Sam Horn - POP! Stand Out in any Crowd

How do I work? I grope.” - Einstein’s answer to a reporter asking how he created so many innovative ideas

Are you looking for an innovative, attention-getting brand that gets your business noticed?

Describe your company. What do you sell? What do you offer? Write down key words you use frequently when explaining what you and your organization do.

Those are your Core Words. They are what you “play with” to come up with a one-of-a-kind brand that helps you POP! out of your pack. Just as a jazz pianist “riffs” off standard chords to make new music, you “riff” off your Core Words to make an attention-getting brand new name.

Want to know how to create a “Half and Half” word that combines two aspects of your business or product to create an innovative brand name that belongs to you and you alone?

The Washington Post runs an annual contest that showcases the hilarious and high-potential results of doing just this.

“Its popular contest - The Style Invitational - invites readers to combine two names of the 100 horses eligible in today’s Kentucky Derby to “name” the resulting foal. Here are a few of the winning entries in today’s edition of the Post (page C2, Saturday, May 3, ‘08).

Arizona + In Orbit = AZ The World Turns

Pyro + Mapmaker = Your Heatin’ Chart

Casual Conquest + Total Bull = I’ll Call You

Clemens + Attempted Humor = Mock Twain

Fierce Wind + Big Brown = Hits the Fan

Revenge is Sweet + Oribit = What Goes Around

Signature Move + Total Bull = John Hancrock

Sea of Pleasure + I’ve Heard It All = Yachta, Yachta, Yachta

U.S. Treasury + Visionary = I See Debt, People

And my personal favorite?

Mapmaker + Behind at the Bar = Atlas Chugged

Are you thinking, “How would this help me come up with an attention-getting brand for my business?”

I think “Atlas Chugged” (playing off Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged) is a PERFECT name for a college-town bar.

“I See Debt, People” (playing off the memorable phrase from the movie Sixth Sense) is an amusing, attention-grabbing title for an article on how to get out of credit card debt.

“Yachta, Yachta, Yachta” is a smile-inducing slogan for a marine services store or boat Realtor.

(Of course, give credit where credit is due - to the originators of those phrases in the Post.)

Want a couple more examples showing how this works? A participant in my POP! Certification program last weekend told me about his favorite restaurant in San Antonio - a fusion restaurant combining Chinese and Mexican food. The name? Wokamole.

Perhaps you’ve seen the restaurant chain that blends Italian and Chinese food? Ciao Mein?

See how this works? Want to be walked through this process so you can produce attention-getting brands and “Half and Half” names and slogans for your company?

Buy my 3 hour CD series “Create Purposeful, Original, Pithy Names, Brands and Slogans that Help Your Business, Product or Services POP!” Listen to these CD’s while commuting or working out to kick-start your creativity and word-play your way to an attention-getting brand.

As Shari Peace, President of Peace Talks says, “I’ve been working on niching my business and wordsmithing my topics. Sam’s POP! techniques are by far the best resource I’ve discovered. Her concepts are creative, concrete and practical. I know everyone tells her this, but her ideas really are worth a fortune.”

To think – yesterday at this time I was swimming in an azure blue sea, gazing up at the cloud-filled sky as I back-stroked through the caressing tropical ocean off Castaway Island in Fiji.

Why was I there? To head up the non-fiction group for the Maui Writers Retreat (www.MauiWriters.com)

It started with a helicopter ride from the main island of Fiji.

Up, up and way. Have you ever flown in a helicopter? If not, how can I describe it?

It’s how you fly in your dreams. Effortless. Gliding forward through the air with a calm confidence – no fear, just joy. The helicopeter hovers forward, much like a hummingbird, as it swoops over the hills, villages, streams, islands, white sand beaches, surfing resorts – and there, our pilot tells us, is Tom Hanks’ Castaway Island. I sit up front with a sweeping 360 degree view, my head on a swivel, taking it all in, reveling in the birds’ eye view of the landscape below.

We land on a lush green helicopter pad, no larger than half a tennis court, and descend into the tropical, tree-covered island.

THere are no phones or internet on Castaway Island so you leave the outside world behind. No newspapers with screaming headlines of man’s inhumanity to man. No emails to answer, phone calls to return, crises to mediate. No people walking by talking into their Blue Tooth, no people furtively (or openly) checking their Blackberries during dinner.

What’s left?

Sleeping in until your body tells you it’s time to wake up.

Strolling along the stone path to breakfast. Deciding to go for a hike around the island on the white sand beach, snorkeling above the acquarium-like, life-filled reef, or reading a book on an ocean-front hammock. Or not.

We had our workshops, strategizing and editing sessions on the main island the week before. My group consisted of a woman who’d just been named one of the top 50 women in finance in the U.S., an international leader from EO (Entrepreneurs Organization), a chiropractor from Australia, a sonographer from Hawaii who passionately believes maternal intuition needs to be blended with medical intelligence, and others with equally fascinating projects. A gifted group.

At Castaway though, we are free to do anything we please . . . or nothing at all. No pressure. No worries. No stress. Just bliss.

Getting hot? Walk into the cool, refreshing ocean any moment of the day. Eyes getting heavy? Nap in your thatched-roof burree or on a lounge chair by the pool.

Time for dinner? Just head to the sound of the music. Islanders playing guitar and ukule, strumming, humming, crooning island melodies while you feast on fish caught fresh that day and papayas plucked from a tree that afternoon.

But most of all, join others for far-ranging, free-roaming conversations.

Yes, conversation – the lost art of human connection. It happens naturally here – people from around the world, producers from Hollywood, executives from Google, the “Tree Diva” from Maine, best-selling thriller writers Steve Berry, James Rollins, William Martin, a psychologist from USC, all sharing experiences, insights and observations in this relaxed setting.

Ready to call it a night? Stroll back home along the moon-lit beach or find your way along the meandering path. Lost? Don’t worry, a resort employee will magicallly appear (as he did for me, could it have been the mai tais?) and show you the way home with a flash light.

Go to sleep to the chirp of your friendly, good-luck gecko and the sounds of the trades ruffling the fronds of the nearby palms.

Wake up – do it all over again.

Time to go home? Look around. Imprint, vow to carry this serenity home with you Vow to sustain the centered sureness of what matters – the connection with nature, the connection with others, the connection with yourself.

What POP’d out this week? What I’d like to call Castaway Clarity. A reminder of how life can be, a life that’s a lot closer to how it’s suposed to be.

“Find something only you can say.” - James Dickey

We are all looking for singular experiences. Something we haven’t done before.

I had an opportunity to do just that this morning.

I was strolling in front of the sumptuously-set breakfast buffet table, here at the 5 diamond Outrigger Resort in Fiji. Spread out in front of me were papaya, passion fruit, bananas and pineapple; all freshly cut just hours before from the trees and gardens on the grounds.

And there, honored with its own table, was the juicer I had heard about the previous evening. (I’m here to head up the non-fiction portion of the Maui Writers Conference spring trip. Want more info? Check out www.MauiWriters.com).

Several participants told me about the delectable pineapple-ginger juice they’d experienced the day before, and told me I simply had to try each morning’s imaginative concoction.

Today’s specialty? Watermelon-mint juice freshly made in front of me by a young Fijian woman. Aaahhh. I savored each exquisite sip. Can’t you just taste it?

Are you wondering what this has to do with POPing out?

This is a magnificent, ocean-front resort. It features lush grounds, a meandering pool surrounded by tropical ferns, a world-class spa, smiling employees and fabulous food. But so does dozens (hundreds?) of other resorts.

Why does this resort stand out? What does it offer that can’t be found elsewhere? Why would I fly half way around the world to come here – and why would I recommend others do the same?

Well, that lip-smacking, one-of-a-kind juice creation each morning is a good start. It was a singular experience I will remember and tell others about. It turned me into a word-of-mouth ambassador for the Outrigger Resort in Fiji because they delivered a singular experience.

Think of your business, book, brand or blog. Do they deliver a singular experience people haven’t had before? Have you, as James Dickey suggested, found something only you can say? Are you offering something that can’t be found elsewhere?

If so, good for you. You’re on your way to being one-of-a-kind instead of one-of-many.

If not, you might want to visit www.SamHornPOP.com to buy a copy of POP! Stand Out in Any Crowd, which Seth Godin calls “revolutionary.” It will help you discover your “singularity” and map out a step-by-step strategy for establishing yourself and your organization/project as the go-to, top-of-mind resource in your field.

“I plan on living forever. So far, so good.”

Did that coffee mug slogan cause you to smile?

That’s what it’s supposed to do.

Smart marketers know one of the best ways to get a sale is to get a smile. When customers find something amusing, they find it appealing. And when they find something appealing, they’re often motivated to buy it.

The following ads from the past week have ALL brought a smile to my face. Hopefully they’ll bring a smile to yours and prove my point that creating a slogan that elicits a smile is one of the best ways to make your message “stick and sell.”

1. A half-page ad in USA Today for the World Golf Championship in Doral, Florida featured a HUGE picture of the masterful Tiger Woods with this smile-inducing slogan, “The bigger the fish, the badder the pond.”

2. Another half-page ad in USA Todayfor Amtrak’s National Train Day on May 10th says “Get Your Choo-Choo On.”

3. AT& T invites you to stay connected to NCAA’s March Madness with a full page ad in USA Today showing people wearing their favorite college basketball team jersey. The slogan says, “Don we Now Our Game Apparel.”

Now, those aren’t hilarious, but they’re not serious either. Serious = boring.

Do you have something to sell? Run your marketing message by several people and watch their face. If they look confused or their face stays blank, it needs more humor. If their eyes light up and the edges of their mouth curl up, you’re on the right track.

Want more ways to create marketing messages that “stick and sell“?

Visit www.SamHorn.com for info on my one-day POP! Your Business, Book and Brand workshop at Washington DC’s historical National Press Club.

Every year, the Global Language Monitor runs a HollyWORD survey to identify the top ten memorable phrases from movies.

This year’s winners?

#3. George Clooney’s line from Michael Clayton: “I’m not the guy you kill; I’m the guy you buy off.”

#2. Daniel Day-Lewis’ snarl from There Will Be Blood: “I drink your milkshake.”

And the top spot goes to Javier Bardem’s coin-flipping catchphrase “Call it, Friendo” from No Country for Old Men.

Are you thinking, “Big deal.”

Actually, it IS a big deal.

As Hollywood director Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman) said in his keynote for Maui Writers Conference (www.MauiWriters.com ), “Film directors know that if people walk out of your movie repeating a phrase they heard, that movie will make money.”

Why? It means audience members are taking the movie home with them. They’re talking about it around the water-cooler, in the office, to their friends; which means they are serving as free viral marketers and word-of-mouth advertisers for you.

What are some famous movie money phrases you can repeat word-for-word? I’m guessing you still remember:

Jack Nicholsen - “You can’t handle the truth.”

Arnold “the Governator” Schwarzenegger - “I’ll be back.”

Clint Eastwood - “Make my day.”

Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire - “You had me at hello.”

“Here’s looking at you, kid” from Casablanca.

The fact that you still remember those phrases means those movies have “legs.” Of all the thousands of films made in the past few decades, they’re the ones still being talked about. They’re the ones that live on.

What’s that mean for you?

When you speak, do audience members walk out repeating something you said, telling others about an idea you introduced? When people finish reading your article, book or blog, can they repeat an insight you made, a suggestion you shared? After hearing your song or seeing your commercial, can they repeat your catchphrase, word-for-word?

If not, everything you said or wrote just disappeared. People might as well not have heard it, seen it or read it. Because if they can’t remember it, what good is it?

Want to know how to create a money phrase that gets your message repeated and remembered? Want to know how to create headlines that get your articles read - titles that get your books bought - slogans that get your cause funded - brands that position you as as top-of-mind?

Sign up for my POP! Your Business, Book and Brand workshop at Washington DC’s historical National Press Club on April 25th. Invest in a day to develop Purposeful, Original, Pithy money phrases that get you and your priority projects noticed, remembered and bought.

Email us at Carey@SamHorn.com for a description of the workshop, a registration application, and to receive a free article with 3 Ways to Create a Money Phrase that Pays.

I had an opportunity last week to Emcee a conference at Microsoft and to deliver the opening keynote. There were more than 150 high-level female managers from Oracle, KPMG, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Wells Fargo, Semantech, Deloitte, etc.

The topic was CLOUT! Power, Influence and Authority for Women Leaders. Based on interviews with executives across the country, I shared 10 Behaviors that Undermine Clout — and 10 Behaviors that Add Clout.

One of the points was the power of lightening up instead of tightening up.

Many of the male decision-makers I talked with told me they feel women in upper ranks tend to take themselves too seriously. Perhaps they’re so intent on proving themselves, they lose their ability to take a a joke.

I illustrated the advantage of rolling with the punch-lines rather than taking offense with the following example.

Have you seen the movie Charlie Wilson’s War with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts?

Charlie Wilson was a Texas legislator. As a Washington Post article revelaed, Wilson arrived in Congress with his cowboy boots and big booming laugh. He soon met another freshman Democrat — Colorado feminist Patricia Schroeder — and sent her a gift. She opened it and found a picture in a pink frame which showed a tombstone that read “Wife of Davy Crockett.” He had included a note that read: “In Texas, we don’t even let women use their first name on their tombstones.”

Schroeder thought, ‘Who IS this Neanderthal?” and stormed into his office to give him a piece of her mind. The second he saw her march in, Wilson burst out laughing. She realized, “He’s spent his whole life figuring out how to pull people’s chains — and now he’s pulling mine.”

She started laughing too and they became fast friends. After that he called this high-profile feminist “Baby cakes” - except on formal occasions, when he addressed her as “Congressman Babycakes.”

Pearl S. Buck said, “Perhaps one has to become very old before one learns how to be amused rather than offended.”

Why wait?

If someone is trying to “get your goat,” it’s in your best interest to give as good as you get. Come up with a come-back so people can’t push your hot buttons. Once you demonstrate you have the ability to take a joke, people will laugh with you rather than at you.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius just has his original ideas closer together.” - G.C. Lichtenberg

Has your creative project come to a screeching halt? Are you staring at your computer and the words won’t come?

Rest assured, there is a way to get your ideas a little closer together.

I love to generate ideas. There are many times when my mind’s on fire and it’s a joy to have my fingers flying on the computer keys, trying to keep up with the flow of thoughts pouring out of my head.

It was a surprise then, when working on my book Tongue Fu! for School, that the flow of ideas dried up and writing became hard work. I was grinding it out because I had to turn my manuscript in to my publisher at the end of the month, but I wasn’t liking what I was producing.

I would re-read what I had written (I know, a fatal error) and would go “Yuck.” I knew it didn’t sing, knew it wasn’t “alive,” but I kept slogging it out because I had a deadline to meet.

I was creatively procrastinating one morning (reading the newspaper instead of writing) when I came across a fascinating article in USA Today about David Kelley, Hollywood’s former “Golden Boy.”

The article pointed out that, for a while, writer/director Kelley could do no wrong. He was the first person to receive an Emmy for Best Comedy (Ally McBeal) and Best Drama (The Practice) in the same year. Incredibly, Kelley was writing and directing BOTH shows at the same time – a grueling, almost unimaginable feat.

Then, for some reason, his pilots weren’t getting picked up and his shows started tanking in the ratings. The reporter’s opinion was that his plots were becoming increasingly bizarre and viewers were having a hard time relating to the unrealistic story lines.

A TV critic postulated why, “He’s lost his common touch. He lives in a 15 million dollar home, he’s married to Michelle Pheiffer and all he does, 24/7, is write, drive to the studio and direct and drive home. He’s become disconnected.”

A light bulb went off in my head. Here I was trying to talk about what it was like to deal with difficult people in schools – and I wasn’t spending any time in schools. I had lost touch with my audience and idea-generation had become an intellectual exercise. I was trying to “think up” my material instead of accessing my target audience and asking what THEY thought, what THEY wanted to learn, what THEY encountered on a daily basis.

I got up from my chair, drove to my sons’ school, and interviewed teachers, the principal, a guidance counselor, and a few of Tom and Andrew’s friends. By the end of that day, my mind was filled with the trials, tribulations, triumphs and mixed feelings of pride and powerlessness that are a fact of life for many educators and students.

I sat down to the computer that night and the incredibly compelling stories I had heard poured out. One afternoon of re-connecting with my intended audience renewed my passion for my project and brought it alive – because I had gotten out of my head and into the world of my target audience.

If your creative project is DOA; perhaps you’ve allowed it to become an intellectual exercise. Maybe you’re grinding it out because you’ve got a deadline and you’ve become completely detached from your topic, audience, and purpose.

That doesn’t work because that’s isolated creativity. That’s simply purging what’s in your head – without intent. If your intent is simply to finish your project, you can accomplish that – but that won’t make it sing. You will have a completed book, but, chances are, it will be lifeless and working on it will be joyless.

For creative work to become transcendent, we must have a clear intention of how it will deliver tangible value for people. We need to visualize individuals in our target audience and imagine how this project or program will solve a problem they’re facing. We need to get up from our chairs and go out into the field and talk with our intended audience and ask what they think. Find out what keeps them up at night and then go back to work with their voices and issues in your mind so your project, program or product reflects and meets their needs.

Email us at info@SamHorn.com with “IDEA Book” in your subject heading and we’ll send a discount coupon to be used towards my recently completed IDEA Book that features 25 Ways to Monetize Your Mind.

So, what POP!d out this week?

As if often does, a segment on CBS Sunday morning.

If you don’t already carve out time to watch this weekly TV program, do yourself a favor and give it a try.

You will be rewarded with fascinating, heart-warming, insightful interviews with people doing interesting things in the world. It never fails to put a smile on my face and in my heart and mind.

This week featured an interview with Jason Reitman, the director of this year’s surprise hit movie, Juno.

Jason was given the script and told, “You’ve got to read this.” He was intrigued until it was described as a “teen comedy written by a former stripper.” He was about to pass but was persuaded to give the screenplay (written by Diablo Cody) a chance.

He read it, and the rest, as they say, is cinematic history.

The film Juno, nominated for 5 Oscars, was made for $7 million, has grossed over $100 million and is still going strong.

The heart-warming part of this story is that Jason was interviewed in Art’s Diner in Hollywood with his father, well-known director Ivan Reitman. The interview took place in the same booth that Reitman Sr. met with Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd to sign them up for HIS blockbuster, Ghostbusters.

Jason related how he grew up going to the sets of his father’s movies. He didn’t want to compete with his dad and perpetually be “in his shadow” so chose a different career field, pre-med. As he said, “Everyone assumes that when a child of a director becomes a director, you’re talentless. No one ever questions you becoming a doctor.”

That is, until his father told him, “There’s not enough magic in it for you.” That was enough for Jason to decide to pursue his true passion, film-making. And, at age 30, proudly hosted the premiere of Juno at the Village Theatre in Westwood, the same movie theatre that premiered many of his dad’s films. What a satisfying full circle event.

The two Reitmans demonstrated the comfortable, jocular affection many fathers and sons wish they had with each other. At one point the interviewer asked Ivan if he was going to be attending the Academy Awards with his son. They both burst out laughing as Jason recalled that, as a brash 12 year old, he had the chutzpah to ask his dad, “Why don’t you ever go to the Oscars?”

His dad responded, “I would, if I ever got nominated.”

This year, the senior Reitman will be attending the Academy Awards ceremony, at his nominated son’s invitation.

I promise . . this is not a bait and switch.

I said I’d report back about which Super Bowl ads were the funniest, most original, most buzz-worthy.

I watched and kept waiting and waiting and waiting. Waiting for an ad that was wildly creative. One that exceeded our expectations. One that was worth the millions spent on it ($2.7 for the 60 second time slot alone, not counting the agency fee, production budget, celebrity appearance, etc.)

Nada. Zip. Nothing.

One had a moving story line (the Budweiser Clydesdale being trained to make the team by his Dalmatian friend, ala Rocky), but in many of the ad meters the following day, a baby spitting up claimed the top spot.

Yikes.

I wanted to share something that DID catch my attention Super Bowl weekend. The following quote by football player Junior Seau POP!d out of the pack . . . for all the right reasons.

When asked by a reporter what it meant for his New England Patriots team to be going for a perfect 19-0 record, Seau said, “There’s good, great, and there’s ever. We have an opportunity to be an ‘ever.’”

The reporter picked right up on it. “You mean as in ‘best ever?”

Junior just smiled.

In a week of platitudes, Junior’s observation was Purposeful, Original and Pithy. Kudos.

Super Bowl Sunday is one of my favorite days of the year.

I’ll be watching, along with an estimated 90 million (!) people around the world.

As always, I’ll pick out the ads that POP! out.

The funniest, most memorable, most strategic.

Submit your choices on Sunday, then check back on Monday and I’ll have my top 3 ads plus your favorites.

Remember, POP! stands for Purposeful, Original and Pithy — so my criteria will include which ad will best drive business for its sponsoring company AND which ad everyone’s talking about.

Buzz is the holy grail of ads. Why? When people talk about YOUR ad around the water cooler and at Starbucks, they’re acting as word of mouth ambassadors and spreading your product’s message for you. You’re getting more bang for your marketing buck.

See you Monday.