A car commercial I heard on the radio this morning said: “Buy with your head, drive with your heart.”

This is an old debate: do people buy based on logic or on emotion?

Most marketers agree that consumer purchases are heart driven.

But what about B2B?

Isn’t the purchase of, say, valves for a chemical plant an intellectual rather than an emotional decision?

Or are B2B buyers just as emotion-driven as consumers?

What say you?

What’s better for a book — a title that is catchy and clever, or one that is straightfoward and direct?

A publisher is thinking of putting out a book of solar energy science projects for young readers.

They are considering two titles:

A. Solar Science Projects.
B. Fun with the Sun.

Which do you prefer — and why?

Ray Bradbury — author of the Martian Chronicles and other science fiction classics — doesn’t think highly of the Internet.

In his new book Bradbury Speaks (William Morrow), he writes:

“We are multitudinous lemmings driven by wireless voices to hurl ourselves into the Internet seas where tides of mediocrity surge, pretending at wit and will but signifying nothing.”

He wasn’t specifically talking about blogging, but he could have been — the phrase “tides of mediocrity” in particular struck a chord with me.

Is anything great being written on blogs today — anything that rises above the merely mediocre?

If not, the possible culprit is time.

Blogs are quick: people jotting their first drafts and instantly publishing them to the Internet.

By comparison, great writings are usually the fruit of hard work and careful revision; E.B. White rewrote Charlotte’s Web 9 times before he felt it was good enough to submit to his publisher.

How many bloggers rewrite or edit anything they write, even once?

Are magazines — and magazine advertising — dying a slow death?

In the movie “In Good Company,” Dennis Quaid single-handedly saves his publishing company’s fading sports magazine by convincing the owner of an auto manufacturer to make a huge ad buy.

When Topher Grace congratulates Quaid on saving the mag, Quaid tells him he also did it for the advertiser’s benefit, stating: “It will be good for his business!”

Topher is stunned. “You mean you actually BELIEVE in this stuff?” he asks Quaid.

Quaid replies: “Of course. Why else would I do it?”

Quaid’s character believed in magazine advertising … but do you?

Do you recommend full-page ad campaigns in business and consumer magazines to your boss or clients today?

Or do you feel that magazines are yesterday’s news — and if so, where do you tell clients to spend marketing dollars instead?

SEO? Google Adwords? Contextual advertising? Direct mail? Telemarketing?

And why?