Despite the billboard’s deserved reputation as an environmental eyesore, it is, if executed well, one of the purest and most concise forms of communication that has ever existed. Creating a memorable and motivating piece of communication that has only a second or two to make an impact certainly requires both brevity and clarity of thought.
A highway billboard typically has only three elements: a headline, a visual, and a reason-to-believe or call to action.
To Promote a New Idea, Forget the PowerPoint--Try a BillboardI once worked in an organization that was constantly falling behind its biggest competitor. It seemed that every meeting eventually turned into a debate over how we could catch up. Many solutions were suggested and a few rose to the top.
Soon the organization's members started taking sides and groups formed aligning around their favorite solution. I ended up with the we-need-a-simple-memorable-slogan camp. You see, our competitor had a 5-10 word purpose statement that was prominently associated with everything they made or did.
The leaders in my camp felt that the slogan was the key to the competitor's success--not the words themselves but the culture around them. The simple but meaningful statement was a public manifestation of a singular focus and commitment to an organizational goal--the keys to their success.
My organization hadn't yet decided what it was and, more importantly, what it was not. As a result we wasted a lot of time and effort on stuff that we were never going to be good at.
I haven't thought about the debate in a while, but this article brought it back and in a greater context. And no there was no happy ending. As long as I was there none of the senior leaders ever committed to any solution so the organization is still working to find its way.
No comments:
Post a Comment