For marketers, brand managers, design directors, designers and anyone with a general interest in messaging strategy, I’m going to deconstruct the Obama campaign’s successful implementation of a single message.

I’ll start at the end, with Obama’s transition. The Change.gov website is up. As expected, it’s brilliant in its simplicity and consistency.

More to come.

While listening to NPR, I heard the sponsor’s spiel for the MacArthur Foundation:

“The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, we work to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and society.”

“Did I just hear the word ‘verdant’ in a pitch?”

Here’s why this impresses me:

1. “Green” has lost it’s power as an actionable word. There are green homes, green cars, green living, the green party, green jobs. It’s become as numbing as state-of-the-art, organic or 24/7. We read or listen over these words because we’re so used to encountering them. Verdant tips your muscle memory off balance. You feel it the next day. Verdant is a better green.

2. It takes guts to choose unique words. There are many bigwigs on the MacArthur Foundation’s staff and board. I’m sure they’re all smart and opinionated people. To be able to push through a mission statement like that is rare and remarkably savvy. This expresses the caliber of their organization and their mission.

3. They understand their audience. This is NPR. The people who listen likely know of the foundation through their genius awards, support it, and have a general sense of what verdant means. I frequently get push back on unorthodox word choices due to a marketer feeling they’ll lose their audience. Loquacious comes to mind. I once used that word instead of talkative. I admit it probably wasn’t appropriate for a product targeting middle-America consumers, but I feel my role is to push clients to use words and tone as a competitive differentiator.

And verdant is just one little word in a well-crafted mission statement. Other outstanding word choices are “effective,” “just” and “peaceful.” They’re also really showing their heart in the second sentence. These are some of the important themes our civilization is dealing with.

Also commendable is that they’re using their positioning consistently. Same language in the radio ads and annual report as on their website. I’d wager that their people have memorized this language and use it when asked about the foundation.

When I talk about the three questions you must answer compellingly when creating your positioning, this is exactly what I hope to hear. Way to go MacArthur Foundation!

Jan: …With marketing dollars, invest only what can be measured and cut everything else; but now is time to be aggressive with company’s messaging—so PR and communications strategy important (can do a lot these days with relatively low investment). Focus on building out only the essential features of your product, forget the nice to haves; make certain that the features you build are what your customers actually want.

Greg: Getting funding is still a marketing exercise, but one that has to be done with integrity. As investors become more conservative, they will take more time to dig into your business. Nothing will send investors running faster than a sense that a founder/CEO has not been 100% truthful. I think the key is to get an investor to come over to your side of the table. Ask for advice. Don’t shy away from talking about challenges and issues. If an investor is truly interested in putting money to work in your business, he or she will want to engage at that level.

(from Alyssa Royse’s interview on Seattle 2.0 with VC’s Greg Gottesman of Madrona and Jan Hendrickson of Denny Hill Capital.)

As the nation watches Iowa today, businesses should watch the conversation. Caucusing is social networking. While the forum is not online today, precinct groups will interact much like consumer groups do when they converse online about a product or service. Like members of a social network, caucus-goers will be influenced by voices that look and sound like they do (not like pollsters or advertisers).

Increasingly, consumers are nominating (buying) products and services this way. As B.L. Ochman predicts, “social networks will be the key driver of brand success as consumers increasingly trust each other’s opinions and distrust advertising and corporate crap.” Today’s caucusing will provide a big clue for how best to participate in social networks. Namely, business must learn to speak to its customers with a citizen voice.

What does that mean? Adopt a company voice that sounds natural, honest, real and human, and give up the industry (party) line. Communicate with your customers like you’re one of them, a citizen of their network. The Cluetrain Manifesto says that the best way to do that is to “empower real human beings to speak on [your] behalf.” Much like the Iowa caucus will today.

Announced on NPR today, the Lake Superior State University 2008 List of Banished Words is out. The words and phrases on the list are well-worn or overused. Some of them are real groaners:

• Perfect Storm
• Back in the day
• Sweet (you got that report done, sweet)
• It is what it is
• Pop (that color really makes it pop)

Others reflect what’s trickled down from current national and international political affairs:

• Post 9/11
• Surge
• Emotional (the scene was emotional)
• Waterboarding

(We’ve worn out the word waterboarding? That’s not good.)

Webinar is also on the list, which seems harsh to me. I think that word has bandwidth. Maybe bandwidth should take its place. What words do you think should get the boot?

voluptuous magnificence
sumptuous
chandelier
gilded
giblets
poultry stuffing
a pendant bunch of grapes
a dash
a fifth
a coffee spoon
crème brûlée

May the language of feasting entertain you this Thanksgiving.

There’s a thoughtful Bill Virgin editorial in today’s Seattle P-I: “All those cliches aside, momentum is a real force in business”

Highlights of the column:

- A brief look at Starbucks loss of momentum, which Maija has talked about.
- How the success of momentum can result in the 3 Cs: “cockiness, complacency and carelessness.”
- Apple’s marketplace momentum and their triumvirate of design, functionality and marketing.
- Most importantly, momentum is a “self-fueling mechanism both internally (with employees) and externally (with customers and competition).”

From a creative standpoint, loss of momentum is disastrous when you’ve got a team of writers, designers and programmers hurtling away at your project. The best ideas come from riffing off of one another under tight deadlines.

I know many small business owners and I’m always amazed when they fail to mention the name of their business during social conversations about work.

The question “What do you do?” replaced “Where do you work?” some time ago. Probably because it’s a more open question and it allows for the possibility that the answeree does something non-traditional. But don’t miss the chance to say the name of your business just because that isn’t exactly what is asked of you. Consider the following:

Q: What do you do?
A: I’m a copywriter.

Vs.

Q: What do you do?
A: I work for Wordslinger. We write corporate poetry. I’m a copywriter there.

The later introduces the name of our business and provides more information of interest, which encourages continued conversation about our business. If you own the small business you’re marketing then by all means say that, “I own a company called Wordslinger.” It’s a simple way to build interest and brand recognition.

People who work for brand name companies don’t face this challenge. For example, “I work for Starbucks.” Or, “I work for Microsoft.” Get those people talking about you and your small business by introducing it at your next social gathering.

Charles Schwab struck brilliance with its tagline “Talk to Chuck,” inviting us in and promising no airs. The company’s marketing team is at it again with copy that expresses exactly what its target customers are thinking. For example, their Schwab New Client Concierge ad reads:

I need a new investment account.
I just don’t need the hassle of opening one.

The word hassle is loaded with emotion. Who doesn’t fret the task of opening a financial account of any kind? The idea of a financial concierge is brilliant.

How do they know what we’re thinking? Forrester blog, Groundswell reports that that the firm gained insight from their “Money and More’ private online community made up of 350 25-to-40 year old Generation X non-Schwab clients.” Since then, Schwab has “added 32% more Gen Xers YTD when compared to similar timeframes last year.”

From a copy perspective, Schwab competitors Ameritrade and Scottrade are trailing. Scottrade boasts “More broker for your money.” If you don’t know what a broker does or if you don’t have much money, the tagline is meaningless. Ameritrade focuses on providing you with the tools you need to “pursue success as an independent investor.” Huh?

Schwab has mastered the art of connecting with their customers through words. I say bravo to the copywriters. They have helped Schwab eliminate the product-killing gap known as “them and us.”

I love the fact that so many parents are teaching their young children a second language. Sign language and Spanish seem to be the most popular with the parents I know. Their children are delightfully creative and playful with speech. And that prompts a creative response from their parents. This morning, at the school across the street from my house, a young boy said, “Mom, you are Momma Weirdo.” To which the mom replied, “No, I’m Momma Weirda.”