Can a Terrific Title Make You Millions?
“I used to call it Scrambled Eggs.” - Paul McCartney, referring to the working title of his famous Beatles song, Yesterday.
I’m convinced that a great title is one of the biggest keys to success for any book, movie, song, or business.
A great title gets you in the door. It sparks a flame of curiosity in your audience that makes them want to investigate further.
I’m amazed at how many Hollywood films are released with really boring, forgettable titles. Even with big-name stars attached, these movies are dead on arrival.
Basic
Man of the Year
Hollywood Homicide
Two For The Money
Do you remember those films? Do you care? Me either! Guess what? They all came out within the past six years and starred John Travolta, Robin Williams, Harrison Ford, and Al Pacino. They could be the best movies in the world but the titles don’t excite me enough to want to see them. They’re too bland and vague.
Compare them to these memorable titles:
Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Mission Impossible, Back to the Future, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, The Karate Kid, Kill Bill, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives.
Kinda grab you, don’t they? They’re intriguing, urgent, funny, interesting. They spark our curiosity. They’re also visual - they put pictures in our heads that tease us and make us want to see the action they promise.
How about hit songs?
Heartbreak Hotel, When Doves Cry, Werewolves of London, Sunday Bloody Sunday, All My Exes Live in Texas, Runnin’ With The Devil, Careless Whisper, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Lady is a Tramp.
Or some popular books:
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Conversations With God, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Alice in Wonderland, Green Eggs and Ham, Where the Wild Things Are.
‘Name’ titles tend to be popular and safe:
Charlotte’s Web, Carrie, Casablanca, Jerry Maguire, Ocean’s Eleven, Forrest Gump, Titanic.
Name titles make you curious about who the people are and why an entire movie or book is devoted to them.
Sure, there are many successful creations with bland titles. I can’t name one song title by the band New Order, but I can still sing their tunes. Titles like A Few Good Men, and Contact don’t elicit much excitement, but they have great plots and actors attached. Battlefield Earth is a pretty cool title, but we know what happened there. So who knows why some succeed while others don’t.
Why not strive to make your titles stand out? Why not make them memorable, catchy, intriguing, funny, quirky, or mysterious?
Give us a title we’ll always remember!
Thoughts? Leave a comment!
Hi Mark,
What you’ve written is very true. People love catchy titles, and they like to repeat them. Make them intriguing and people will want to find out what’s really behind the words.
Great insight, Mr. Penta! Coming up with cool titles is a fun way to write songs as well…Just make up the title first, then write the music and lyrics later!
A few off the top of my head:
1. Ultra Mega Madness Machine
2. The Bastard Sons of County Kildare
3. Blue Smoke & Black Mirrors
Hey if anyone wants to scribble out some lyrics, I’ll record them with music and send the mp3 to Mark to post!
I definitely think you’re right, Mark. But just for fun, I checked the list of Best Picture Oscar winners for boring titles and came up with these:
Wings
The Broadway Melody
Grand Hotel
It Happened One Night
You Can’t Take It With You
Going My Way
The Lost Weekend
The Best Years Of Our Lives
Gentleman’s Agreement
An American In Paris
On The Waterfront
The Apartment
My Fair Lady
A Man For All Seasons
In The Heat Of The Night
Ordinary People
Out Of Africa
The English Patient
Chicago
Crash
The Departed
Of course we might disagree about what is boring, but I was surprised to see this many Oscar winners that I considered to have boring titles. No doubt they succeeded for other reasons, but why not have a catchy title as well?
How about Slaughterhouse Five? That’s an attention grabber!
Barbara - ah yes, the repetition - a good reason to come up with a title that’s easy to remember.
Dr. Heng - You’re so right. Starting a creative project with a catchy title is a great creative-prompt. I’ve written many a tune this way. Those are awesome titles.
Hunter - wow! Thanks for doing the homework. You’re right - those are pretty drab titles considering they’re best picture winners. I will say, however, that I love titles that begin with “The…” There’s something dramatic about it that gives whatever word that comes after a certain gravitas.
Laurie - No doubt. I always mean to read that book and never get around to it. A very curious title.
Of course you’ve heard of Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”. I read somewhere that he was having trouble coming up with a title and his publisher threatened that if he didn’t come up with something soon the book would be published with the title: “Use Your Noodle and Make a Boodle”. Do you think the book would be such a widely-read classic with that title?
Come read my post “How to Be Creative”, I think it’s right up your alley.
“STOMPIN’ AT THE SAVOY”…every time I hear that title I wish that I could go back in time and be tossed around the dance floor like a rag doll in a swanky nightclub!
If you ever look for a catchy title but lack inspiration
Try this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Sometimes the random search comes up with crap. But I just did it and it came up with ‘Grave of the fireflies’. I’d want to see that movie!
Marelisa - that’s hilarious! I didn’t know that about Think and Grow Rich (a pretty cool book, by the way.) I like your blog very much - seems we’re on the same page!
Krystin - I can hear the music (and see you) swingin’ right now! That’s a great title. Thanks!
Mimi - hey, neat. I didn’t know about that feature of wikipedia. Thanks for the tip!
I’m only beginning to see the power in my post titles. I have much to learn and some I just slap up there and others like “WALRUS SPANKING” are a hit. I do find it a very creative challenge now to do that. How fun that your brought up here, which reinforces it for me.
Respectfully I disagree!
Big. There’s a movie with a so-so title that works because the movie was great. Juno is a great movie - but the title doesn’t say a lot.
And what makes a great song title makes a lousy blog title (according to copyblogger at least.) And what about songs like, “How do I live without you?” Is that a good title? A trashy love song? A number one hit sung by two different divas BECAUSE it’s a good title?
All of it is so subjective. I still feel like a great movie is going to be a great movie no matter what the title. And a great song is a great song no matter what the title. And a great blog post by Seth Godin can be called anything and people will want to read it. And a great blog post by Brian Clark will be written to generate lots of google readers and to get dugg.
I will always maintain that it’s about the spirit of the thing. For every rule anyone tries to make about this stuff, there’s ten exceptions!
Hi Christine - you make awesome points, and I’m glad you disagree. I can’t really dispute what you’re saying. As I mention at the end of my post, there are countless examples of successful creations with blah titles. If it’s good, it’s good, and it doesn’t matter what the title is.
I still maintain, however, that a unique title gets you in the door faster. Your song “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad.” is a perfect example. You probably get a big reaction when you announce that title at your shows. It has no bearing on whether it’s a good song or better song than your others - but it just might make someone single that tune out over the others and make them press ‘play’ a little faster.