The Micro-Script Rules

A Statue to Al Ries -- Avoiding a Social Network Bubble

In the capital city of Marketing, there should be a temple. Inside should be a big statue of Al Ries.  http://budurl.com/au74

Leave it to Al to explain to us that social networking only helps an idea, a brand or a movement when there's a strategy behind it. It's like my new friend Shawshank from Singapore so aptly said-- social networking can become like the financial bubble for brand marketers if we delude ourselves into building mediums on top of mediums on top of mediums-- without any underlying asset-- that is, a unique differentiating value, a Dominant Selling Idea at the center of the brand. Just like the derivatives on top of derivatives on top of securities that produced our economic calamity. The new mantra is substance, quality, performance and timeless truths. Thanks again, Brand Titan Al

Note from Bombay: When Social Networking is all party, no Tupperware

At World Brand Congress here in India, speaker after speaker extolled social networking as branding valhalla for all the folks champing at the bit to build the world's next great brands--in Asia. Social networking is an amazing phenomenon, no doubt. The fact that there are indeed 300 trillion messages going in a billion different directions at once as they all acknowledge, points up one inconvenient but timeless truth for any brand communicator--  it's more important than it ever to do what we are all hired to do:

Differentiate.

Set our products apart. Make it the most interesting thing in the conversation. That part's the hardest and most creative part of the brand business. Partys might celebrate brands at some point-- after we learn to make a product perform brilliantly--but only ideas and performance and relentless focus by companies and organizations can spark brands and formulate them to begin with.

Into this conversation-- we dropped the Micro-Script Rules. "Rule 1-- it's not important what people hear, its what they repeat." #2: We humans love simple fast idea packages-- i.e., what we want to repeat are Micro-Scripts when furnished to us by smart branders. Why-- because a Micro-Script lets us tell our friends a whole story about something we care about -- in about 6 words. Not 600. And finally-- unless there's a unique idea of value at the center of it all, you have no brand and you never will. Again--more so today than ever. You MUST build it all on a Dominant Selling Idea, then say it in Micro-Scripts.

Finding the one, superlative, set apart idea and learning to tell it on a Blackberry Screen or on the back of a tee shirt-- in a way that millions can repeat it over their Word of Mouth Machines-- that's not only the marketer's obligation, it's the path to glory.

It was more than gratifying that the Asian audience loved the Micro-Script story. Feed back was tremendous and I know we've already sold advance copies of the full book. Here in Asia, they have nothing if not an ironclad sense of reality, underpinning their creative exuberance. Boy is it refreshing. They get that the theme is as important as the team when building great brands.

Bombay Journal-- World Brand Congress of Asia will blow your mind

It's beyond belief. Asian exuberance, creativity and shear business JOY at the World Brand Congress. They are bursting at the seams with their own potential. And why not? They love hard work. They love entrepreneurship. They love brands and anything to do with "branding." On that score, they need our experience, our learning, a little bit of the timeless truth invented by the great American Brand Titans of the 19th century. They need us to be partners. They need us to help guide. They need our wisdom and they want to accept all of that.

They don't need us to be bosses or "deciders" for them anymore. They don't need arrogance and they sure as hell don't have to accept old fashioned, western patronizing and they know it.

Global citizens, our time has come. They're open for business. There will be no turning back this clock. Nor should there be.

A Passage to India (for real) Starting Tonight

Off to World Brand Congress. Going to see if Micro-Scripts and the Dominant Selling Idea translate into Asian. Thing is, its the "Asian Century" but still so few great Asian brands. What if they took their power and energy and work ethic and applied just a few of the rules invented by the Brand Titans who created all the original great American brands--the ones we still revere 75 years later?

We'll see in the next week. Namaste.

Public option--translated into Micro-Script: Medicare Part e !

My email to Thom Hartmann who published this article on "Medicare part e--Medicare for Everybody." What a great example of the kind of positive language re-framing via Micro-Scripts that healthcare reform advocates need to do:

Dear Thom-- can't believe I missed this until now. Boston Globe just published my Op Ed begging the Dems to do for their healthcare debate exactly what Medicare part e finally does-- re-frame dead language like the Public Option using the kind of "idea bites" the Republicans are so good at.(Death panels, pull the plug on grandma) Something I call Micro-Scripts in a new book. 

The other great thing is that people often assume that micro-scripts have to be negative-- because all the right wing scripts are so nasty. Medicare part e is great proof that they don't have to be.

Best, Bill Schley

The Uncharted Waters of Social Media Marketing-- By Jay Ehret

Read Jay Ehret's blog -- (soul) searching for a Return on Social media       http://www.themarketingspotblog.com/2009/10/social-media-marketing-effectivness.html

Hope you'll vote for my changethis.com manifesto -- just click

Here's the link and thanks for making my day! You can see the proposal. Just click and vote!

Digby Blog Mentions Micro-Script Op Ed!

It's exciting to watch the blogosphere work. Digby's Hullabaloo-- a very well read blog picked up the piece in the globe. Very interesting links and comments to boot. Thanks Digby.

Whole Column in Today's Boston Globe Op Ed

It was fun to walk into the CVS and pick it up in actual newsprint today. http://tinyurl.com/yeja8gc
But what's important is two things:

    1) The Dems have a name for this process now. Will be much harder for them to keep ignoring the dire need to develop Micro-Scripts.

    2) It's illustrated in the political debate--but everyone has to remember this is about marketing, which is about communication in the hyper-connected, Micro-Marketed world.

Calling all Tweeters: Just Short Doesn't Make A Tweet Work. A Micro-Script Does.

I'm seeing so many Tweets now that are abbreviated, coded gibberish. Hard to read, uninspiring to look at, tiring in fact. So many of these aren't really messages at all. They are alerts--which is okay. But Tweeters need to know that they can do so much better--that the greatest, most timeless communications of all time could fit into the length of the average Tweet-- in fact, a quarter of the length of the average Tweet-- 5 words or less. The point is, stories can be told and great ideas can be communicated if we embrace the Micro-Script mindset-- the idea that an "idea bite" is so much different than just a sound bite or an empty phrase. It's heart is most often a metaphor. It's language is colorful and specific. The best Tweeters, the ones who want their Tweets to make an impact, will follow the Micro-Script Rules.

Much more on this later.  Bill Schley