A lesson from Lockwood’s Folly

John Foust

Mar 1, 2025

I remember a conversation with Brent, a longtime print and digital advertiser. “I enjoy meeting with advertising sales people and hearing their ideas, but I always cringe when they show up from out of the blue with a spec ad — before they’ve even talked to me. What that usually means is, ‘I haven’t learned enough about your business to base this idea on actual information, so I made it up.’ More often than not, the idea consists of one-size-fits-all stock art and a headline so generic that it could apply to a number of businesses. If that kind of spec ad is the centerpiece of their presentation, the sale is a no-go.”

Brent’s comments remind me of Lockwood’s Folly, a tiny spot on the map of coastal North Carolina. The river that shares the same name first appeared on a map that was created by John Ogilby in 1671, which makes it one of the oldest named rivers in North Carolina. There are a number of stories regarding how the area got its name. The one I like best is about a man named Lockwood, who set out to build the sailing ship of his dreams along the banks of the river. After many months of work, he launched the boat and quickly found that the draft (the depth of the boat from the waterline) was too deep to clear the sandbar at the inlet. With no way to sail the boat off the sandbar, he had to leave it to rot. According to legend, the boat was visible above water for years. Locals called it “Lockwood’s Folly” and eventually the name was applied to both the river and the inlet.

If old Mr. Lockwood had done some research — if he had taken the time to row a small boat to the sandbar to check the river’s depth — he could have changed his building plans and avoided the catastrophe. All he had to do was tie a weight — or even a rock — to the end of a rope, drop it into the water, mark the rope where it stopped descending and measure the distance. But for some reason, he skipped that important step and ended up with a stuck dream boat.

If the people calling on Brent would simply do some research before preparing spec ads, he might buy more advertising from them. “Those unresearched spec ads create a bad impression,” he explained. “At worst, it makes them look lazy and, at best, it makes them look like they’re in too much of a hurry. And to boot, it's a waste of my time and a waste of the newspaper’s resources.”

There’s a good chance that some of those rogue spec ads that Brent has rejected are being recycled to show to other prospective advertisers. But he doesn’t give them much chance of success, unless there are big adjustments.

John Foust has conducted training programs for thousands of newspaper advertising professionals. Many ad departments are using his training videos to save time and get quick results from in-house training. Email for information: john@johnfoust.com