Archive for the ‘Brand Promise’ Category
Tip #9: Launch Your Idea. Don’t Detail It.
We all repackage our stories for the best effect
Writing copy can be disorienting—especially for English majors. Rather than grading on how they develop an argument and how well they follow particular usage rules, they are graded on how well their copy meets a marketing need. They are graded on how well their creativity pulls in the target audience—and how quickly. Each exercise and assignment becomes more about the big idea and the execution of the idea rather telling all the detail in an orderly fashion.
It can be disorienting because we might have mistakenly thought copy was just emotional marketing hype, the (nearly invisible) stuff that abides in much of our current messaging (“clutter,” you might say). Copywriters just toss any word in an ad, like “new” or “organic” or “protein” to get people to buy in, right?
But copywriting is more like a lab where you boil down the raw material to get an essence. Then you adjust the pheromones in that essence to get the behavior you want in the audience you seek.
Wait—that sounds manipulative.
If it is, it is a common trait and practice shared by all humans. We’re all packaging and repackaging our stories in real time. We constantly change-up our experience and knowledge and opinions as we deliver them to friends and family, prospective mates, acquaintances and strangers. It’s not a purposeful misleading, it’s just that the human condition is constantly changing and we see things differently at any given point. And we all want to be heard, so we change how we say things.
Mind you—orderly telling is still critical for copywriting. But audiences don’t make time for essays (sadly). And developing an argument is still critically important—it’s all just very, very fast.
The key is getting—and holding—attention.
Eight other copywriting tips for English majors here.
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Image credit: Dumb sketch by Kirk Livingston
Bah: Who needs “personality”?
Give me your risk-averse, your bland spinners of boredom.
Two days ago I talked with a marketer trying to sort exactly what space his brand occupies in social media. His brand generally takes a clear position against the competition and owns 15 to 20 percent of the market. Their messaging is mostly working and they see only growth ahead.
But that growth needs a kick. Getting their brand noticed in social media requires more than mere facts. For instance, when it comes to tweets—what tone to take?
They’ve studied their demographic relentlessly. They know, for instance, that edgy won’t cut it with their particular audience. That’s a shame, because “edgy” tweets attract a lot of attention. My friend pointed to @DiGiornoPizza and the (often hilarious) tweets that set them apart. Their tweets fit their audience.
But my friend was not trying to meet the needs or get the attention of that edgy demographic. Plus, my friend’s brand was lodged within a behemoth of company that has traditionally favored corporate, risk-averse language over “fun” and “personable.”
What to do?
This is a question many companies will face as social technologies advance further and further into the selling cycles. Social media will always be about more than facts. People come back to particular tweeters or blog posts or updates because of the personality represented and the personalities’ take on whatever. We come back again and again because we want to hear what Letterman (or Colbert) or Jimmy Fallon will say about this or that. There is an expectation. And there is an emotional connection. And it never hurts to be fun.
I predict even business-to-business will succumb to personality and human speak.
How can a risk-averse corporation that deals in corporate-speak begin to talk human and engage in conversation with other humans? This is a complicated question that calls for creativity beyond the numbering of facts and features. It calls for a viewpoint or perspective. And those companies willing to move their tone off bland and toward standing for something that matters to their audience will be the early winners.
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Image credit: TaylorTay via morguefile.com
Thai Life Insurance: Get All Good-n-Weepy
Pass the Tissues
Look: I know it’s selling me something. But I kinda want to buy. Not so much the life insurance as “witnessing happiness.”
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Via Adfreak/ Rebecca Cullers
Copywriting is a Full-Contact Sport
James Young: a Technique for Producing Ideas
Today we discuss Mr. Young’s book on how to have ideas. It’s an old book and disregarded by some of my copywriter/art director friends. But I come back to it again and again. I like how Mr. Young serves up the notion of a way to go deeper than our immediate surface reaction. I like the book because he provides signposts and mile-markers along the road of getting to the heart of a notion.
Now that’s good copy.
To me, copywriting is a full-contact sport. Here’s what I mean: ideas do not come from sitting in a dark room and thinking deep thoughts. That is called a “nap.” Ideas come from a mind-body connection. Copywriting starts with gathering materials (Young’s Step #1) and then writing out the connections between those materials and the target audience’s problem or perceived need (Young’s Step #2—Masticate). This mastication or digestion step involves pages of false starts and headlines and mind-maps. It involves shuffling index cards and drawing with crayons on the walls/arms/shoes and many dumb sketches. It involves telling others your nascent point and watching their reaction (“What the…. Huh? Get away from me.”)
I particularly love Young’s Step #3—Walk Away. It’s when I go for a bike ride or a jog or a walk. Or lunch. Anything other than the problem at hand. And then—Behold—the solution pops into being. Fully-formed. Sorta. Sometimes it’s an ugly baby and needs, shall we say, a trim. But out of this process come useful ideas that get to the heart of the matter and may—just possibly—cut through clutter rather than add to it.
Check out Maria Popova’s take on Young’s technique here.
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Image via Copyranter
Groundswell Plus: Please Write a Plus-Sized Book about Today’s Social Media Opportunities
Beyond Li & Bernoff’s Groundswell
Groundswell was published by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff in 2008 (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing). I’ve used it a couple times to frame this new opportunity and give social media marketing students a sense of the possibilities of communication beyond liking a snarky comment, link or photo on Facebook. I’ll use the text again but I’m also prowling about for newer texts.
Groundswell is a grandfatherly text by today’s standards. Published (counting fingers: 9-10-11-12) more than five years ago and much has changed. I like the book for the authors’ optimism about building and maintaining communities. And that is precisely where it is starting to wear thin. It turns out building communities is a much more complicated endeavor that works best when flesh and blood people talk with flesh and blood people. The social media piece is a nice and useful add-on, but students need to see a larger picture.
I’ve got other texts that give details about best practices and content strategy. We’ll certainly discuss the disciplines of editorial calendars and fine-tuning their understanding of their audience and tightly defining what their audiences need/want. And, as always, we’ll write and share and write and share and learn what works for ourselves.
Groundswell is firmly focused on taking full advantage of business opportunities. That’s why I first started reading it and it may be why I end up with something else next time. My students tend to be a devoted bunch: they attend this Christian college and their writing (most are English students with a professional writing focus, plus a few journalism and business majors) bubbles up from deep theological streams. Many will say they have no interest in business right up to the point where they realize they actually have to pay off their school loans. That realization attenuates their post-college work vision. One my teaching goals is to help students start to see just how much those deep theological streams can pour through the world of work with all sorts of happy results (an income comes to mind, but also making a difference in real life).
What I’d really like is a Groundswell Plus. I’d like a version of Groundswell that paints a larger picture of the community-building opportunities. Perhaps Groundswell Plus tells stories from the Arab Spring (for instance) or Ai Weiwei and points readers toward organizing for social change. Maybe this plus-sized version of Groundswell could point readers toward unearthing social problems (along with business opportunities) that might respond to collaborative energies.
Because in the end, students want to give themselves to things that matter.
Just like the rest of us.
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conversation is an engine 