Article by Lynne Suzanne

Picture the scene!   You’re sat at home, leaning over the dining room table. Chewing your pen top,  surrounded by receipts, entry forms, labels and all manner of comping paraphernalia.

For the twenty-fifth time you’ve asked yourself why you want to win a trip to America to see a basketball game with XYG lager and still you’re no closer to finding the answer.  Sound familiar?

It’s no wonder you become disillusioned and disheartened.  So what happens next?

You can resort to sending in a revamped chestnut which has won countless prizes either in it’s original form or revamped, for instance:

 "Connoisseurs select them, promoter perfects them"

"Experts select them, customers prefer them"

That sort of thing!

Or, perhaps like me, you simply make yourself a nice hot cuppa, switch on the TV and see what’s been happening in your favourite soap.  So, I thought, there’s got to be a better way.  Seek and you shall find.

The answer came to me whilst ironing, of all things.   Give your little grey brain cells a problem to work out, then instead of worrying, forget it, do some other task like gardening, ironing or cooking your lunch, and hey presto, when you least expect it, the answer pops into your head.  So it was with slogan writing.

Now for those of you who have met me on With Lynne Roadshows, will know that for several years in which I’ve given you my four steps to successful slogan writing.    Brainstorm, phrases, tiebreakers, sparkling slogans. This this method still holds true, as I won cars and holidays using this method.

Well, back to the ironing. Tedious job, but nevertheless, it was when inspiration struck.   Instead of turning phrases round to see if they sound better in a tiebreaker, why not turn the whole slogan writing thing on it’s head.

Instead of writing a tiebreaker slogan to fit a competition lead-in line, why not write a slogan and then simply wait for the right competition to come along. Eureka!

Instantly the pressures off.  How many times have you  waited until the 29^th of the month to hastily think  up a slogan to fit a comp that closes on the 31^st. Come on now. Confession time. Yes, of course you have. Me too.

Far better, don’t you think if you have ten or so wonderful slogans that you’ve spent time perfecting, from which to select one to fit that last minute competition. Wonderful.

No more last minute rushes. No pressure. No bitten finger nails. Just excellent slogans when you want them. Purr-fect !   Oops, sorry, that’s for my pet food comp!

Just imagine, if judges have waded their way through thousands of fifteen word, rhyming slogans, which sound sleepily similar – ZZZzzzzz. Oops nearly dozed off! Then wow! Your sparkling, short, snappy little number comes along.  They sit up and take notice. 

 "Hey Fred, listen to this."  "That’s our winner."

Magic words, eh?   That’s what you’re aiming for. Let me give you an example.

My daughter decided she wanted to become a singer, "but", she said.  Why is there always a but?  If you’re a parent, you’re probably no more nearer the answer than I am!

"But what?"  I ventured.

"I can’t afford the equipment."

 "No worries", I told her, "we’ll win it’, I said, more confident than I was feeling, when she gave me a three week deadline to win it.

So we took ourselves off to the newsagents and bought four glossy music magazines.

Out came our Pun-ch Lines! book of snappy slogans.  Under the "Music" heading, we selected one which fitted perfectly.  The blurb in the text mentioned opera, classical music, golden oldies and catchy little tunes.

"I want to sing using my new sound system because…"

"it would be a gold-en opera-tune-ity"

£2,000 worth of music equipment later, what did she do?  Promptly gave up singing!

Daughters, who’d have ‘em!

© Copyright  1993-2005 Lynne Suzanne www.win-with-lynne.co.uk


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About the author
Lynne Suzanne is a consultant, freelance writer and author of Win With Lynne Intaslogans, Pun-ch Lines! and  Win Your Fortune in Prizes.
FREE  Win With Lynne - How to Win Competitions guide.
www.win-with-lynne.co.uk

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