostly worn by women. Men carried pocket watches attached to a chain. In 1904, Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos Dumont asked his friend Louis Cartier to come up with an alternative that would allow him to keep both hands on the controls while timing his performances during flight. Cartier and his master

up with the first prototype for a man’s wristwatch called the Santos wristwatch. The Santos first went on sale in 1911, the date of Cartier’s first production of wristwatches.

needed access to their watches while their hands were full. They were given wristwatches, called “trench watches”, which were made with pocket watch movements, so they were large and bulky and had the crown at the 12 o’clock position like pocket watches. After the war, pocket watches went out of fashion and by 1930 the ratio of wrist to pocket watches was 50 to 1. These days, you can buy a

have one – it is now the brand of the watch that symbolises one’s social and financial status. The most expensive watch brand

is Patek Philippe. Their print advertising plays to the extreme price-point, with copy that states: “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.”

In fact, the most expensive watch ever sold is was by Patek Philippe. It was the Henry

Sotheby’s experts estimated that this pocket watch would sell for between

to intense competition, bids soared to more

yellow-gold pocket watch took FOUR YEARS to build. That’s dedication.

Really, really long things.

So you’ve already figured out that this is the world’s longest letter. The longest word in English that is not technical or coined is antidisestablishmentarianism. The longest English word spelled in alphabetical order is Aegilops, a rare word describing an obscure kind of oat grass, and in medicine it’s also a specific kind of sore that forms in the corner of an eye. Aegilops might be the dictionary’s answer to the question, but it’s not a word used in every day speech. Among more commonly used words, there’s almost, biopsy and chintz.

The world’s longest movie title is “Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead Part 2: In Shocking 2-D”. This 1991 movie is basically a remake of “Night of the Living Dead” with a new soundtrack added.

The world’s longest toilet queue was over

in central Brussels on 23 March 2009, and

latrine like those used in the third world. The Guinness Book of Records had said 500 people needed to join the queue to get

No one got to actually go to the loo, as organizers said the dry latrine was only a model. You have to feel sorry for the poor bloke who joined the back of the massive queue, not realising the loo was fake.

If you’ve ever had to spell your name out loud to someone over the phone, imagine having the world’s longest surname.

surname as the longest English surname: Featherstonehaugh. But a quick search at thelongestlistofthelongeststu!atthelon-gestdomainnameatlonglast.com revealed this Gaelic surname, at 21 letters long: MacGhilleseatheanaich. Time for some famous last words.

As the longest letter in the world draws to a close, it’s worth reflecting on endings. Famous last lines from novels include:

“After all, tomorrow is another day.” –

“A dream can be the highest point of a life.” – Ben Okri, The Famished Road.

“Are there any questions?” – Margaret Atwood, A Handmaid’s Tale.

Consider these famous last words before death:

or I do.”

Dylan Thomas, “I’ve had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that’s a record.”

with it all.”

Pablo Picasso, “Drink to me.”

Spike Milligan’s epitaph said simply: “Told you I was sick.”

An epitaph found in a cemetery in

Thurmont, Maryland, read: “Here lies an Atheist. All dressed up and no place to go.”

my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”

Alternative endings.

buyers, movie fans are rapidly turning into astute film bu!s. Such “extras” may include exclusive behind-the-scenes documentaries, cut scenes, bloopers, and that rarest and most prized of all extras: the alternative ending.

Some directors shoot alternative endings either for market testing purposes, or because they themselves were unsure of the scripted ending – particularly an ending that might have been considered more downbeat. Here are some of the more interesting ones:

1. “There’s Something About Mary.” Released ending: Ben Stiller’s Ted endures

e!orts to get back with his old high school girlfriend, and winds up with her in the end.

Alternative ending: Ben Stiller’s Ted endures an endless number of horrendous

e!orts to get back with his old high school girlfriend, and winds up being hit by a bus in the end.

2. “Titanic.” Released ending: In the final scene, the elderly Titanic survivor throws a ring overboard. This is her memento of the ill-fated voyage and bittersweet love a!air with Leonardo DiCaprio’s character.

Alternative ending: The elderly Titanic survivor is stopped from throwing the ring overboard, keeping it instead.

3. “First Blood.” Released ending: Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo gives up his fight and surrenders to his former combat

Alternative ending: True to the ending in David Morell’s novel, Rambo commits suicide at the hands of Colonel Trautman rather than turn himself in. A side note: Kirk Douglas was originally cast to play Colonel Trautman, but dropped out because he liked the novel’s original ending and didn’t like the rewritten ending.

Released ending: Gruber the villain’s helicopter is forced down and Bruce

Alternative ending: Gruber and McLane play “Russian Roulette” with rocket launchers. Gruber explodes. This letter also has two possible endings.

One is that you get to the last page, finish reading, and fall into a deep, exhausted coma. The other is that you finish reading, leap up in excited evangelical fervour, and rush through the media department declaring that before the day is over, you will absolutely insist that all your clients place a full page ad in the Herald on Sunday during October. After all, if anything can be good enough to hold a reader’s attention for an entire hour . . . well, that thing should be rewarded.

Thank you to google, wikipedia, and all the other websites that provided lots of useless information and assisted us in our research for this blockbuster.

And finally, thank you dear reader for sticking with us.

Best regardsShayne Currie Herald on Sunday Editor

Problemprint publication shouting about cut price media placement deals, the award-winning Herald on Sunday newspaper needed a di!erent approach to convince media buyers to place more ads.

Solution - Our research uncovered an impressive statistic: the average reader spends an HOUR reading the Herald on Sunday. Our 34-page letter to key media agents contained over 13,000 words – so it would also take an hour to read. Ridiculous? Maybe. But it served as a simple but powerful demonstration of the benefit of advertising in

and a return on investment of 15:1. Maybe people DO read long copy after all!

The letter that takes an hour to read.

Pacific

http://bit.ly/e0zPZf