LAST CALL with Shawn Draper

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You’re Remembered for the Rules You Break

In my introduction to Last Call, I promised to share some of the stories, lessons, successes, and occasional spectacular miscalculations collected over four decades in business development, product development, marketing, communications, and sales. I also suggested that experience is only valuable if you do something with it.

Well, it’s time to make good on that promise.

Over the years, I’ve worked with brilliant people, challenging personalities, remarkable companies, and a few organizations that seemed determined to succeed in spite of themselves. I’ve learned that good ideas don’t always win, common sense isn’t nearly as common as its name suggests, and the most expensive lessons rarely come with a refund.

So, pull up a chair. The first round of Last Call is on me.

The Trouble with Rules

I’ve always been fascinated by people who tell you something can’t be done.

They usually have very good reasons. It’s against policy. Nobody has ever done it that way. The industry won’t accept it. The boss won’t approve it. Or my personal favorite, we’ve always done it this way.

That last one has probably killed more good ideas than bad budgets ever could.

Early in my career, I discovered something that has guided my approach to marketing ever since: Some of the best opportunities in business are hiding behind rules nobody remembers making.

And sometimes, all it takes to uncover them is asking a simple question.

Why not?

One of my earliest and favorite examples involves a window manufacturer, a new trade magazine, a hungry publisher, and 17 consecutive pages of advertising that caused a considerable amount of professional indigestion.

A Challenger with Something to Prove

At the time, I was the new marketing leader at Weather Shield Windows & Doors.

I’d come from Andersen Windows, THE leader in the window business, with a head full of ideas, a healthy competitive appetite, and the confidence that comes from having worked for the company everyone else was trying to beat.

Weather Shield was a different animal.

We weren’t the market leader. We were a challenger competing against established brands with bigger budgets, greater recognition, and considerably more influence.

But we had something else.

The Shields family gave me the latitude to challenge conventional thinking and try things that might make a more traditional marketing executive reach for the antacids.

Our philosophy was straightforward. If we couldn’t outspend the competition, we’d have to outthink them.

And if we couldn’t outthink them, we’d better find another line of work.

Enter a Publisher with an Appetite for Trouble

Around that time, Professional Remodeler magazine was getting its start.

I’d been involved in encouraging its creation, joining Bill Asdal and Mike Turner, two leaders of the National Association of Home Builders’ Remodelors Council, in approaching Cahners Publishing about the opportunity for a publication dedicated to professional remodeling.

It was an underserved market with tremendous potential.

I was subsequently invited to serve as an advisor to the magazine, which introduced me to its publisher, Dean Horowitz.

Dean was ambitious, energetic, and determined to make the new publication stand out. He had been given the responsibility of breaking new ground for his publishing company.

As it turned out, we had something in common.

Neither of us was particularly interested in doing things simply because that’s how they’d always been done.

That mutual curiosity opened the door to an idea that would make a few people very uncomfortable.

Seventeen Pages of Beautifully Organized Mischief

Weather Shield was introducing a new line of vinyl windows and doors.

We’d developed a comprehensive product brochure that told the story beautifully. It presented the products, their features, their benefits, and the reasons dealers, distributors, builders, and remodelers should take them seriously.

It was a strong piece of marketing.

Then I had an idea.

What if we ran the entire brochure in Professional Remodeler?

Not an advertisement promoting the brochure.

Not a two-page spread featuring a few products.

The entire brochure. Seventeen consecutive pages. Beginning on the inside front cover.

All Weather Shield.

Think about that for a moment.

A reader opens a national trade magazine and encounters page after page of one manufacturer’s products before seeing a single competitor.

It wasn’t just advertising. It was a statement.

And, frankly, it was a thing of beauty.

Dean understood the opportunity. He was launching a new publication that needed to establish its own identity, and we were a challenger brand looking to make an impression.

We negotiated an extraordinary price for what would become the first and only placement of its kind.

Everyone was happy.

Well, almost everyone.

Apparently, We’d Broken a Rule

When the magazine appeared, the building products industry lost its collective mind.

Marketing executives from competing manufacturers were furious.

Not just window manufacturers, mind you. Companies representing all kinds of building products were calling the magazine to complain.

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t appropriate.

It wasn’t how magazine advertising was supposed to work.

Apparently, we’d violated an unwritten rule.

I found that particularly interesting. Nobody could point to the rule, but everyone seemed absolutely certain we’d broken it.

Dean was summoned to his boss’s office and reprimanded for compromising the editorial integrity of the magazine.

Now, there’s a phrase guaranteed to get everyone’s attention in publishing.

The complaints kept coming.

But here’s the part I still enjoy.

After explaining how inappropriate and unfair our advertising was, some of those same marketing executives asked whether they could do it, too.

Imagine that.

One minute, you’re outraged by the violation of industry standards. The next, you’re asking for the rate card.

Business can be wonderfully entertaining.

The Best Part? It Worked.

The controversy would have been an amusing story on its own.

But the real satisfaction came from what happened in the market.

Weather Shield’s vinyl window and door program experienced an immediate increase in awareness and sales following the advertising.

Distributors and dealers began looking at us differently. We weren’t simply another manufacturer competing for shelf space and sales attention.

We were a company willing to challenge the established players.

Builders and remodelers talked about the advertising with our salespeople. The campaign gave our sales team something more valuable than another product brochure.

It gave them a story.

And it gave them confidence.

They could walk into a customer’s office representing a manufacturer that was making noise, challenging the competition, and doing something different.

That confidence was contagious.

The advertising became one of several unconventional initiatives that helped establish Weather Shield’s challenger positioning and differentiate the brand in a crowded marketplace.

All because we were willing to do something nobody else had done.

The Lesson Was Bigger Than the Advertisement

Looking back, the most important part of this story isn’t the 17 pages.

It isn’t the bargain we negotiated, the competitors we irritated, or even the sales that followed.

It’s the thinking that made the idea possible.

We recognized an opportunity created by circumstances that others might have overlooked.

A new publication needed to establish itself.

A challenger manufacturer needed to make a statement.

A publisher wanted to do something different.

And we had a compelling product story to tell.

The opportunity existed because those interests aligned.

The only real obstacle was an assumption about how advertising was supposed to work.

We challenged that assumption.

And we won.

There’s an important distinction here.

Breaking rules just to be disruptive isn’t strategy. It’s misbehavior without a business plan.

But challenging conventions that stand between your business and a legitimate opportunity?

That’s something entirely different.

That’s creative business thinking.

Four Decades Later, the Rules Are Still There

The marketing world has changed dramatically since those days.

Trade magazines no longer command the influence they once did. Digital platforms have transformed how manufacturers reach customers. Artificial intelligence is changing how we research, create, communicate, and compete.

But one thing hasn’t changed.

There are still plenty of people telling us what can’t be done.

Today, the rules may involve algorithms, distribution channels, customer acquisition strategies, marketing technology, or assumptions about how buyers make decisions.

And just as before, some of those rules are legitimate.

Others are simply habits masquerading as wisdom.

I see it regularly when companies insist that a particular marketing approach won’t work in their industry, that customers won’t respond to a different message, or that established competitors have an insurmountable advantage.

Maybe they’re right.

But maybe nobody has asked the right question.

Or perhaps nobody has been willing to risk being wrong.

One of the advantages of having spent more than 40 years in business is recognizing that the conventional wisdom of one decade often becomes the outdated thinking of the next.

The trick is knowing which conventions deserve respect and which ones deserve a good, swift kick.

So, What Would I Do Today?

I’d start by looking for the assumptions everyone in the category accepts without questioning.

I’d ask why competitors advertise where they advertise, say what they say, and sell the way they sell.

I’d look for overlooked audiences, unconventional partnerships, underused channels, and opportunities to create a story that customers and salespeople actually want to repeat.

And I’d pay particular attention when someone tells me an idea can’t be done.

Because that might be the most interesting idea in the room.

Not every unconventional approach will succeed. I’ve had enough experience to know that some ideas deserve to remain ideas.

But the greater risk, especially for challenger brands, is becoming so concerned with following the rules that nobody notices you’re in the game.

You don’t build a memorable brand by being a slightly different version of everyone else.

Sometimes you have to make a little noise.

And occasionally, you have to make enough noise that the competition calls to complain.

One More for the Road

That experience with Weather Shield and Professional Remodeler reinforced something I’ve believed throughout my career.

You’re remembered for the rules you break, not the ones you follow.

Of course, it helps if breaking them actually accomplishes something.

Our 17-page adventure wasn’t a stunt for the sake of attention. It was a calculated business decision that elevated a product launch, energized a sales organization, strengthened a challenger brand, and produced results.

The fact that it annoyed a few competitors was simply a bonus.

And this was hardly the last time I found myself coloring outside the lines.

Over four decades, there have been plenty of other opportunities to challenge conventional thinking, question established practices and occasionally misbehave in the interest of good business.

Some worked brilliantly.

Others taught me lessons I’d rather not have paid for.

I’ll share both.

Because that’s what Last Call is all about.

Until next time, remember:

If everyone agrees on how something should be done, it might be time to ask why.

The next round is on me.

Shawn Draper

Last Call | Four Decades. A Few Stories. Lessons Worth Sharing.