But a process is a boring explain, and in the spirit of a picture being worth a thousand words, Punchline’s created a new explanatory diagram.

As seen above, it outlines the process of unearthing a message essence for proposals, presentations, campaigns, copy and taglines. The message arrow, seen below, was put together by Punchline’s collaborative designers, Schickeda.nz

Creating a million dollar message cannot be rushed

It illustrates why you can’t or shouldn’t rush to develop the two to 10 words that reflect the essence of who and what your company is.

A process of framed creativity means working within the constraints of the industry you operate in, the expectations of your clients and the value proposition of your own product or service.

Just as you are unlikely to find gold nuggets lying on top of the ground, so it takes a bit of digging and fossicking to reveal your own novel yet familiar term to describe your own heart and soul.

The process of unearthing a million dollar message invariably provides other story gems – to be used later in other contexts. This is not the purpose of the exercise, but is a valuable piece of collateral benefit.

There is also a large degree of tacit knowledge that Punchline brings to such messages that matter.

Business knowledge, life experience, understanding of the dynamics of persuasive messages, appreciating the power of metaphors, being a storyteller and realising why words work (or don’t work) are just as important as the process outlined in the diagram.

Ironically, the million dollar message process will invariably change. As Chris Jackson of Northwards Design said after a Brainstrust design facilitation programme he ran earlier this year, “we’re all in permanent beta”.

Which means the Punchline message making process will, and does modify.

Equally, even the million dollar messaging process isn’t as straight-lined as the arrow implies

There is one common factor in all messaging workshops, for all clients – they’re all different.