Microwave Headlines

Linus Pauling, a two-time Nobel Prize winner, famously said

“The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas, and throw the bad ones away.”

Creativity is a process.

You generally need dedicated time to sit down and focus on generating a lot of ideas. Generally, the first stuff you make will be kinda “meh.” Then you’ll have an idea. You’ll build on it. You’ll find ideas related to it. You find something else and build on that.

This continues until you’ve found various interesting ideas.

At least that’s what happens whenever we’re making ad creatives for clients, or whenever I’m making carousels for LinkedIn.

But what if you don’t have that luxury of time? What if someone on the team comes to you and says:

“Hey, you’re a good copywriter, what’s a clever way of saying X?”

Because with time, you can make a gourmet meal. But what if you only have 15 minutes? Well, in that case, you need to use a microwave.

And that’s what Dan calls a “Microwave Headline.”

Let’s dive into 6 techniques to get a decent headline in 15 minutes or less:

1. Ask them to write the bad “facts” version

Or as Dan says it, get them to “Say it straight, say it great.”

Ask the person (or yourself) to just state the facts.

This is useful for a few reasons:

1. It forces the requester to be more clear with the request by summarizing it in a sentence.
2. It gives you a backup. If you can’t find a more clever way to do it, then give it an edit and send it back with your approval.
3. As Harry Dry says it, all good writing and communication starts with a fact. Instead of saying: “Tiger Woods wasn’t very strong today,” say: “Tiger Woods normally averages X, and instead he’s Y today.”
   1. This forces the reader to think and completely removes subjectivity.

Sometimes the factual statement is actually pretty good.

2. Smile headlines

This is a concept that Dan also calls The Mullet.

• Business in front: Put the factual business message upfront.
  • “Follow me on LinkedIn.”
  • “People swear by it.”
  • “Please enjoy responsibly.”
• Party in the back:Make them smile with a joke on the business message.
  • “Or I’ll keep following you in person.”
  • “And at it.”
  • “The Internet never forgets”

Try that and see if you make something better than “just the facts.”

3. Common quotes/phrases

Here you want to dive into pop culture, common phrases, or quotes.

Try to think of anything remotely related to your product or market (or words that rhyme with things kind of sorta related).

The examples that Dan gives for a sporty deodorant are:

• “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” → “Don’t sweat the sweaty stuff.”
• “To be or not to be” → “To stink or not to stink.”
• “Be the change you want to see in the world” → “Be the scent you wish to smell in the world.”

I asked ChatGPT to write some ideas to pitch itself… a lot were terrible but after some prompting and editing, here’s what we came up with:

• "The pen is mightier than the sword." → "The prompt is mightier than the pen."
• "Houston, we have a problem." → "Houston, we have a solution—ChatGPT."
  • Alternatively it could be “Houston, we had a problem.”
• "Think outside the box." → "Think outside the brain."
• "Ask and you shall receive." ****→ "Prompt and you shall receive."

4. Find some opposites

I’ll do exactly what Dan did here and share a quote from Thomas Kemeny’s book Junior, Writing Your Way Ahead in Advertising.

“Clients love this shit. It’s cheap, but it works. Find some parallel you cna make in the language between opposites. You can this with just about any brief, any client, any boffer. For exdample, a bank wants you to talk about their low interest rates on their platinum cards. You can be “Small rates. Big dela.” Or “Pay a little, get a lot.” If you’re working on a car you could say, “Roars like a lion, priced lime a lamb.” Or “Giant horsepower. Tiny price.”

Here are some examples for major tech companies I just came up with (with the help of ChatGPT):

1. Apple: "Powerful inside. Beautiful outside."
2. Tesla: "Fast as lightning. Quiet as a whisper."
3. Airbnb: "Unique stays. Familiar comfort."
4. Google: "Search less. Find more."
5. Amazon: "Big variety. Small wait."
6. Netflix: "Big binge. Tiny cost."

5. 100 MPH Writing

That’s 160kph for the non-Americans and Brits in the audience.

Here, you set a timer for 15 minutes and write down as many ideas as you can.

Just let it flow. You can judge them at the end, and hopefully you vomited something halfway decent out.

6. Fill a few buckets

This is a shortened version of the meat of Dan’s creative process, which we outlined in Process to Generate Copy Ideas.

Here’s the high-level overview (this uses an example directly from A Self Help Guide for Copywriters by Dan Nelken.

Step 1: Jot down a few very high-level value props/ideas. For example, for sporty deodorant:

1. You won’t stink
2. You’ll smell nice
3. It’s good for you skin.

Yes they’re very dumb and high-level.

Step 2: Fill 3 buckets with more flesh out ideas

For example for “you won’t stink”

1. You can go from the gym to a date
2. YOu can go from the gym to the bar
3. You can go from the gym back to work
4. You can go into an elevator without offending people
5. You won’t smell like you just had a workout.

Step 3: Spend 5 minutes turning those into headlines

1. “From working out to working it.”
2. “From sweaty to ready.”
3. “From weight room to board room.”
4. “Do burpees. Don’t smell like burpees.”

Remember, writing is hard

Writing clearly and cleverly in a way that also increases someone’s desire to purchase your product is insanely difficult.

But use these techniques above to slam out some solid headlines in a short timeframe.