‘Sitting is the new cancer,' Apple CEO Tim Cook declared when speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco in February 2015. The context was his Apple watch, which buzzes gently to remind him to get up and move.

Here Cook crafted a message that would grab our attention, stick in our memory and persuade us to change our behaviour. When I find myself sitting for long periods a thought bubble containing those words pops up in my head, reminding me to get moving. The power of a well-crafted message.

Message mastery

Although the dangers of a sedentary life is hardly a new idea, what Tim Cook did was show the kind of message mastery that truly influences people.

To be master influencers today we start by carefully defining and shaping our message. We have to demonstrate message mastery. Why?

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman explains, ‘The way we judge ideas and approach problems is heavily determined by the way they are expressed to us'. The way we express our message is the simplest yet most powerful means to win over our audience.

Figure 8.1 illustrates the three stages of message mastery — shift, craft and test/do.

1. Shift

In the shift stage you decide what it is you want people to think, feel or do differently as a result of your message.

Here's an example.

The pinkie campaign

Young men between the ages of 18 and 21 are at the highest risk of all drivers on our roads in terms of behaviour and fatality statistics. They ignore conventional advertising on the dangers of dangerous driving.

In approaching this problem, the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) knew the demographic it wanted to target. But how do you persuade an 18-year-old male who thinks he is invincible to drive safely? When burning rubber, hair-raising speed and mad road manoeuvres are practically a rite of passage and proof of machismo, what force can you use to oppose them?

RTA knew the behaviour it wanted to shift. The challenge was to craft a message that would work for an audience that didn't respond to conventional fear-based campaigns.

They decided to go straight for the jugular with a clever campaign based on the eternal attraction between the sexes, but with a simple twist. Girls are shown watching a teenage boy trying to impress them by driving like a drag racer. In a simple but emotionally charged gesture, they show the boy their pinkies. It needs no words to explain that girls think boys who drive like maniacs are compensating for an inadequate penis.

This behavioural change crusade, known as the ‘pinkie' campaign, was splashed across television, radio, print and billboards from 2007 to 2009. Paul Nagy, creative director of Clemenger BBDO Sydney (the agency behind the campaign), explained its success:

‘It was memorable because it bucked the trend of speeding ads showing torn metal and shocking deaths. And it contained a brilliant insight: you speed to look big, but the very people you're trying to impress think the exact opposite of you.'

The ad campaign was almost cruelly to the point and hit the target audience where it hurt most — in the ego. What's more, it worked. ‘Pinkie' became one of RTA's most successful campaigns. Follow-up research showed three-quarters of young drivers said the ads had encouraged them to stick to the speed limit.

Statistics showed that in New South Wales, only a year into the campaign, 22 fewer P-plate drivers died compared with the year before.

So shift identifies behaviour, defines the new thinking or action required and isolates the audience for whom the message is intended. Yet surprisingly few influencers start here.

Clarity first

As an influencer you must be clear about what you want to change or shift before you take another step. Without that clarity, you're setting out on a journey with no destination and no map.

As a sharp-shooting professional wanting results, you must know what and who you want to influence.

In the shift stage, influencers often make the mistake of assuming the targets will know what they mean without them having to S-P-E-L-L it out. But where behavioural change is needed, especially with problem behaviour, those being targeted generally have no idea they should act differently.

So do you assume your audience has the intelligence of a gnat and risk patronising them with condescending language and unnecessarily detailed instructions? Or do you confuse them with messages that are so clever or subtle that only you understand them?

Here's a simple way to tackle the shift stage. Write down your objective, using very specific language. For example:

• As a result of my message I want P-plate driver deaths and injuries to fall by 30 per cent in the next 12 months.
• As a result of my message I want accidents on Smith Street to drop by 25 per cent during our term in office.
• As a result of my message I want sales of guava popsicles through milk bars to climb to 10 000 units a month by 30 June.

Avoid what legendary political speechwriter and author Don Watson calls ‘weasel words', such as corporate and bureaucratic jargon.

A local council defined its objective in the shift stage in this way: ‘We want dog owners to clean up after their dogs, even when no one is watching'. It reached this nugget of gold after many attempts.

All ideas are good ideas

To crystallise your message, go for quantity. Write down as many variations of your message as you can, as fast as you can. By thinking and writing quickly you can outflank your inner censor. Then read it back for quality.

Better still, pull together a team of colleagues in a think tank or creative brain session. Engage staff from a range of departments, even those unrelated to your marketing or message making. (You'll be surprised at some of the quirky thoughts that come out of accounts and engineering.)

If possible, take them out of their usual work environment and set up a creative space. Hire an external room if necessary, and make the event playful and enjoyable with a few preliminary games.

Here's a tip: Distribute a handful of funny postcards or birthday cards and get your people to come up with alternative captions. Or try the substitution game: If you were a colour/animal/car/building/alternative profession, what would you be? Set out some basic rules:

• Avoid negatives or criticism (‘That won't work', ‘That's a stupid idea').
• All ideas are good ideas, no matter how crazy.
• No strategising (that comes later).
• Introduce lots of ‘what if' thinking.
• Encourage idea extension among your people (‘We could take Rick's idea even further by …').

One of my clients was searching for a catchy way to describe what they did, which was to analyse consumer behaviour online. She started with ‘How to stalk your customers' (which was a bit creepy), but after many more shots at it she came up with a winner: ‘How to read your audience's body language online'.

Tweak the system

All this work in the shift stage can also prompt another happy phenomenon. It may morph into your get-out-of-jail-free card and eliminate the craft and test/do stages that usually follow shift altogether.

Survey after survey showed that people fully support recycling. Yet in shopping mall food courts people were loath to walk a few metres to dispose of their rubbish responsibly. Instead of more complex and expensive communications, the operators simply relocated the bins so consumers practically had to walk between them after their meal. A tweak of thinking about systems and processes achieved the objective.

In Thinking, Fast and Slow author Daniel Kahneman shares a better way to get workers to switch off their lights: no, not more signs directing them to turn off the lights, but placing a garbage bin under the light switch. This way, workers on their way out of the office at the end of the day will tend to flip the light switch when they throw their rubbish into the bin.

Again, a system tweak influences behaviour without the need for more messaging.

Once you've completed the shift stage, it's time to move on to crafting your message.

2. Craft

Now is the time to pore over every word in your message shaking out clichés and corporate jargon, and doing all in your power to play back the language of your audience.

But before you go into the mechanics of designing your communication, try setting aside traditional message design and embracing a new mindset. The centre, the axis around which your message rotates, is your audience's identity. Using this as the pivot for your messages will help you craft compelling words and images.

The power of identity

Big Hero 6, a computer-animated comedy-adventure film, features Baymax, a super-sized robotic healthcare companion, and 14-year-old protagonist Hiro Hamada. To fight evil, Hiro continually ramps up Baymax's powers, and every time he gives Baymax a new power, the robot's first response is: ‘How does this make me a better healthcare companion?'

Of course it's a lot funnier in the film, and naturally in a swashbuckling adventure good triumphs over evil. But Baymax echoes a universal question: How does this impact my identity — who I am?

It is a question that is much deeper and richer than the standard WIIFM (what's in it for me?), which might prompt you to reel off a string of benefits. It's so much easier to wade into the shallows with a hazy view of your audience than to articulate what really matters — what impact this will have on their identity, their very being.

In their brilliant bestseller Selfish, Scared and Stupid, behavioural strategists Dan Gregory and Kieran Flanagan argue that whether you're seeking to sell more product, to shift perceptions and drive social change, to lift the performance of your team or to inspire yourself to do more, you must first understand what drives behaviour.

And nothing drives behaviour more than identity — who you see yourself as, and what you want the world to see you as.

Start by asking yourself how this will help your audience be a better leader, a better teacher, a better entrepreneur. And design your message from identity out for maximum impact.

Now we've established that identity is the core around which we build our messages, how can you craft compelling communications?

Sexy sells

We all know sex sells. That doesn't mean you have to include sex in your messages (unless you work in the adult entertainment industry), but you can still sex up your messages. How?

Start by listing all the key messages you are going to use to boost your influence. Don't drown in the detail just yet, and make sure you avoid any laborious explanations. For example, one of your messages might be ‘collaboration is crucial'.

The next step is to repackage these messages so they're sexy or stimulating, daring or funny, so they grab your audience's attention. A sexy message is a memorable, repeatable sound bite.

Here are the top tips for creating a sexy message—and they all let you keep your clothes on!

Tip 1: ‘Smart down' your message

A sexy message is not about dumbing down your message. It's about ‘smarting down' your message in a way people will connect with and remember. Find the right words: make sure they are memorable and capture attention.

Jamie, one of our workshop participants, had as a message ‘last year's results'. Their results were indeed spectacular, but this was quite a standard message. Jamie made it sexy by repackaging it, opening the presentation with, ‘I want to start by telling you why I love you'. Kaboom! Instantly everyone was paying attention. Compare that with the more conventional ‘I am here to share last year's results'. Yawn!

Tip 2: Spin it

What if you have a boring message that has already been shared? You need to put a different spin on it to turn it into a sexy message.

Try looking at newspaper headlines and popular culture for inspiration. For example, a research paper on counterfeit designer clothes became ‘The Devil Wears (Fake) Prada’, playing on the title of the movie and book.

Messina, a Sydney ice-cream shop and a destination for foodies and lovers of gelato, promoted its summer menu under the headline ‘Game of Cones', a play on the popular Game of Thrones TV series. Feel free to be tongue-in-cheek and provocative, and think about how your message can be repackaged using a current popular reference.

Tip 3: Sexy is short

Your message must be short: 15 to 30 seconds maximum. We used to say: storytelling helps increase sales by more effectively engaging with your customers. Now, in our short and sexy version, we say: facts tell, stories sell.

Most messages contain much information but little inspiration. Ernest Hemingway once wrote a long letter to a friend, ending, ‘If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter'. This literary genius understood that it is harder to be short and succinct than to waffle.

Tip 4: Write it as a bumper sticker or a hashtag

Try to distil your message to its essence, much like you'd see on a bumper sticker. Let's face it, you'd never see ‘maximising shareholder engagement' or ‘plausible corporate deniability' on a bumper sticker.

This technique forces you to keep it short. You don't have to come up with an original slogan. If it works with your message you can use one that is already out there. For example, if one of your messages is ‘Focus on the process and the outcomes', you could repackage it to ‘Enjoy the journey'.

Another way to get to the essence of your message is to think in terms of hashtags. If your message were a hashtag what would it be? #hewhoasksprospers or #inspirenotinform. Hashtags again force us to be succinct and punchy.

It may not quite sizzle, but given how low the bar is set in most organisations, anything you do differently or even slightly better will be thought sexier than the norm.

Tip 5: Look for inspiring advertising and movie tag lines

You are probably not a professional copywriter, but there's no reason why you can't piggyback on some of the world's best work. Start collecting advertising and movie tag lines. Think of this as your ‘sexy message bank'.

A leader was presenting a business update on an internal project titled ‘The Hero Project'. The project had stalled, but soon more resources were to be pumped into it.

His original, unsexy message was, ‘The Hero Project is strategically aligned with our organisational imperatives and the issues of resource allocation have been prioritised for this quarter'. He was also a keen Rambo fan and his favourite line from one of the Rambo films was ‘Heroes don't die, they just reload'. So he repackaged his message: ‘Heroes don't die, they just reload with new resources'. Insipid to inspiring.

Of course, some lines providing more detail should always follow your sexy message.

3. Test/Do

Finally you have to test your message and then use it. Testing is tricky, especially if you don't have a big budget and can't pay an agency to test for you. The simplest way is to ask trusted colleagues or members of your target audience. You could say you're speaking to the sales reps next week and you're thinking of leading with … (You then share the new, sexy message you have sweated over.)

This is the time to embrace an iterative or multiple version mindset.

The new perfect

Recently I had the privilege of hearing marketing commentator Seth Godin speak. One of his key messages was: ‘Seventy per cent is the new perfect'.

This message embraces a ‘ship it' or iterative mentality. Its philosophy is get stuff done, deliver as promised, and continually improve based on customer feedback and market expectations.

It is a powerful message because — unless you are landing planes or saving lives — perfectionism is often the enemy of execution.

Of course, embracing 70 per cent as the new perfect is not a licence to fail. It doesn't give you permission to do shoddy work or produce something you're not proud of.

On the other hand, clutching your messages to your heart as you tinker away crafting and recrafting each word and line, refusing to share until it is perfect, is a fool's game.

In their bestseller, Rework, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson say it best: ‘You still want to make something great. This approach recognises the best way to get there is through iterations'.

Message memes

The pinnacle of message mastery is when your message becomes a meme, spreading like a virus inside and outside your organisation.

When Princess Diana died in 1997, the then Prime Minister of Britain, Tony Blair, described her as ‘the people's princess'. This became an instant meme for people to express how they felt about her.

Memes speak to a shared truth and express a sentiment that you can feel but not articulate, in a way that makes you wish you'd thought of it yourself.

Oscar Wilde was notorious for passing off other people's quotes as his own, though to give him his due he was happy for others to borrow lines from him — and really, has anyone had better lines than him? One time he bumped into a friend, the artist James Whistler, who shared a witty anecdote. Wilde said wistfully, ‘How I wish I had said that', to which Whistler replied, ‘Don't worry, Oscar, you will'.

Think of Janet Jackson's infamous ‘wardrobe malfunction’ at the 2004 Super Bowl or ‘twerking' — both memes in popular culture. Occasionally, memes are crafted to explode through the ubiquity of the internet, but the most powerful memes spread by tapping into authenticity without a set agenda.

#putoutyourbats goes viral

For a few days in November 2014, cricket-mad Australia was on a knife edge of anxiety watching updates on the condition of popular Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes, who was seriously injured by a freak blow to the head during a cricket match.

Abruptly the wait was over, though not with the news Australians had hoped and prayed for, when a visibly distraught Michael Clarke, the national team captain, informed the world of Hughes' untimely death. The ripples of shock and grief engulfed not only the cricket community but the entire country, and a large part of the cricket world.

A Sydney cricket fan, Paul Taylor, posted a poignant image of his cricket bat outside his home, using the hashtag #putoutyourbats. In his own words, it was ‘just a way for all cricketers to show their respects to Phillip Hughes'.

What happened next was startling. People all over the world used the hashtag #putoutyourbats to share photos of cricket bats outside their front doors. Even Google placed an image of a bat on its home page in memory of Hughes. I must admit to tearing up seeing a child's bat outside a picket fence in my suburb. Through a simple hashtag, people all over the world found a way to unite and find mutual comfort, in this case over the senseless loss of a popular sporting figure. The initiative was unique and authentic: a simple gesture from a fan who wanted to pay tribute to a first-class cricketer. At a time where words do little to convey the sorrow of a situation, Paul Taylor created a meaningful meme and influenced people to show they cared.

How to create a meme

On the consumer technology site Digital Trends, Jam Kotenko details how to create a meme, and Google is your best friend here. Kotenko talks about internet memes, which she defines as ‘a popular and usually funny idea or concept that has been passed on from person to person via the Web, usually with a highly visual element and focus. It comes in various forms, most commonly through photos emblazoned with witty text'.

Like so many things, memes take practice, insight and the ability to tap into popular culture or how people are feeling at this moment. Memes are an art form and there is no magic formula. It is unlikely the first meme you write will be a viral sensation! But memes are worth pursuing, thinking about and crafting as they can influence your audience today, tomorrow and into the future.

Power players invest wisely in message mastery; they know words can transform, inside and out, changing their world and the world.

Message mastery draws on passion — for a cause, a purpose, for change and above all for people. And this passion, as the following chapter shows, is expressed through the power of love.