Many of us, myself included, are often guilty of over-wording our message. We use two words when one would do. We use generic words when our story screams for a metaphor. We use little known words that can embarrass people because they don’t understand their meaning. The key to creating your own Million Dollar Message … Continue reading Making your story simple yet profound
Category Archives: Metaphor
Do the first few words you use to describe your company accurately reflect who you are? Are you able to hold your hand on your heart and honestly say “this is us?” Or do you have a degree of embarrassment that your first message is closer to fiction than reality? Because the simple fact of … Continue reading Lipstick on a pig, versus naming your pet pig
Far too often, as if they’ve pulled terms from a cliche-word-generator, an organisation’s first most important message is meaningless. Their 2-10 word opening story – as a value proposition, slogan, tagline – fails. It fizzles instead of flying, is a three cent mess, rather than being a Million Dollar Message. And instead of inspiring more … Continue reading The seven words your value proposition, slogan or tagline should NEVER have
As a value proposition ‘Ours not mine’ is a pretty emotionally powerful set of three words. Its Million Dollar Message is self-evident. So hats off to the national organisation which also has a great tagline in ‘Giving nature a voice’. The poster lines a design company’s window display I regularly walk past. It may be … Continue reading Forest & Bird nail a value proposition with ‘Ours not mine’
Do all the political parties have a random cliche slogan generator to create their key message? After all, this is their value proposition. Or, is the brief to be so bland that people are bored into voting for them? Even ‘at least the election has got more interesting’ Jacinda Ardern has not taken the opportunity … Continue reading Are these the most boring political slogans ever?
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
If we’re being persuasive with our messages, we must make it easy for our readers. One of the keys to this is making your idea, or whatever it is that you’re selling, easy to picture. No matter how abstract your concept, unless someone can see it concretely in their mind’s eye, you’ll never get them … Continue reading A picture (in the mind) is worth much more than a thousand words
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 … Continue reading Orwell’s right…but persuasive messages take more than just good writing
Look at the following picture outside Trade Aid’s central Wellington shop. 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, … Continue reading A tagline…nailed
What do you think the billboard pictured below in Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, is ‘selling’? 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 … Continue reading So, what does CallActive actually do?