All posts by Peter Kerr

Collaborative message making means you can make 1 + 1 = 3

Content marketing, Native advertising, Persuasive message, Secret Sauce, Tagline,

Show me someone who knows it all – and I’ll get them to run for god.

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your point of view) no one knows everything.

No writer, no matter how intelligent, can know the ins and outs of a particular industry or sector.

No business person, in spite of a depth of knowledge about their sector, can also be superb with words.

That is why, most especially when it comes to uncovering and refining a message’s one central truth the only way it can be done is TOGETHER.

The notion that a writer can (or should) go away to a darkened room and come up with the essence of company’s story, on their own, is folly.

Such a distillation of message can only be done by at least two people – one of them a writer, a wordsmith, one or more of them with deep understanding of the business.

This is because shooting for simple takes a willingness to punch ideas around, propose and discard notions, look at key descriptive words from alternative angles, be willing to start at square one, again. And perhaps again.

Just as new business, product and social enterprise ideas are created in the space between people (ideas have sex and create a new idea!), so does the creation of the first few words of a company’s story which must ring true.

This is why Secret SAUCE’s (currently available for free download) recipe for crafting persuasive messages starts with SIMPLE – and the essence of simple is defining the soul of a message as one central truth.

But a writer alone cannot do this. Neither can a business person alone.

Together they can.

Together there is a synergy that allows 1 + 1 to equal 3.

Orwell’s right…but persuasive messages take more than just good writing

art and science, Marketing, messages that matter, Metaphor, Secret Sauce, ,

A recent Quartz article compares The Economist magazine’s style book for writing to Bloomberg’s.

Across a lot of differences – including one major one on how much you should ‘interfere’ (my term) with or edit a writer’s words – the style books both agree on one thing.

That is, that  George Orwell’s six timeless rules for writing still apply. Both styles guides reference him throughout. These rules are from his 1946 essay, ‘Politics and the English Language’

  1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print
  2.  Never use a long word where a short one will do
  3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out
  4. Never use the passive where you can use the active
  5. Never use a foreign phrase, scientific word or jargon is you can think of an everyday English equivalent
  6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous

Obeying those rules won’t necessarily result in persuasive words however.

Messages that matter need SAUCE – an acronym for Simple, Appealing, Unexpected, Credible and Emotional.

The Secret SAUCE book is presently available for free download – its a diagnostic and recipe for persuasive messaging.

If nothing else, it will forever alter the way you look at messages and what they’re trying to say.

A tagline…nailed

Brand name, Marketing, Metaphor, Persuasive message, Secret Sauce, Tagline,

Look at the following picture outside Trade Aid’s central Wellington shop.

A tagline that hits the spot

Then check its tagline (which indeed is the first thing you see)

Hand made change

Three words that combine to make a distinctive, different and desirable message.

Not only does it reflect the change that Trade Aid is helping to bring to under-developed economies, and more importantly the individuals and families that make up any nation.

But it also alludes to the (small) change required to purchase many of the products in the over 40 year old New Zealand business.

Trade Aid’s a member of the World Fair Trade Organisation, and imports over 3,000 products to go into 30 shops dotted around New Zealand.

And it has nailed its tagline, its promise.

It is one I’d love to have on my own CV, so the least I can do is praise it.

Would you start a story by giving it a misleading headline?

Brand name, Persuasive message, Secret Sauce, Tagline

Or, why your tagline needs to nail your company’s promise

If your company name doesn’t indicate what you do, then the tagline, sometimes known as a slogan, is especially important.

It needs to be distinctive and different; and that’s what makes it valuable.

That’s because it is the start of your conversation with your customer.

It also usually forms the opening line for you or a company representative, whether at a formal or casual function (like a BBQ). It provides the basis for the rest of your story.

As the headline – if someone reads nothing else – it lets people know what you’re about.

It is therefore surprising the number of websites that, after the company name, DON’T have a tagline.

It needs to be the first words someone sees on your homepage, and on every other page – also seen on the printed out version of the site.

And just as Secret SAUCE (with its acronym Simple, Appealing, Unexpected, Credible and Emotional) can be used as a diagnostic tool and recipe for any persuasive message, so can its metric be applied to a tagline.

Freelance copywriter Kimberley Freeman, writing in the advertising section of About.com considers a tagline to be the most important ad you’ll ever create.

Her guest blog shows what makes some taglines more effective than others, and includes:

 

  • What makes them tick and what makes them stick
  • Taglines as brand builders
  • It’s never too late to improve

 

She gives a (at least) a couple of great pieces of advice when it comes to taglines.

If you left your business card somewhere, could someone glance at it and know exactly what your company does?

She’s also especially anti an exclamation point (one of these !) after a tagline.

To quote her:

“This is the mark that tells consumers to RUN AWAY! You might as well put on a bad suit and sell cars if you’re going to paste an exclam on the end of a company slogan.”

So, what does CallActive actually do?

Brand name, Metaphor, Persuasive message, Tagline, ,

What do you think the billboard pictured below in Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, is ‘selling’?

141021 - Call Active sign (2)

You certainly can’t tell from its tagline – defined at About.com as “a slogan or phrase that visually conveys the most important product attribute or benefit that the advertiser wishes to convey”.

Well, if “Delivering exceptional customer experiences since 1975” is what CallActive wishes to convey, it is missing a heck of an opportunity to tell or remind people what it does, or promises.

Now, CallActive is a Melbourne, Australia headquartered business, with an offshoot lured to New Zealand by a then Wellington city-councillor in 2013.

John Morrison, a former test cricketer as it also happens, is now CallActive’s business development manager.

As he was quoted by writer Dave Burgess in a 17 September 2014 business section piece in the local Dominion Post newspaper, the confusion about CallActive’s offer seems to be pretty widespread.

(Apologies here, I can’t find an internet link to the actual article, and went to the local library to find the quote below in its online collection).

The past year has been a strong one for contact centre CallActive, New Zealand business development manager John Morrison says.

“We are a service company doing all sorts of things, from Facebook and Twitter to technical support. People think we just sit here and answer phones. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We even have a couple of teams that do door-to-door.”

Considering that thousands of people a day either drive or walk past its prime Victoria St location, and that such billboard advertising costs at least $3000 – $5000 a month, wouldn’t it be a clever thing to get the tagline right?

Not that would be easy to craft the two, three, four, five or six words that would crystallise its message – but it certainly would be better than wasting money on a meaningless term.

Just a thought CallActive, and John.

To use a cricketing analogy, it would be a bit like using John Morrison’s superior batting skills by putting him in at #11 (the last one to bat for those who don’t know anything about the game)!

In other words, a wasted opportunity.

Why your message has to be simple – and how to make it so

art and science, Content marketing, Metaphor, Native advertising, Secret Sauce, Tagline

Simplicity thrills, complexity kills.

And, somewhat paradoxically, the shorter the message, the more effort it takes to refine it to simple.

(That’s why an organisation’s tagline – the two to five word description, promise, ‘story’ after its brand name – can be so tricky to distill).

But what must a message contain to be considered simple yet profound?

The first and most important element is one central truth.

No matter what you’re selling, what idea you’re pushing, what cause you’re promoting, if it isn’t encapsulated in a sound-bite (verbal or written) that has a reader or listener thinking “ah, I get it, tell me more”, then you’ve immediately lost them. That is, assuming they have at least a passing interest in what you’re talking about in the first place.

One central truth is the nub of what you’re talking about, rendered in such a way that a relative stranger can tell another relative stranger pretty much what your message is.

This one central truth needs to be stated in terms that are easy to grasp, and preferably easy to picture – and be able to create an image in your own mind.

It is a trade-off between being brief and being clear. It means having just the right amount of detail for the circumstances.

This is where the paradox of message length comes in – the longer the message; say content marketing or native advertising – the easier it is to write mainly because you have more words to play with.

The Secret SAUCE book, at the time of writing this blog still available as a free download, has a diagnostic tool that allows you to gauge the three criteria relating to simple:

  • One central truth
  • Easy to grasp
  • Easy to picture

This allows you, and your friends or colleagues to objectively decide whether your message has the necessary characteristics that embody simplicity.

However, it may mean you have to go back to the drawing board to achieve such a message outcome.

Keep in mind that from a message point of view (and much of the rest of life and business for that matter), getting to simple can be difficult.

After all: complex is easy, simple is hard.

Why you shouldn’t be afraid of metaphors

Metaphor, Persuasive message, Tagline, Uncategorized, , , , ,

Many people are scared to use metaphors. Sometimes rightly.

An over-used, too familiar metaphor is brushed aside and quickly ignored by a reader.

But done correctly, a metaphor is like the first sip of a cold beer on a hot summer’s day…hitting the spot perfectly.

And don’t think their use is a recent phenomenon necessitated because of today’s skim and scan reading in a digitally-oriented world.

Aristotle, way back in 322 B.C. Made the following observation of when a comparison is made between two seemingly unrelated objects without using “like’ or “as”.

“The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learned from others; it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an eye for resemblance.”

Metaphors are also much more popular that you might imagine. (As stated in James Geary’s e-book by Harper Collins, 2011, I is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and the Way it Shapes the Way we See the World).

“Researchers have discovered we use a metaphor every ten to twenty-five words. That adds up to about six metaphors a minute.”

Our minds, our language, our craving for a good story is embodied in the use of metaphor, and this is why they should be used in any persuasive message.

The scientific reasoning is shown in brain scans while people listen to descriptions, with and without the use of metaphors.

Among many studies is one by neurologist Krish Sathian of Emory University. His findings clearly show that, as expected, our brains can interpret the literal meaning of an expression. When that expression is also a metaphor it triggers the sensory perception part of our brain.

Using a metaphor is therefore like getting two bangs for your buck – the abstract meaning, reinforced by our brain translating the metaphor. We also have a neural lighting-up response in the touch, taste, hearing or seeing parts of our brain that respond to that metaphor.

What is means for persuasive messages to maximise their potential is that you or your copywriter should hunt down, play with, break apart and put back together word combinations that create a pictureable image.

It means you have to really use your brain-power and be more than prepared to scrap the first and second and third good idea for a metaphor that comes to you.

After all, complex is easy, simple takes some time.

However, from a message, from a story-telling point-of-view, the metaphorical effort is worth it.

It is exactly like that first sip of beer, after you’ve worked really hard, when you sit down to enjoy it.

Why your message can only have one central truth

art and science, Brand name, Persuasive message, Secret Sauce, Tagline, ,

The problem with many messages, from taglines to web home pages, is they try to say too much.

Instead of presenting one clear argument, a proof, of what’s on offer, you get mixed messages.

For our relatively straight-forward minds, which are always attempting to sift and categorise information, this is really confusing.

Indeed, such is our ability to sort useful from non-useful, it is often about this point that we turn off – go to the next webpage, ignore, not bother.

Any piece of written persuasive message (or spoken for that matter), no matter how long, must have one central truth at its core.

Our brains process information and make a judgement pretty quickly.

By definition, any persuasive message has to get its point across even more quickly.

You only get one shot, preferably loaded with one central truth.

However, getting to your one central truth, the nub of your argument, is increasingly harder to capture and deliver the higher up a company’s story chain you go. That is, a tagline for example is much more difficult to create than a letter advising about a new product line.

One of the main things you want from a message’s one central truth is that is ‘rings true’.

And luckily, it is a relatively simple thing to test among work and non-work colleagues whether the encapsulating idea you’re playing with, actually works for them. Ask them and gauge their reaction.

Want an example of a tagline that possesses one central truth?

Look no further than Las Vegas.

Prior to 2004 the city attempted to position itself as a great family destination, a bit like Disneyland.

Anyone who has, or hasn’t for that matter, been to Las Vegas, knows this is rubbish.

What did the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority do – it created the following tagline, which reinforced peoples’ image of the gambler’s paradise, and tourists returned.

What was, and still is, its tagline?

What Happens Here, Stays Here

Perfect

Getting your brand name right or wrong…it is where fools rush in

art and science, Brand name, Persuasive message, , , , ,

As someone who, for a felted wool ball I tried to commercialise, came up with one name ‘Sheep Balls’, I’m only too well aware of the dangers of a poor brand name.

A recent edition of The Economist has Johnson, a book reviewer, giving the once-over of Alexandra Watkins “infectious little book”.

Watkins, the founder of a branding agency called Eat My Words, has (appropriately in her game) written a book called, “Hello, My Name is Awesome…How to Create Brand Names that Stick”.

She’s created an acronym, SCRATCH, to the mistakes that make customers go “what?”

These what not to do’s come under:

S – Spelling-challenged
C – Copycat
R – Restricted
A – Annoying
T – Tame
C – Curse of knowledge
H – Hard to pronounce

Most of these are, once you read them, relatively obvious.

The point Watkins (and Johnson) makes about unusual spellings is that it requires a customer to remember something different.

People avoid extra effort every chance they can; while a name that is hard to remember or spell is harder to Google – and that alone in today’s digital environment can be disastrous.

The recommendation is not to get too worked up whether your brand can cross borders.

As Watkins points out, unless your brand is truly going to be found in every corner of the globe (really, straightaway Mr/Ms Entrepreneur?) you’re unlikely to offend speakers of a language you’ve never heard of.

Pronounceability in a variety of languages is probably more important. A mostly consonant-vowel syllable structure makes Zalando, Lomoda, Lazada, Jumia, Dafiti and their like easy to say in a lot of languages.

(Some letters, c, q, j and x, have very different sounds even in closely related European languages Watkins says, and “are best to avoid if you aim for global domination”.

The rest of the Eat My Words website, for a San Francisco based business, is full of insightful observations too. In particular, check out their examples of names you will and won’t get from them.

Why your messages that matter, matter

art and science, Marketing, Persuasive message, Secret Sauce

This is a blog, business and belief in better messaging.

It is predicated on one main premise – we’re all selling something.

Therefore, the messages, the stories, we tell about our products and services, matter.

Why?

In today’s instant and digital world, we have limited time to capture and hold people’s’ attention.

We move on, quickly.

But maintaining that attention takes more than simply good writing.

Unless the right neurons are engaged in a reader’s mind, they won’t bother continuing with the message.

The good news is that today’s science and research indicate what emotional and rational buttons need to be pushed for a message to be considered persuasive.

Punchline uses a recipe – Secret SAUCE – as part of its good writing, to address critical triggers in how we think and perceive.

Secret SAUCE is a diagnostic and creation tool, that brings a research-validated approach to crafting your messages.

It is a tool that most people can use, and also a means to co-create messages – amplifying shared knowledge and skills.

By applying Secret SAUCE people can help build structure into the taglines, web pages, sales documents and other ‘stories’ you tell about your company.

Punchline and this blog will highlight effective messages, messages that work – telling a great story right from your first introduction to the product or service.

Part of the exploration will also show when persuasive messages don’t work, and why.