Assignment Question

1. Create your headline, a one-sentence vision statement for your company, product, or service. The most effective headlines are concise (140 characters maximum), are specific, and offer a personal benefit.

2. Consistently repeat the headline in your conversations and marketing material: presentations, slides, brochures, collateral, press releases, website.

3. Remember, your headline is a statement that offers your audience a vision of a better future. Its not about you. Its about them.

4. Write the strategic communication campaign of given context

SCENE 4 COM Create Twitter-Like Headlines Today Apple reinvents the phone! -STEVE JOBS, MACWORLD 2007 W elcome to Macworld 2008. There is something clearly in the air today."! With that opening line, Steve Jobs set the theme for what would ultimately be the big announcement of his keynote presentationthe introduction of an ultrathin note- book computer. No other portable computer could compare to this three-pound, 0.16-inch-thin "dreambook," as some observ- ers called it. Steve Jobs knew that everyone would be searching for just the right words to describe it, so he did it for them: "MacBook Air. The world's thinnest notebook." The MacBook Air is Apple's ultrathin notebook computer. The best way to describe it is as, well, the world's thinnest note- book. Search for "world's thinnest notebook" on Google, and the search engine will return about thirty thousand citations, most of which were written after the announcement. Jobs takes the guesswork out of a new product by creating a one-line descrip- tion or headline that best reflects the product. The headlines work so well that the media will often run with them word for word. You see, reporters (and your audience) are looking for a category in which to place your product and a way of describing the product in one sentence. Take the work out of it and write the headline yourself. 39 40 | CREATE THE STORY 140 Characters or Less Jobs creates headlines that are specific, are memorable, and, best of all, can fit in a Twitter post. Twitter is a fast-growing social networking site that could best be described as your life between e-mail and blogs. Millions of users tweet" about the daily hap- penings in their lives and can choose to follow the happenings of others. Twitter is changing the nature of business communi- cation in a fundamental wayit forces people to write concisely. The maximum post-or tweet-is 140 characters. Characters include letters, spaces, and punctuation. For example, Jobs's description of the MacBook Air takes thirty characters, includ- ing the period: "The world's thinnest notebook." Jobs has a one-line description for nearly every product, and it is carefully created in the planning stage well before the pre- sentation, press releases, and marketing material are finished. Most important, the headline is consistent. On January 15, 2008, the day of the MacBook Air announcement, the headline was repeated in every channel of communication: presentations, website, interviews, advertisements, billboards, and posters. In Table 4.1, you see how Apple and Jobs consistently deliv- ered the vision behind MacBook Air. Most presenters cannot describe their company, product, or service in one sentence. Understandably, it becomes nearly Setting the Stage for the Marketing Blitz The minute Jobs delivers a headline onstage, the Apple publicity and marketing teams kick into full gear. Posters are dropped down inside the Macworld Expo, billboards go up, the front page of the Apple website reveals the product and headline, and ads reflect the headline in newspapers and mag- azines, as well as on television and radio. Whether it's "1,000 songs in your pocket" or "The world's thinnest notebook," the headline is repeated consistently in all of Apple's marketing channels. CREATE TWITTER-LIKE HEADLINES 41 TABLE 4.1 JOBS'S CONSISTENT HEADLINES FOR MACBOOK AIR HEADLINE SOURCE Keynote presentation "What is MacBook Air? In a sentence, it's the world's thinnest notebook." "The world's thinnest notebook." Words on Jobs's slide "This is the MacBook Air. It's the thinnest notebook in the world."4 Promoting the new notebook in a CNBC interview immediately after his keynote presentation "We decided to build the world's thinnest notebook."5 A second reference to MacBook Air in the same CNBC interview "MacBook Air. The world's thinnest notebook." Tagline that accompanied the full-screen photograph of the new product on Apple's home page "Apple Introduces MacBook Air- The World's Thinnest Notebook."6 Apple press release "We've built the world's thinnest notebook."7 Steve Jobs quote in the Apple press release impossible to create consistent messaging without a prepared headline developed early in the planning stage. The rest of the presentation should be built around it. Today Apple Reinvents the Phone On January 9, 2007, PC World ran an article that announced Apple would "Reinvent the Phone" with a new device that com- bined three products: a mobile phone, an iPod, and an Internet communicator. That product, of course, was the iPhone. The iPhone did, indeed, revolutionize the industry and was rec- ognized by Time magazine as the invention of the year. (Just two years after its release, by the end of 2008, the iPhone had grabbed 13 percent of the smartphone market.) The editors at PC 42 CREATE THE STORY World did not create the headline themselves. Apple provided it in its press release, and Steve Jobs reinforced it in his keynote presentation at Macworld. Apple's headline was specific, memo- rable, and consistent: "Apple Reinvents the Phone." During the keynote presentation in which Jobs unveiled the iPhone, he used the phrase "reinvent the phone" five times. After walking the audience through the phone's features, he hammered it home once again: "I think when you have a chance to get your hands on it, you'll agree, we have reinvented the phone." Jobs does not wait for the media to create a headline. He writes it himself and repeats it several times in his presenta- tion. Jobs delivers the headline before explaining the details of the product. He then describes the product, typically with a demo, and repeats the headline immediately upon ending the explanation. For example, here is how Jobs introduced GarageBand for the first time: "Today we're announcing something so cool: a fifth app that will be part of the iLife family. Its name is GarageBand. What is GarageBand? GarageBand is a major new pro music tool. But it's for everyone."' Jobs's slide mirrored the headline. When he announced the headline for GarageBand, the slide on the screen read: "GarageBand. A major new pro music tool." Jobs followed the headline with a longer, one-sentence description of the product. "What it does is turn your Mac into a pro-quality musical instrument and complete recording studio," Jobs told the audience. This is typical Jobs method for introducing a product. He reveals the headline, expands on it, and hammers it home again and again. The Excitement of the Internet, the Simplicity of Macintosh The original iMac (the "i" stood for Internet) made getting on the Web easier than ever. The customer had to go through only two steps to connect to the Internet. (There's no step three," actor Jeff Goldblum declared in one popular ad.) The introduction CREATE TWITTER-LIKE HEADLINES 43 captured the imagination of the computer industry in 1998 and was one of the most influential computer announcements of the decade. According to Macworld.com, the iMac redeemed Steve Jobs, who had returned to Apple in 1997, and it saved Apple itself at a time when the media had pronounced the company all but dead. Jobs had to create excitement about a product that threw some common assumptions out the windowthe iMac shipped with no floppy drive, a bold move at the time and a decision met with considerable skepticism. "iMac combines the excitement of the Internet with the sim- plicity of Macintosh," Jobs said as he introduced the computer. The slide on the screen behind Jobs read simply: "iMac. The excitement of the Internet. The simplicity of Macintosh." Jobs then explained whom the computer was created to attract: con- sumers and students who wanted to get on the Internet "simply and fast."10 The headlines Steve Jobs creates work effectively because they are written from the perspective of the user. They answer the question, Why should I care? (See Scene 2.) Why should you care about the iMac? Because it lets you experience "the excite- ment of the Internet with the simplicity of Macintosh." One Thousand Songs in Your Pocket Apple is responsible for one of the greatest product headlines of all time. According to author Leander Kahney, Jobs himself settled on the description for the original iPod. On October 23, 2001, Jobs could have said, Today we're introducing a new, ultraportable MP3 player with a 6.5-ounce design and a 5 GB hard drive, complete with Apple's legendary ease of use." Of course, Jobs did not say it quite that way. He simply said, iPod. One thousand songs in your pocket."11 No one could describe it better in more concise language. One thousand songs that could fit in your pocket. What else is there to say? One sentence tells the story and also answers the question, Why should I care? Many reporters covering the event used the description in the headline to their articles. Matthew Fordahl's headline in the Associated Press on the day of the announcement read, "Apple's 44 | CREATE THE STORY New iPod Player Puts '1,000 Songs in Your Pocket.'"12 Apple's headline was memorable because it meets three criteria: it is con- cise (twenty-seven characters), it is specific (one thousand songs), and it offers a personal benefit (you can carry the songs in your pocket). Following are some other examples of Apple headlines that meet all three criteria. Although some of these are slightly lon- ger than ten words, they can fit in a Twitter post: >> "The new iTunes store. All songs are DRM-free." (Changes to iTunes music store, January 2009) >> "The industry's greenest notebooks." (New MacBook family of computers, introduced in October 2008) >> "The world's most popular music player made even better." (Introduction of the fourth-generation iPod nano, September 2008) >> "iPhone 3G. Twice as fast at half the price." (Introduction of iPhone 3G, July 2008) >> "It gives Mac users more reasons to love their Mac and PC users more reasons to switch." (Introduction of iLife '08, announced July 2007) >> "Apple reinvents the phone." (Introduction of iPhone, January 2007) "The speed and screen of a professional desktop system in the world's best notebook design." (Introduction of the seventeen- inch MacBook Pro, April 2006) >> "The fastest browser on the Mac and many will feel it's the best browser ever created." (Unveiling of Safari, January 2003) Keynote Beats PowerPoint in the Battle of the Headlines Microsoft's PowerPoint has one big advantage over Apple's Keynote presentation softwareit's everywhere. Microsoft com- mands 90 percent of the computing market, and among the 10 percent of computer users on a Macintosh, many still use CREATE TWITTER-LIKE HEADLINES | 45 Headlines That Changed the World When the "Google guys," Sergey Brin and Larry Page, walked into Sequoia Capital to seek funding for their new search- engine technology, they described their company in one sentence: "Google provides access to the world's informa- tion in one click." That's sixty-three characters, ten words. An early investor in Google told me that with those ten words, the investors immediately understood the implications of Google's technology. Since that day, entrepreneurs who walk into Sequoia Capital have been asked for their "one-liner," a headline that describes the product in a single sentence. As one investor told me, "If you cannot describe what you do in ten words or less, I'm not investing, I'm not buying, I'm not interested. Period." Following are some more examples of world-changing headlines that are ten words or less: >> "Cisco changes the way we live, work, play, and learn."Cisco CEO John Chambers, who repeats this line in interviews and presentations >> "Starbucks creates a third place between work and home." -Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, describing his idea to early investors >> "We see a PC on every desk, in every home.Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, expressing his vision to Steve Ballmer, who, shortly after joining the company, was second- guessing his decision. Ballmer, currently Microsoft's CEO, said Gates's vision convinced him to stick it out. With a per- sonal net worth of $15 billion, Ballmer is glad he did. PowerPoint software designed for Macs. While the actual num- bers of presentations conducted on PowerPoint versus Keynote are not publicly available, it's safe to say that the number of Keynote presentations given daily is minuscule in comparison with PowerPoint. Although most presentation designers who 46 | CREATE THE STORY are familiar with both formats prefer to work in the more ele- gant Keynote system, those same designers will tell you that the majority of their client work is done in PowerPoint. As I mentioned in Scene 1, this book is software agnostic because all of the techniques apply equally to PowerPoint or Keynote. That said, Keynote is still the application that Steve Jobs prefers, and the Twitter-like headline he created to introduce the software was certainly an attention grabber. "This is another brand-new application that we are announcing here today, and it is called Keynote," Jobs told the audience at Macworld 2003. Then: Keynote is a presentation app for when your presentation really counts [slide reads: "When your presentation really counts"). And Keynote was built for me [slide reads: "Built for me"). I needed an application to build the kind of slide show that I wanted to show you at these Macworld keynotes: very graphics intensive. We built this for me; now I want to share it with you. We hired a low-paid beta tester to beta test this app for an entire year, and here he is [audience laughs as screen shows photo of Jobs]. Rather than a bunch of slides about slides, let me just show you (walks to stage right to demo the new software]." Again, we see a remarkable consistency in all of Apple's mar- keting material surrounding the new product launch. The Apple press release for Keynote described it as The application to use when your presentation really counts."14 This headline can eas- ily fit in a Twitter post and, without revealing the details, tells a story in one sentence. A customer who wanted more details could read the press release, watch Jobs's demonstration, or view the online demo on Apple's website. Still, the headline itself offered plenty of information. We learned that it was a new application specifically for presentations and made for those times when presentations can make or break your career. As a bonus, it was built for Jobs. For many people who give frequent CREATE TWITTER-LIKE HEADLINES | 47 presentations, that headline was enough to pique their interest and give the software a try. Journalists learn to write headlines on the first day of J-school. Headlines are what persuade you to read particular stories in newspapers, magazines, or blogs. Headlines matter. As individuals become their own copywriters for blogs, presenta- tions, Twitter posts, and marketing material, learning to write catchy, descriptive headlines becomes even more important to professional success