Sean Everett explains how three-word phrases like Nike's "Just Do It" and Staples' "Easy Button" spread virally through word-of-mouth and cement a brand for decades. The best sound bites are short, plain-language statements people naturally repeat to describe your product or idea.
Hello. All right, I want to talk to you about virality, and in this episode we're going to talk about repeatable sound bites. So, um, I haven't ever heard this phrase quite put it like that before, and we've said it a lot when we've been advising other companies on how to make their messaging basically get relayed from one person to another. As you all probably are aware, word of mouth is the most cost-efficient and effective form of marketing for any business, any product, any service. So buying ads is great, but if people aren't talking about what you've got, then your NPS is probably a little low. So, okay, repeatable soundbites. I like to keep them 3 words and I like to keep them action-oriented. So one of the best ones is Just Do It by Nike. That's a classic, right? It's the principle behind repeatable soundbite is this. Basically, when someone hears it, they can then take that and use it as an explanation for someone else that they can give to somebody else. And that by its very nature allows it to spread, right? It's like a virus. Another one, and just disregard the political affiliation here, but I think the repeatable soundbite was so good that it helped enable a presidency. So Donald Trump in his run had a couple things. One was Make America Great Again. Right, so 4 words, but his constituency took that phrase, that repeatable soundbite, and repeated it on social media, in face-to-face conversations, at work. It became an explanation, um, even that the media picked up— Make America Great Again. So every time you heard that, you thought about him. Another one, which obviously I don't really quite like because it's not so positive, But drain the swamp, right? So it's used as an explanation for other people that they can then use as an explanation for themselves, a state of being, a state of the world. So some brands can talk about taglines, but this is different than a tagline, right? There's things like Staples, right? Which— that was easy. The easy button comes to mind. Or Wheaties Breakfast of Champions. So that's more of like a state of being, right? So like Wheaties Breakfast of Champions, I don't go around and say that to other people. It's just a state, right? Same thing with the easy button. That was easy. I mean, that has a little bit of virality built into it. But just do it is sort of interesting because as you hear other people say it in real life, it then triggers the brand Nike as well. So if you can use plain language, if you can keep it short, 3 words, and if you can make it be an explanation of something that people would then use to help explain the world around them, I believe, we believe that that more than anything else can help a message and a product or a service or a business go viral. And once it does, you then own that phrase for decades, right? I mean, just do it. Nobody else is going to take that phrase. So that's repeatable soundbite. Um, let us know if you've used any in the past, how they've worked, any that you've found that are great out in the wild. And, uh, yeah, if you need help, head on over to everettadvisors.com. All right, have a great weekend. That's it from us. See you later.
