Kranz On Copy: Insights and answers on copywriting and writing copy

Where's the patience?

Too many people think the secret to a brand is a winning message. Put one together -- find the right hook -- and shazam, you have a great brand.

But most great brands are built slowly, over a loooong period of time. Time is the crucial element that melds customer interest with the gradual accrual of impressions, emotions, ideas and experience. It's the key ingredient to brand credibility.

That's why branding is a lot like barbecue. The real secret to barbecue isn't the sauce nor (I'm about to commit heresy here) the smoke -- it's about "low and slow": cooking tough, cheap cuts of meat at very low heat for a long period of time, enough time for the connective tissues to melt and make the meats distinctively tender.

Don't believe me? Then try this recipe for barbecued ribs in your own ordinary home oven. I PROMISE you you'll be amazed at the results -- and become a convert to "low and slow."

1) Get yourself a slab or two of ribs.
2) Put the oven rack in the middle and preheat the oven to 225 degrees. That's right -- just 225.
3) Sprinkle and pat down both sides of the ribs with the following mixture:

• 1/4 cup of paprika
• 1/4 cup of brown sugar
• 1 generous tbs of garlic powder
• A scant 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper (or as much as you can handle)
• salt and ground black pepper to taste
• optional: onion powder, mustard powder, ground white pepper
  

4) Set aside the remaining spice mixture after you cover the ribs -- you'll need it for the sauce.
5) Place ribs, meaty side up, on a jelly roll pan covered with tinfoil (this'll save a lot of clean up later)
6) Now put these bad boys in the oven and go back to work, or school, or the ball game, or whatever. Expect to cook these for at least 3 hours and no more than 5, depending on the size of the ribs and the thickness of the meat. When they're done, the meat should pull away from the bones, exposing the "handles" on the ends.

Toward "done" time, get your sauce ready:

• Heat a 1/4 cup or so of apple cider vinegar in a saucepan over low heat.
• Stir in the remainder of the spice mixture above. Whisk until the brown sugar is completely dissolved.
• Add 1/2 cup or more of either tomato paste, ketchup or chili sauce. (Note the "or" here -- just pick one. You can use less of the paste, as it's denser.) Stir until dissolved.
• Add 2 or 3 tbs of molasses. Yum.
• Add 1 tbs of Worcestershire sauce.
• Add a few dashes of Tobasco or other hot sauce, to taste.
• Optional: A few drops of liquid smoke. This stuff is powerful, so err on the light side.

When your ribs are done, pull them out, move the rack toward the top of the oven and set the beast on broil. Flip the ribs to the bony side and slather with sauce. Broil for just a minute or two, then flip the ribs, cover the meaty side with sauce, and broil for another minute or so. Don't let the sauce burn!

(Here's a real dinner party opportunity: You can fully the cook the ribs just before your guests arrive, then hit 'em -- the ribs, not the guests -- with sauce just before serving.)

Serve with home made cole slaw, baked beans, corn bread and/or collard greens.

Eat, digest, then write me. Was I not right? Are not these ribs wonderful?

It's all about the slow.

My morning paper says CBS is thinking of casting (and that would be the appropriate word in this context) Katie Couric as its next evening news anchor.

Let's set aside all the important journalistic issues this raises and take this as a straight news-as-product marketing proposition. Even on this level, Katie is a poor choice despite her popularity and appeal.

Katie Couric is known for being perky, chipper and, well, superficial. By selecting Couric, CBS would be making an extraordinary statement about the evening news: folks, it's just not that serious.

They would be trivializing their own product. And CBS can't afford to do that.

Sure, they might enjoy a short-term lift in ratings. But the long-term consequences would be devastating. Viewers would take CBS's cue and look for serious news -- which people still want -- from other sources. Instead of acting as a hedge against cable and Internet news options, CBS would be giving these alternatives a powerful boost.

Katie is the woman you want to introduce a new cookie recipe or interview a child star. But do you really want her to tell you about the latest terrorist attack, the progress of the war in Iraq or weighty issues uch as taxes, social liberties and judicial discretion? Probably not.

Today's edition of MarketingProfs.com features a fine article, The Most Overused Word in Technical Marketing, about one of my (and perhaps yours too) pet peeves -- the overused "S" word.

I think you know what it is. Whenever I see it, or whenever clients demand that I use it, this "S" word inspires me to mutter another common "S" word.

That first "S" word -- the one that's overused -- is "solution" of course. (The second "S" word might be thought of as a "biological waste evacuation and agricultural fertilization solution.")

The article's author, Wendy Gibson, attributes "solution" abuse to lack of knowledge and understanding, and laziness. She also offers her hypothesis on the origin of the "solution" epidemic. Here's mine:

Way back when, say, oh, fifteen years ago, it finally occurred to the big guys at IBM and comparable companies that no one really wants to buy a computer. Sure, they may have to buy one and are obligated to purchase one, but -- for businesses especially -- computers are necessary evils: they're expensive, unreliable, unpredictable, and they require you to hire additional (often ill-tempered and otherwise socially handicapped) staff to maintain them.

So they had an epiphany: businesses don't want computers, they need computers for the things that computers do. For the the problems that they solve. Yeah, that's it! Businesses really want solutions!

Overnight, a decree was mandated hither and yon. From now on, we're not selling computers, hardware or software ('cause people hate them); we're selling SOLUTIONS.

Oy vey.

Got any pet peeve over-abused words? Send 'em here and we'll beat them with rubber hoses.

The current issue of Business Week Small Biz includes an article on collaboration software, "All Together Now," that compares the relative merits of various competitors.

I don't have a crystal ball that'll tell me which one will ultimately come out on top, but I have a suspicion: it won't be the software that's the "best," but the one that's the simplest -- easiest to use, understand and pay for.

Too often, "best" is irrelevant. In emerging categories, especially, few of us are qualified to know what that is. Or how to find it. The Model T wasn't the best car available in its time, by far. But it successfully reduced the auto to its essentials -- a motor and four wheels -- and sold thousands at a price most people could afford. From this humble beginning, Ford went on to define the market for years to come.

Or take Kodak's Brownie. Compared to other photography options, the Brownie was downright primitive, basically a box with a hole on the outside and film in the inside. But it made a previously complex process ridiculously simple. You took your pictures and mailed the camera to Kodak. Then they returned your Brownie with fresh film and your newly developed pictures. It wasnt' the best photography technology available, but the simplicity of the Kodak process invented a brand new category -- the multi-million dollar consumer snapshot.

Instead of making your next product or service more functional and feature rich, why not make it simpler and less expensive? You might just end up owning the category.

In other news . . .

The next issue of the Kranz On Copy newsletter will be distributed this Friday. In it, I talk about how to get an editor's (favorable) attention and discuss the appropriate amount of links in Web pages.

If you haven't done so already, please subscribe now by using the button on the right. Thanks!