Terry O'Reilly • Photo from @terryoinfluenceDear Reader,
As we discovered during our annual brainstorming session last week, the simplest questions can be the hardest to answer.
Our particular existential crisis was brought on by Terry O’Reilly… you know, the guy who created advertising campaigns for Bell, Nissan, Pepsi and a group of nuns (still waiting to hear that story)… the Terry O’Reilly who co-founded Pirate Radio & TV and hosts Under the Influence on CBC… the Terry O’Reilly whose podcast has been downloaded over 40 million times. Yeah, that Terry O’Reilly.
We invited Terry to our AGM because we wanted to know if print is still relevant in a digital age. We think it’s relevant, but we’re also kind of biased. We wanted (needed) an objective, respected, outside opinion from someone who had nothing to lose or gain. Who better, we thought, than one of Canada’s marketing thought leaders?
Terry agreed to make an appearance… and told us about Albert Lasker. Lasker joined Lord & Thomas advertising agency in 1898 and quickly became its head copywriter. By 1912, he owned the company and grew it – even during the Great Depression – to become the largest advertising agency in the United States. Lasker did it, said Terry, through the power of storytelling.
The crux of being a great storyteller is knowing what story you’re trying to tell. In the marketing world, this is known as your elevator pitch. Distilled to its purest form, it’s the single magic insight that immediately identifies who you are and what makes you special. “It forces you to grasp the essence of your business in a few words,” said Terry.
It’s also, he said, incredibly hard to get right.
His favorite elevator pitch of all-time is for a technology magazine: Wired, the magazine that feels like it was mailed back from the future. (Can we pause for a moment to consider the irony of a tech-oriented product, conceived for and delivered on such an old school medium as print – and achieved tremendous success doing so? Hmmm… perhaps that’s the answer to our relevance question right there. But I digress.)
Another stellar example of a perfect elevator pitch was for the Dirty Harry film franchise, produced in 1971. It could have been pitched as a series about a rogue cop. Instead, it was this: Dirty Harry is more violent than the criminals he chases. The movie studio bought in, even before they had a script.
Our tag line, Atlantic Canada’s business magazine, is, he said, a great tag line. But it isn’t a great elevator pitch. It doesn’t tell our story, what makes us special.
We talked about our relevance (content that’s about Atlantic Canadians, by Atlantic Canadians, for Atlantic Canadians). Then we talked about our award-winning journalism. And we talked about the value of the consultative services provided by our account executives. Those were all nice benefits associated with Atlantic Business Magazine, but that isn’t our story.
Who are we? Just as important, who are we to you?
If you have an idea of what our elevator pitch should be, I’ve love to hear it. You can reach me via email.
Dawn Chafe
Executive Editor & Co-owner
P.S. According to Terry, magazines are by nature consummate storytellers. And print is the ideal medium for long-form journalism. So are magazines still relevant in a digital age? The short answer is yes: now, more than ever.