A client is finally waking up to the potential of social media. Hallelujah for that. The problem is, they are rock solid certain that the best way to use it (for them) is as a always-on megaphone for their products and services. The online equivalent of dragging their catalog behind an airplane over a baseball game.
 
They don’t “get it,” like a health club that creates a smoking station right outside their front door. But you know clients—they’re always right.
 
Except when they are not. And this is one of those critical exceptions.
 
Describing it in the simplest way possible, social media is for sharing, not shilling. It’s predicated on the cliché that launched a million bumper stickers:
 

Love.
The more you give,
the more you’ll receive.

 
An important thing to note: the word is love. Not respect, customer service, or value. The latter are marketing blah blah buzz words of little to no real common meaning anymore. But love? That’s existential, elemental, and universally understood.
 
The real marketing key to social media success (and the ‘killer app’ reason for doing it) is all about building relationships through a variety of always-on channels that enable almost friction-less, real time action.
 
Social media channels provide the engage now venue for reciprocal conversation, message amplification and instant notification. Need examples: quick tip videos of FAQs, fast answering mini-help desks, and ‘you asked for it, you got it’ user-generated content uploaded via their always-in-hand mobile printing presses/movie studios/photo agencies devices.
 

Premier Guitar gets it—big time.

You don’t have to be a guitar player to appreciate just how well the magazine Premier Guitar shares socially.
 

Facebook

Got a few minutes for lunch? Join PG guitar ace John Bohlinger as he Facebook Live’s Lunch with Bohlinger featuring the coolest new & old gear (in this case a ’54 Les Paul).
 

 

Instagram

Want a little guitar and gear-flavored aperitif all day long? PG’s got you covered.
 

 

YouTube

PG’s Rig Rundown series is simply fantastic. Ever wonder what your personal guitar hero is using to get his/her signature tone? Get the answer live on video.
 
As of this writing, they’ve got 322 of them, including Peter Frampton, Angus Young, Esmé Patterson, and one of my favorites, Jason Isbell. It’s literally a webseries of guitar geeks geeking out about their guitars—and 100% YouTube FREE. And it’s all 100% evergreen content with an perennial ROI that needs to be recalculated daily.
 
One Rig Rundown episode featuring John Mayer’s gear has been viewed (as of this writing) over 1.2 million times since its posting in 2010—and it’s still in their Top Ten playlist. Not bad for a YouTube-quality video filmed during a pre-concert sound check. And the guitarist cred coolest thing about it? Mayer’s not even in it (but the late great Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar tech Rene Martinez is).
 
That means those 1.2 million views aren’t from non-player JM fans; they are from ‘how does he get that tone’ guitar players who’d rather buy gear than golf. And that’s exactly the audience every music gear brand Marketing Director wants.
 

Production values? What production values.
 

But wait—there’s more.

On top of their Rig Rundown web-video series, they have a DIY repair/modification series, a playlist called Monsters of High Gain, and the list goes on. The screenshot below provides a just a taste of the video content guitar-oriented goodness PG shares out into the world—again, for FREE. Make no mistake: none of these videos are high-cost productions. But the ROI on what little they do spend is MASSIVE.
 

Deep tone dives start here
 

And their magazine?
IT’S FREE TOO (online).

Go to Premier Guitar online and look to the top navigation bar, all the way to the right over the search box.
 
Yup, you can even read the latest issue online at absolutely no cost.
 

What’s all this content sharing do for Premier Guitar?

Get them the inventory to sell to their customers.

Their real customers: music industry brands.

 
That’s right. They print a magazine IRL, but their subscribers aren’t PG’s primary buyers. PG knows what their real product is: the time, eyeballs and wallets of rabid, toneseekers and those afflicted with really bad G.A.S. (Guitar Acquisition Syndrome).
 
Joe Bonamassa likes guitars a lot.
 

Premier Guitar is MADE OF PEOPLE!!!

 
I hate to think of myself and my guitar-wielding cohort as inventory, but that’s exactly what we are. That FREE online issue? Count the number of ads in any issue, then compare it to the mass of editorial content. Truth be told, each issue is more of a product catalog for the biggest names in musical instruments.
 
And guess what; I don’t care one little bit. In fact, I am absolutely delighted to help Premier Guitar in any way I possibly can (hence this post); because they earned it via the high quality, desperately desired content they so freely share.
 

Good sharing begets goodwill—and ultimately, great customers

 
The best salesmen have known this forever; Creating and maintaining a great relationship is more important than shilling a great product. A ten-year relationship will always beat a one-time transaction. And right now, social sharing is the key that opens the door to real sustainable, scalable and mutually beneficial two-way relationships. That’s why when it comes to social media my prime directive is:
Share. Don’t shill.
 
– D.P. Knudten
Chief Collaborator
COLLABORATOR creative
 

©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

99.9999% of the time I agree wholeheartedly with the maxim ‘You get what you pay for.’ Cheap shoes don’t last. Fast food will feed, but never delight. And an education you don’t pay for usually comes with a hard sell pitch for some kind of highly caveated proprietary system that ‘will pay for itself ALMOST immediately.’

Yeah, right.

But occasionally the maxim is proven 100% wrong; and Madison is home to a great example of the exception that proves the rule. American Family’s DreamBank.

DreamBank, at the corner of Pinckney and East Washington, across the street from the capitol.

Free Happens.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably walked past the pale-stone building at the corner of Pinckney and East Washington and asked yourself ‘I wonder what that’s all about?’ then kept on walking (don’t want to mess with the circular flow of the Farmer’s Market, after all).

But then, on the recommendation of a friend, I checked out one of their FREE presentations—and was promptly hooked. ‘Free’ can either mean ‘no cost = no quality’ or ‘something openly shared with no expectation of return.’ DreamBank enthusiastically embraces the latter definition, and wants to help anyone with any kind of dream to achieve it. And there’s only one way to prove it.

 

Step one: Attend a DreamBank event.

After meeting with Chris Rudolph,  DreamBank’s Business Accelerator Program Director, for a primer on all things DreamBank, I attended a presentation entitled SMALL BIZ: Start Attracting Business, Stop Chasing It with Neil Mathweg. Now if you’ve ever met or heard Neil, you know he’s a whirlwind of ideas and energy. And the man brought all that passion and shared it to an audience of I’m guessing around 30 people. I left there with my head spinning—and with a list of immediately actionable ideas. And the cost for that master class on marketing: $0.

 

DreamBank is part venue, launchpad, MBA program, and ‘you can do it’ soccer Mom.

I work in marketing, and have for nearly 25 years. I know why American Family is doing this. Corporate good will and all that—and I could not approve more. A natural cynic at heart, I check that cynicism at the door every time I attend a DreamBank event. Chris and his team carefully curate their programs for quality and relevance. No monetary transactions of any kind are allowed between the speakers and their audiences (you can’t even buy their books after the talk!). But something far more valuable is transacted at each and every DreamBank event: real connection; to new people, new ideas, new energy and inspiration, and much more. By attending events there, I feel like I’m getting a free education, and earning a real-world MBiA (Masters of Business in Actuality) degree.

 

Eclectic offerings? I’ll say.

Just look at any week on their packed program schedule. From Feng Shui to Facebook Lead Generation, there is literally something for everyone. Pro Tip: Chris tells me the lunchtime Yoga fills up super fast, so get there early.

 

Who’s DreamBank for? Anyone with a dream.

Who can get something out of a trip to DreamBank? The better question is ‘who can’t.’ I’ve met retirees, solo-entrepreneurs, small (and not-s0-small) business owners, students of all ages, at-home Moms and Dads with strollers and a blog—you name it. Each comes to DreamBank for their own reasons, but we all leave with the same thing: a personal battery recharged with inspiration, energy, and a heaping helping of “Yes, I can.”

 

Full disclosure: I love this place.

And I’ll be speaking there in July, because the DreamBank idea is infectious. Open up, share what you know best, and make connections based on positive energy. Try it once, and you’ll be hooked. I know I am.

 

– D.P. Knudten > Chief Collaborator > COLLABORATOR creative

 
©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

 

+++++

 

D.P. Knudten, the Chief Collaborator at COLLABORATOR creative, is a ~25-year veteran in advertising and marketing. Providing everything from freelance copywriting; content marketing strategy, creation, execution; and his NonFiction Branding™ system, D.P. collaborates creatively to identify, craft, and tell the true brand stories of complicated products, services, and companies throughout the United States.

 

NOTE: I originally posted about this a couple of years ago, but a recent altercation client conversation made me revisit and reinforce an argument that needs to be made frequently with inventory-centric, navel-gazing clients. Added some new thoughts, too. – dp
 
My very first Creative Director once said to me one of those supposedly insightful but at the time mildly mystifying marketing sayings:
 

“People don’t go out to buy drills.
They go out…to buy holes.”

After mentally flipping him off and mumbling ‘Thanks, Yoda,’ I began to chew on that pithy insight.
And have been masticating that cud ever since.
 

It’s like the saying ‘have your cake and eat it too.’
And just as annoying > provocative > and ultimately profound.

To me, ‘buy holes’ has become shorthand that means it doesn’t matter what you’re selling; your product is really whatever the customer actually wants. Not your product, but the outcome of the customer’s interaction with that product.
 
Here’s what I mean. Brazil’s CNA ostensibly sells language lessons. But that’s not their real product. This is:
 

 

Whatever language you want to learn is truly about one thing: human connection.

Putting this axiom into action means some counterintuitive stuff, like:
 

If you’re a shoemaker, guess what: shoes aren’t your product.

If you’re Nike, it’s ‘personal best’ athletic performance.
 
If you’re Louboutin, it’s fashionable luxury.
 
If you’re Scarpa, it’s Euro-flavored adventure.
 

Not drills. Holes.

CNA understands this simple truth, and with the help of their agency, created wonderful new connections between South American teens and North American seniors. Good job.
 
Congratulations, CNA (and their brilliant agency, FCB Brasil).
You know what your product really is.
 
– D.P. Knudten
Chief Collaborator
COLLABORATOR creative
 

©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

Just a short post to say @d4darious is fantastic.
 
Every capital ‘C’ Creative (or anyone who has to deal with them) who isn’t a member of the American Society of Cinematographers NEEDS to watch this fast, fun, and really comprehensive dive into what it takes to create great looking ‘film look’ video with whatever kit you have available. It’s also a master class in vlogging from one of my favorite vloggers.
 

 
Keep ’em coming, Heavy @d4darious aka Darious Britt.
 
– D.P. Knudten
Chief Collaborator
COLLABORATOR creative
 

©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

 

You see it all over the place, every day. Puzzles. Games. Invitations to engage/enrage/enrapture. Pattern recognition: it’s fundamental to our very survival and has been hard wired into our brains since some upright hominid figured out that those patterns in the snow meant there was food on the hoof somewhere over that a way.
 

What are these strange things? An invitation to DINNER.
 
People really, really enjoy p z l s. And by puzzles, I mean communications that are not meant to be taken at face value, that leave something to interpretation and imagination. They provide room for people to enter into and engage with the communication. So why doesn’t that fact figure into more American marketing?
 
 

The rest of the world gets it—big time.

 
Poignant.Created by Concept Communication, Mumbai, India
 
Imaginative. Created by Leo Burnett, Paris, France
 
Powerful. Created by Ogilvy, Frankfurt, Germany
 
 

Puzzles work—by playing.

 
You don’t have to be an evolutionary anthropologist to understand the natural draw of such things. Just look at the popularity of global, cross-language phenomena like Sudoku.
 

This is fun? Apparently, the entire world thinks so.
 
 

I dare you: Ignore this next example:

 
 
 
Brilliant. Created by BBDO New York, USA
 
This is some weapons-grade puzzle and wordplay here—and impossible to ignore. Their entire point made in a puzzle of four words. As a writer, it pains me some that wordplay doesn’t factor in more of the examples above, but the reality is that in a truly global village, games that anyone can play are far more engagement-optimized than language-dependent versions. Sorry, Shakespeare, I love you dude, but the vast majority of the world doesn’t have a clue as to what you’re talking about (even those who speak English).
 

But that doesn’t answer my big question:
Why isn’t there more room in American marketing for more puzzle-inspired audience engagement?

 
Lürzer’s Archive is all about showing, not telling. OUCH!
 
Pick up a copy of Lürzer’s Archive and you’ll see page after page of universally understandable visual puns and puzzles that compel reader engagement. They’re generally fun, occasionally challenging, and the best of them creatively align message with brand to make a memorable communication that demands a piece of your brain’s precious real estate.
 
Now take a look at who’s creating this stuff. Sure, it’s a Euro-publication, but still. It seems like the entire world’s playing a different game that we Gringos just don’t get—like what the rest of the world calls ‘football.’
 
So why doesn’t American advertising use these eyeball-grabbing, proven puzzle / gamification techniques in marketing more often? I think a big reason is that currently, the vast majority of the U.S. population speaks the same language. And that our culture as a whole fetishizes the overtly direct and plain spoken over the subtle, the poetic, and the not immediately obvious.
 

It’s bullet points over brain power.
The PowerPointilization and infantilization of American Communication.

 
Yes, time is at a premium, but consider how much of that time is spent looking for games to break the monotony of everyday life. Couldn’t, shouldn’t marketing take note of this and run with it? Given the realities of American demography, it’s certainly worth            about.
 
– D.P. Knudten
Chief Collaborator
COLLABORATOR creative
 

©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

The best actors do it all the time:
Play the Opposite.

 
Let’s say you’re cast to be a psychologically terrifying super villain. The kind of blood chilling monster that’ll keep you up nights after seeing the movie.
 
Someone like this:
 

 
But someone even worse. The Joker was, after all, telegraphing his malevolence via makeup. This is no slam on Heath Ledger. His portrayal was magnificent. Easily the best comic übermeany in any current, recent or past comic book flick.
 
The competition wasn’t stiff. Maybe Bane?
 

 
Again, just way too over the top. The tell is the face mask. Just a little too… “I am a social deviant,” don’t you think?
 
Fun? Sure.
Keep you up all night? Not quite.
But the guy below? Still freaks me out.
 
He’s a psychopathic genius who just happens to enjoy human flesh, with a nice Chianti and some Fava beans. Excuse me while I go to change my underwear.
 
In Silence of the Lambs, Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of Hannibal Lector seems almost hyper sane. And that’s what’s so dang freaky.
 
A guy like Leatherface here is scary for the first few minutes, and only afterwards through the liberal use of editorial shock cuts.
 
…sigh…you were scarier when we didn’t actually see you.
 
But a Mensa-member cannibal that looks like the slightly weird guy down the street?
 
Invite him to a backyard BBQ? Yeah—no.
 
Hopkins, rather than playing type (insane cannibal) played the opposite (human ice cube). And it worked big time.
 
Congrats on the Oscar, Anthony. You deserved it.
 

Playing the Opposite (PtO) works wonders in marketing too.

 
Back in the Mad Men days, some dude coined a phrase that comes close to the power and utility of PtO:
 

“If everyone is zigging, it’s time to zag.”
 
As in, if everyone is doing A, do B (or even Z) to differentiate your message from the pack, and break through the noise. Well, duh. Counter programming. Good idea, Einstein. But how?
 
PtO is one really great ‘here’s how’ technique. I can think of no greater example than this masterpiece from 2007:
 

 
The product: Halo 3 for Xbox 360
The music: Chopin’s Op.28 No.15 ‘Raindrop Prelude’
The imagery: a gigantic, but completely static, diorama.
 
And the only thing moving in the whole thing?
The camera.
 
So let’s get this straight—
Marketing for one of the most frenetic, chaotic, and testosterone-poisoned game franchises in history fires up its gamerboy fanatics with a one-minute, 32-second trailer featuring a single camera slowly moving over a static set filled with non-acting action figures to the strains of classical music written in 1839? What’s that about?
 
They Played the Opposite. And to massive effect.
 
If everybody’s zigging, consider playing the opposite. But not just the opposite of the ziggers. The opposite of your brand’s standard operating procedure. Your product all about function? Look at presenting it emotionally. Or if you’re all about ‘low cost,’ present it with all the trappings of a luxury product. Either way, you’re sure to get a second (and more) look from an audience forced to view you with new eyes. PtO is a powerful technique, and an important tool to keep in your Creative toolbox.
 
Congratulations (even a decade later), McCann / San Francisco on one gorgeous, provocative, mesmerizing spot, and what I consider to be one of the very best examples of ‘Playing the Opposite.’
 
– D.P. Knudten
Chief Collaborator
COLLABORATOR creative
 
©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

The thing about a shared language is that we all think we’re speaking about the same thing. And most times we are. Is it raining outside? Easy. How ‘bout dem Packers? A little harder to answer, but we all understand what you mean. But the word ‘brand’ has a myriad of definitions that can lead to minor misunderstandings at best and outright hostility at worst. So what do we actually mean when we bandy the word ‘brand’ about?
 

Logo + Graphics Standard Manual = Brand, right?

 
Wrong. There was a time when things were simpler. When guys like these were the authorities on definitive brand identity.

Meet your branding team, circa 1900
 
But that was then, when the West was wild, and cattle were the only thing truly branded. It’s grown a little more complicated now. Yes, the consistent use and presentation of logo, color and type (in the form of codified Graphics Standards) is still a fundamental pillar of brand stewardship. But’s that’s just the beginning.
 

Themes, taglines, and campaigns are temporary.
A brand is forever.

 
It’s easy to get confused about what is, and is not, a key component of a brand—unless you ask one simple question:
 

Does this (color/theme/whatevah) have a scheduled sunset or ‘sell by’ date?

 
If it does, it’s not a brand (but may be an impermanent component of one). Campaigns end. Taglines get replaced. Themes come and go. But a brand—when carefully nurtured and adhered to—truly is forever. And the long-term value of a brand is far greater than any short-term ‘shiny object’ gain.
 

Remember the Tylenol® murders of 1982?

 
Tylenol®, the brand, is still around for one reason: because Robert Wood Johnson wrote some stuff down in 1943.
 

image: Johnson & Johnson
Should a brand be engraved in stone?
If you’re Johnson & Johnson, the answer is an emphatic “YES.”
 

“We believe our first responsibility is to
the doctors, nurses and patients,
to mothers and fathers and all others
who use our products and services.”
– an excerpt from Johnson & Johnson’s Credo

 
RWJ’s Credo isn’t marketing blah blah. It continues to be the bedrock upon which the J&J brand is founded. Its greatest test came 39 years later, in the form of the company’s response to a horrific series of events affecting one of its marquee sub-brands: the murder of seven people via tampered Tylenol capsules in 1982.
 

Turning a brand-destroying event into a brand-defining one.

 
What do you do when faced with such an existential crisis? You pull 31 million bottles from shelves nationwide, costing an estimated $100MM. Why? Because if you’re J&J, your brand demands it.
 
Mr. Johnson’s Credo has no ‘sell by’ date. What was true in 1943 is true now, and undoubtedly continues to play a huge part in the company’s consistent ranking within the top 50 of brands globally.
 

“Our Credo is more than just a moral compass. We believe it’s a recipe for business success. The fact that Johnson & Johnson is one of only a handful of companies that have flourished through more than a century of change is proof of that.” – Johnson & Johnson’s website

 
Within a year after the event, Tylenol was back to 30% market share after dropping to a low of 7% in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, and ended 1983 at a new high of 38%. IMO, that’s because James Burke, then CEO of J&J, not only read, but lived the spirit of the words Robert Wood Johnson wrote almost four decades earlier.
 

A great brand is a double-edged sword.

 
Any brand can lose its way over time. Some question whether J&J has recently been living up to its Credo. To me, that’s exactly why every company and product needs such a strong, codified foundation (aka: brand).
 
A brand is not a ‘write it once and shelve it’ proposition. It is something that proves the quality of any concept, decision, or initiative. Great brands fail fast, and can, because they have a brand to quickly reorient themselves after the occasional, and inevitable ‘we’re innovating’ face plant. You have to ‘know who you are. So you can be it.’
 

What’s eternal about your brand?

 
“We just make/do/serve ________. How can we be afford to be a brand?” The fact is, you already are one. The way you serve, the people you hire, the words and images you use to sell; all of these things are actively communicating your brand 24/7/365. But is what they are saying perfectly aligned with the optimized version of what you actually are?
 
What you may need are the words, the brand-defining ‘Constitution of the United State of YOUR BRAND’ that captures not only who you are, but inspires you to continually be the very best ‘you’ possible. That’s the essence of what I call NonFiction Branding™’. And it all starts here.
 
– D.P. Knudten
Chief Collaborator
COLLABORATOR creative
 

©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

 
With Snapchat’s IPO garnering a lot of heat (but not necessarily light) both online and IRL, it’s a good time to step back, breathe deep, and ask one very important question for your brand or business:
 

What’s more important: Ephemeral or Evergreen?

The three B’s—Budget, Bandwidth, and Brand Relevance—have long been the primary limiting parameters for any marketing campaign. The challenge has always been to balance all three to achieve the biggest brand bang for the buck.
 

Enter the rise of ephemeral marketing (EpM).

Designed to be millennial sexy and take advantage of the currently hottest social media channels, ephemeral marketing is literally here today, and gone tomorrow. Think Snapchat. It takes FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), and turns it up to 11. That is the strength of EpM—and its undeniable weakness.
 
Snapchat et al are the perfect channels for ephemeral products and their equally fickle audiences.
 

Fast food, fads, or fashion? Perfect.
 
Huge millennial audience? Worth thinking about as a part of your marketing mix.
 
Armed with a fat budget administered a fast-fingered digital team that is built to run at the speed of NOW! EpM might be good idea.

 
But what about the 90+ percent of businesses and brands that aren’t any of the above? That’s a rhetorical question you can answer yourself.
 

Cut back to the initial question:
Ephemeral or Evergreen?

 

Kylie Jenner is just so … ephemeral.

 
There are brands that are, and should be, pioneering the EpM space. But should you?
 
I’d rather have you focus on an ‘Evergreen’ marketing philosophy that embraces a tight brand discipline which prizes a consistent message consistently delivered over whatever ephemeral shiny object is the ‘It’ app of today. After all, wasn’t so long ago that we were all supposed to be ‘kicking butt on Vine.’ My favorite thing about that last link: the number of dead image references—which is exactly my point. Twitter bought Vine, then pulled ’em out by the roots.

What’s Evergreen?
Whatever marketing devices are always relevant to your brand, and consistently available to your customer.

 

Just one example of Evergreen marketing: Online video.

It’s the gift that keeps on giving. And the best part: it provides you visual and messaging elements that can be cut and re-cut into whatever length and style you need. A 60-second Instagram version. No problem. You have the elements, now just adjust the conceptual style to meet the platform, re-edit, and you’re good to go.
 

If there’s a longterm future for Ephemeral marketing, prove it.

“If all your friends jumped of a cliff, would you do it?” I used to hear that every time I did something ill-considered, or darn near life threatening. It’s an incredibly apt question to ask re: EmP too.
 
I’m not saying not to do it. But just like a 40+ year old Dad wearing skinny jeans, maybe it’s not the best fit for you, your brand, and especially, your marketing budget. And just because your brand doesn’t do it today doesn’t mean you can’t in the future once this nascent field has proven itself a little more—and in the only way that really matters: @ the cash register.
 
– D.P. Knudten
Chief Collaborator
COLLABORATOR creative
 

©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

I received an email the other day that really got me thinking. Spencer X. Smith, you may know him as THE go-to guy for social media strategy, asked me about writing really engaging blog posts.
 
To be honest, I had never really thought about such things before. I just wrote them. But the question kept nagging at me. How do I actually do what I do?
 
No good writing follows a formula (possible exceptions: haiku and limericks). But blog posts. Hmmmm.
 
Here’s what I sent back to Spencer:
 

“What you don’t want to do is change your style or voice too much. The power of a great blogger is that what they write looks and sounds exactly like what you get when you meet them in person. Said succinctly: What you read, is what you get.

 

What might be a useful writing tool for you is to create a personal style guide for blog posts. Not a ‘fill in the blank template,’ but more of a recipe to direct your thinking, and provide your random thoughts a place to live. Something like this:

 

1. Grabber Headline

(e.g., Are you really ‘anti-social,’ or just not sure where and when to start?)
Provocative Opening
(1 ~25-75-word paragraph re: blog post subject)
 

2. Subhead: Sums up blog topic in a tight phrase

(e.g., There are 57 top social media channels. Which 3 are right for you?)
Description
(1 25-75-word paragraph, ideally with an accompanying photo or graphic)
Describes the situation you are addressing
 

3. Subhead: Interesting ‘Real World, personally experienced’ anecdote

(e.g, How one company’s very first Tweet landed them their biggest account.)
1 25-75-word paragraph
Tells an interesting, real story re: the blog post subject
 

4. Subhead: What you can do

(example: The one thing you can do today to get started.)
Prescription
(1 25-75-word paragraph, ideally with an accompanying example photo or graphic)
What the reader can DO to deal with the above.
 

5. Affirmative Closing

Your positive “you can do this” coaching outro.

 

I think you’ll find this basic structure to be a great guide for taking your random thoughts and turning them into a really relevant story (blog post). – dp”

 

Bloated copy breeds blog bye bye.

Looking back, I’d only add a few more things:
 

A.  Inoculate every post against TL;DR SYNDROME (too long; didn’t read). A blog is not a magazine. In general, people engage with blog posts for seconds, not minutes. For blogs, relevant brevity is EVERYTHING.
B. When in doubt, air it out by breaking up long paragraphs.
C. Use images to illustrate instead of writing 1,000 words.
D. And for QWERTY’s sake, stop typing when you don’t have anything else to say.

 
– D.P. Knudten
Chief Collaborator
COLLABORATOR creative
 
 
crossposted at InBusiness magazine online

©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved

 

Deconstructing magic: Apple’s ‘Stroll’ TV spot

 
 

 
Take a look at this TV spot. It’s a great example of ‘showing, not telling.’ Now let’s deconstruct it.
 
But first, why:
 
Arthur C. Clarke’s third law stipulates that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And he’s absolutely right.
 
 

A maybe TRUE FAMILY STORY about the intersection of tech and magic.

 
My progenitor Sonck Knudten, a Danish ship captain shipwrecked in the South Pacific, saved his own life by amazing his cannibal captors with advanced technology: his ship’s compass. The arrow always pointed in the same direction ergo he must be a powerful magician. Result: Sonck was not on the menu for dinner that night. Score one for technology as magic.
 
Going back to Clarke’s law, that’s what makes technology so cool. Not ‘engineered’ or ‘optimized,’ but ‘cool.’ And in business, cool is often synonymous with ‘premium margin.’ And that’s where Apple comes in.
 
There are a whole lot of Apple agnostics out there who just don’t get paying an Apple tax (premium margin) for their version of smartphones/tablets/headphones/whatever the next big thing is. Many of those Apple skeptics cite specifications as the killer reason why Apple products are inferior or not worth paying more for. The screen isn’t as big. The chips run at slower speeds. It doesn’t have as many pixels.
 
So what. Apple is cool. And feature filled. They just don’t tell you about it—they show you.
 
 

Cut back to Apple’s AirPods TV spot ‘Stroll’.

This spot is cold as ice. Rico suave soundtrack (Marian Hill’s Down). The smoother than silk dancing by Lil Buck. And a TV spot that ‘shows’ AirPod features without you even knowing it.
 
Let’s break it down in pictures:
 

Lil Buck, just chillin’, getting ready for a ‘Stroll.’
 
 

What’s this? An Apple 7 paired with AirPods?
Well, go ahead, show me more.
Feature: easy pairing (assuming you have an iPhone 7)
 
 

Full charges for both devices. Nice.
Feature: Easy-to-read battery gauges
 
 

Look Mom, no wires.
Features: wireless, easy ear fitting
 
 

Do they stay in? Based on this aggressive spin, the answer is yes.
Features: solid fit, wireless
 
 

Yep, they stay in even when you go horizontal.
Feature: solid fit
 
 

Just plain cool interlude
(showing how the AirPods wireless and fit features enable anywhere, anything.)
 
 

Solid product shot, again showing how cool these AirPods are.
Apple haters, your mileage may vary.
 
 

More “they stay in” coolness.
 
 

Woh, they even pause the track the second you remove one of them.
Feature: remove earpiece, track pauses
 
 

The only real ‘tells’ in this spot #1.
Feature: replace the earpiece, music resumes.
 
 

The only real ‘tells’ in this spot #2.
Hammers home the key benefit: these things are magical.
 
 

The simplest ‘show who’ this side of Nike.
 
 
This last frame makes me laugh. It has a subtle disclaimer which reads “Subject to availability.” HA.
 
As of this writing, they are 6 weeks backordered, and have been for months. Still don’t have mine. Sad.
 
There’s a very real corollary in life and advertising:
You say you’re cool, you aren’t.
You show you’re cool, you are.
And if you don’t get any of the above, don’t worry, you’re not in the target market.
 
No voiceover. No bullet points. No engineering specifications. Just magic.
 
– D.P. Knudten
Chief Collaborator
COLLABORATOR creative
 
 

©2017 D.P. Knudten / COLLABORATOR creative – all rights reserved