{"id":768,"date":"2013-03-11T08:38:49","date_gmt":"2013-03-10T19:38:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=768"},"modified":"2013-03-11T08:38:49","modified_gmt":"2013-03-10T19:38:49","slug":"first-write-the-billboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=768","title":{"rendered":"\u2018First write the billboard\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"volkswagen-beetle\"<\/a>In what now seems like another life, I used to write copy for a number of internationally advertised brands and products.\u00a0 One of my favourite products in the early days was Volkswagen \u2013 in particular, the \u2018ugly duckling\u2019 that was the VW Beetle.<\/p>\n

By the time I got involved with VW, the look and tone of the brand\u2019s advertising had been pretty well established by the legendary Doyle, Dane, Bernbach creative team of Gene Case and Helmut Krone.<\/p>\n

Some of my colleagues found this unwritten prescription quite irksome.\u00a0 But I always found it strangely liberating.\u00a0 You already had a good idea of what the ad was going to look and feel like, from there it was just a matter of working out what the ad was going to say, and then saying it with the style, sophistication, and humour that was the VW way.<\/p>\n

I was so comfortable with the Case-Krone approach that I sent Gene Case a note asking if he had any tips he\u2019d like to share.\u00a0 His reply was brief and to the point: First write the billboard.\u00a0 And if the campaign doesn\u2019t call for a billboard, write one anyway.<\/p>\n

It was good advice.\u00a0 There is nothing quite like getting your message down in a single sentence \u2013 one that both says what you need to say and says it with the desired tone and style \u2013 to sort out your thinking.\u00a0 It works for advertising.\u00a0 It also works for just about any other piece of written communication.<\/p>\n

Try it next time you sit down to write a report or a proposal.\u00a0 Or even next time you need to write an important email.\u00a0 I think you will find that it makes writing the full version of whatever it is that you are writing very much easier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In what now seems like another life, I used to write copy for a number of internationally advertised brands and products.\u00a0 One of my favourite products in the early days was Volkswagen \u2013 in particular, the \u2018ugly duckling\u2019 that was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":769,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions\/769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}