Never, ever, believe anyone who says that creating a tagline or slogan or positioning statement is easy. It can’t be since it is a massive challenge to condense your message to a succinct 2 – 10 words that express your heart and soul and value proposition. Crafting a what, how and why proclamation takes mental … Continue reading PledgeMe starts its story (tagline) perfectly
Mevo, a pay-by-the-hour electric car startup (though pretty well-funded) based in Wellington’s Biz Dojo, has excellent messaging – I can’t fault it. Its message starts with its name – Mevo. This looks both novel and familiar – and is in fact the word move, with the ‘e’ and ‘o’ reversed…hence Mevo. In eight words it … Continue reading ‘Own the journey, not the machine’ – Mevo’s message hits all the right buttons
The billboard I walk past often first got me interested when The Good Taste Company’s dips, endorsed by chef Michael van de Elzen, used the term “My great tasting dips are good from scratch”. Originally, it was the ‘good from scratch component that took my fancy Good from scratch is very close to, though obviously different to … Continue reading Good Taste cook themselves a million dollar message
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 … Continue reading For message making process, a picture is worth a 1000 words
Now advertising agencies are good at imagination and creation, at mocking-up and perfecting collateral associated with a brand. But, and at the risk of being hung out to dry, those skills don’t cross-credit for your first, most important story – (or tagline). These two to 10 words are a real challenge to uncover no matter … Continue reading Why ad agencies are terrible at taglines
You might think there would be a degree of angst in blog ghostwriting – creating original social media content in helping business people tell their stories. After all, the egos of many writers are attached to seeing their own names in print. But, in my case anyway, it is the opposite. Blog ghostwriting, on behalf of someone … Continue reading Why blog ghostwriting is an honourable gig
Not maintaining a business website’s blog and news makes it appear as if no one is at home. Put another way, there’s nothing worse than checking out the news or blog part of a site and seeing that the last entry was July 2013. As colleague, Fraser Carson of Flightdec says, people can spend a … Continue reading Without original content, a website looks like no one is at home
Have a look at the pix of a billboard on Wellington’s Adelaide Road. Now, I walk past this most mornings, and have the comparative luxury of enough time to figure out what it is trying to say. It took me a couple of goes, and a bit of time to do so. But pity the … Continue reading Petrol saving ad, too clever by half
Where does a company’s story start? Often right from its brand name. But often that doesn’t really tell you what it does, what it promises, why a consumer should care. That means a tagline has is in fact its headline. It is the beginning of a company’s story. Indeed, it is what someone can and … Continue reading Why your company’s tagline has to do your message’s heavy lifting
The infographic, also known as data visualisation, is one of those a picture is worth a thousand words examples, literally. Their ability to convey information, and ideally knowledge, of the sort that allows you to go “ah ha” that’s interesting, is increasingly important. That’s because images themselves have much more ability to be viral – … Continue reading Why you’re mad not to use infographics…when they fit