Tuesday, June 27, 2006
A story in twenty words or less?
My good friend, writer Brian Lewandowski forwarded this: Bob Sassone (of AOL's TVSquad and Slashfood fame) asked a gaggle of writers to tell a story in 20 words or less. The results can be seen in this week's issue of Professor Barnhardt's Journal (http://www.professorbarnhardtsjournal.com)...it got me thinking about the (lost?) art of choosing the right words to tell a story. In advertising, we do this fairly well out of necessity...but what if everyone chose their words as carefully? On one hand, conversations would become more meaningful - but would emotion be lost? Anyway, the 20-word stories are interesting reading.
In a related news item, Maurice Saatchi suggested last week that since media has become so fragmented, advertisers should reduce their brand positioning to one word (i.e. Google = Search). Didn't we used to do this? I remember the examples of "Porsche = fast" and "Jello = fun" from Marketing 101 back when I was in college, in the day.
Stacy
My good friend, writer Brian Lewandowski forwarded this: Bob Sassone (of AOL's TVSquad and Slashfood fame) asked a gaggle of writers to tell a story in 20 words or less. The results can be seen in this week's issue of Professor Barnhardt's Journal (http://www.professorbarnhardtsjournal.com)...it got me thinking about the (lost?) art of choosing the right words to tell a story. In advertising, we do this fairly well out of necessity...but what if everyone chose their words as carefully? On one hand, conversations would become more meaningful - but would emotion be lost? Anyway, the 20-word stories are interesting reading.
In a related news item, Maurice Saatchi suggested last week that since media has become so fragmented, advertisers should reduce their brand positioning to one word (i.e. Google = Search). Didn't we used to do this? I remember the examples of "Porsche = fast" and "Jello = fun" from Marketing 101 back when I was in college, in the day.
Stacy
