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

~ (Author) "THINK OF THE ULTIMATE ONE-LINER: "I love you..." (more)
Key Phrases: wrong with your television set, gun that won, pause that refreshes, World War, New York, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Why do we remember slogans for Diet Coke from the mid 1980s, but not what we had for breakfast yesterday? In this exploration of the phrases, lines and expressions so well-written and compelling that we can't forget them-no matter how hard we'd like to-marketing veteran Cone (Steal These Ideas!) presents "the Powerline Perspective," that all enterprises "rise or fall on powerful lines, mottos, and sayings." After a brief look at the definition and history of the powerline, Cone mines memorable phrases in politics, movies, television and advertising for the hows and whys of their success. Heavy on lists, with analysis for most individual entries, Cone's book is best read in pieces. That said, the practical advice he offers-between cogent consideration of everything from "M&Ms melt in your mouth" and "There's no place like home" to a collection of his 10 favorite poems (with just "a little commentary")-is helpful and straightforward, and often entertaining (if blustery). Marketers, advertisers or campaign managers looking for inspiration could hardly find a better resource.
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Review

'...absorbing...Cone demonstrates a firm grasp of the importance of what is increasingly an afterthought in most ad campaigns.' --The Chicago Sun-Times, April 24, 2008

'Helpful and straightforward and often entertaining...marketers, advertisers or campaign managers looking for inspiration could hardly find a better resource.' --PW - Publishers Weekly, April 2008

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Bloomberg Press; illustrated edition edition (April 24, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576603040
• ISBN-13: 978-1576603048
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #306,669 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Want to be a more effective marketer? Read this book..., May 1, 2008

By	Sing Chan - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I'm really not convinced, September 12, 2008

By	Andrew S. Rogers (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The second half of "Powerlines" is a decent marketing primer on taglines -- how to recognize good ones and how to create them yourself. It's useful information for advertisers and marketers to know. But Steve Cone is trying to make the tagline into something much more: a "powerline" that achieves the great things described in his subtitle. I don't think his analysis and his examples support his claims.

Cone writes "Most companies that have been marketing leaders over long periods of time employed taglines that built their brand promise into a powerful motivator for consumers to react to and purchase their product" (p. 198).

But have they? In the many examples the author gives of powerful branding taglines, he never proves the tagline was an essential element in making the sale. As the number-crunchers say, he doesn't isolate the variable. Is the "ultimate driving machine" tagline really "a major contributor to BMW's success" (p. 188)? Or is it a crystallization of a host of things -- engineering, luxury, reputation -- that have made BMW a powerful brand? After all, Toyota is the world's leader in car sales and number two in the United States, but do they have a decades-old "powerline" driving their sales? It may be a chicken-or-egg question, but that's just my point.

Perhaps the clearest example of the author's failure to link "powerline" with sales is his mention, several times, of Ed McMahon's "Heeeere's Johnny!" call at the start of Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show." Yes, it was memorable and distinctive, but was it "influential"? Only if Cone is suggesting people tuned into the program, not for the guests or the music or the comedy or Johnny himself, but to hear Ed's invocation.

I guess what my hesitation comes down to is whether "being memorable" is enough. Certainly it's nice. But as a marketer, I'm not being paid to create memories. I'm being paid to drive sales.

I said above that the second half of this book is a good marketing primer. The first half is mostly the author's discussion of memorable "powerlines" from politics and the media. Unfortunately, his explanation or analysis of these were surprisingly often flawed. (Some of these examples may be nitpicky -- but enough nits gathered in one place suggest a serious health issue.)

For example, Cone starts (pp. 8-11) by telling the stories behind some famous nursery rhymes. But much of what he tells as straightforward fact is actually theory and can't be proven. Others, like "Three Blind Mice" being about Queen Mary I or "Ring Around the Rosy" being about the plague, are urban myths debunked on well-known reference sites like snopes-dot-com. In the section on political slogans, he cites "A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage" as a Hoover campaign slogan in 1928 (p. 57). In fact, as political-writer and word-maven William Safire notes in his essential Safire's New Political Dictionary, the phrase (usually given as "two cars in every garage" or "a car in every back yard") was most closely associated with Democrat Al Smith, who used it as an attack on the incumbent GOP.

Finally, a trifecta in his discussion of Theodore Roosevelt (pp. 49-50), who did not order the navy to paint its ships white (USN battleship hulls were white well before the Spanish-American War, as contemporary photographs show); he did not coin the "powerline" "White Water Navy" (the "popular way to describe naval power" is *blue*-water navy); and he did not coin the phrase "The Square Deal" "during his second term" to describe a program including "the establishment of the National Park System" (again Safire, who shows TR first used the phrase in 1901 -- that is, in his first term -- and that "the Square Deal" always referred to trust-busting and other regulation of Big Business, not to things like the park system).

In a way, all this reinforces the question I asked above: is it enough to be memorable? As Cone writes about some great movie taglines, "These lines have struck a chord with our social conscience and live on and on -- the true test of any powerline" (p. 104).

But is that marketing?

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The ultimate marketing primer! , April 30, 2008

By	Evelyn Keyes (washington, dc) - See all my reviews

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!