Powerlines: Words That Sell Brands, Grip Fans, and Sometimes Change History

by Steve Cone

Book Overview

Powerlines, the exceptional slogans that people remember long after the campaign ends, stand out from the barrage of marketing messages consumers face each day. A product, service, company, candidate, or an organization with a powerline outshines the competition every time. Steve Cone, author of Steal These Ideas , reveals the secrets to contemporary marketing's biggest mystery: how to conjure the phrase that will make a product irresistible and memorable...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1576603040
• ISBN13: 9781576603048
• Release Date: July 2008
• Publisher: Bloomberg Press
• Length: 251 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

WORDS WELL CHOSEN

This is one fascinating book. `Powerlines' says author Steve Cone are `words well chosen with the power to awe, inspire, motivate, alienate, subjugate, even alter something as significant as the course of history'. `They can even change the buying habits of consumers', he adds, indicating that this a book about marketing and the selling power, not of words in general, but specifically of `words well chosen'-- so apt and apposite that they deliver an impact more powerful than mere slogans and taglines. `Well, let's have some examples?' I hear you say. The author clearly has his favourites, richly and illustratively sprinkled throughout the text: `A Diamond is Forever'... `Come to Marlboro Country' and so forth. I have my own favourites, as does everyone. Martin Luther King's `I have a dream' is one. JFK's `Think not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country' is another. `Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears...' and `their finest hour' are obviously from the prolific pen of Churchill who must be up there with Shakespeare as the finest powerliner in history. As for the famous DeBeers ads, I think they slightly missed the boat. They could have used `Diamonds are Forever' which, possibly because it expresses the same thought in the plural, is curiously more compelling. It certainly delivered impressive audiences and impressive amounts of box office cash to the collective James Bond enterprise. Which goes to show the power of a powerline over a mere tagline? `Yes, America Can' attributed to George Bush (just which one isn't specified) falls under the author's general category of `putting America to sleep.' `What a snore,' he says. Slogan it may be, but it is not a powerline like Obama's `Yes we can.' There is something about the pronoun `we' (juxtaposed with `yes') which is involving, memorable and succinct. If you're in advertising or journalism, you'll know the pronoun `you' is even better. Of course, the book's 2008 publication date is a little late for the amiable author to have mined the seam of powerlines emanating from the Obama camp. While trawling through history for powerline-delivering politicians, poets, military strategists and latterly, marketing men, Cone cites amusingly bad power lines as well as good ones. Examples: the RBS `make it happen' tagline means, as the author says, `absolutely nothing.' Honda's `The Power of Dreams' also gets short shrift. `Maybe their latest models put you in a dreamlike state?' sneers the author. `Not a good thing if you are taking a curve at forty-five miles per hour.' Succinctness, relevance and meaning are surely components of a great power line, although coming up with one is no easy task. Rule Number One in my book would be, cut out the verbiage and the pretentiousness. `Less is more,' says Steve Cone. `Great lines are poetry in motion. Every word counts and the whole line must mean something special--so special it has to be remembered.' I co

Sales techniques from the pros.

This book has several outstanding ideas that really work. They come from one of the best in the business who has put these techniques to work and they are tried and true. You can't mess with success. The delivery was prompt as well, so the vendor did a great job and it was in nice condition. Thank you, Claudine Trainor

Want to be a more effective marketer? Read this book...

Powerlines is both a quick study on how to create more effective slogans and taglines - the heart of any successful marketing campaign - and a thoughtful primer on how the right words can deliver the brand promise to today's consumers. The book is filled with real life examples of how well-chosen words can turn an ordinary product into an extradordinary brand. Powerlines is a marketing professional's canon on how words sell brands, but fans of politics and social history will also find this an entertaining read.

A must read!

Steve Cone has hit it right on head. Taglines are really the headlights that can make a brand shine and trounce the competition. But only if the right rules are followed. Cone gives a lively and fascinating tour of world history made and unmade by the right or wrong choice of words. Plus how companies, and political candidates can use taglines instead of abusing them which is mostly the case today. Every person associated with marketing anything should read this book immediately.

The ultimate marketing primer!

With Powerlines Steve Cone rounds the circle, completing this revolutionary book on why companies, cultures, political candidates and countries live and die by using brilliant and not so brilliant slogans and taglines! Cone identifies campaigns and marketing messages throughout history and ultimately provides you with an all time indispensable book that should be on the desk of every advertising and marketing professional in the universe. Cone is the forefront of marketing wisdom!