** Tig's weekly column fields questions from and for marketers. Got a question for Tig? Email him by clicking here. **
Dear Tig,
What is the main difference between PR and marketing?
Thanks, Curious
Dear Curious,
Marketing is where lots of young, underpaid, middle class liberal arts graduates run around making ads and then claiming credit for increased client business.
PR is the same thing, minus the ads.
Dear Tig,
What are the suggested guidelines for developing a tag line for my product or service? And to that end, are tag lines relevant in today's marketplace?
Sincerely, Borrowing Trouble
Dear Borrower,
Tag lines are certainly relevant today--as much as in the past. But, as with a great deal of marketing, tag lines can be used to great effect. But misused, they become confusing, diluting negative influences on a brand.
The most common abuse of tag lines is the multiple-level set of tag lines. A company that has a few different divisions might have a corporate tag line, a division tag line, and a product group tag line.
When you start using those tag lines in advertising, you get a muddle of confusing messages: “Buy Acme," “The Caring Company,” “Soaps and Detergents for the Clean-Minded;” “Because, with Anti-Bacterial Hand Soaps, Every Germ Gets What it Deserves.”
The combination of tag lines becomes a set of non-sequitors that merely make the audience forget what the ad was about. Technology companies abuse this commonly, and sometimes hilariously. I remember a list of quickly spoken tag lines at the end of a Sony television commercial that sounded like the legal copy you hear at the end of a car-financing ad.
A good tag line can, instead, set the desired message further into the minds of the audience by reinforcing a message already suggested in the ad. Some famous successful examples include Nike's “Just Do It” and GE's “We Bring Good Things to Life.”
These tag lines can also make people realize with greater clarity that a new product belongs to a well-liked and respected family of brands. Tag lines work best when they bring this sort of additional credibility and sense of quality to the empty vessel of a new product name.
Some guidelines for creating tag lines would include the following:
- Make a tag line emphasize the quality or brand characteristic that will work best across the widest set of products and over the greatest length of time. A quality that needs emphasis at one moment may become less important over time. Judge William's election tag line “Re-elect Hang'em High Williams” might well backfire a few election cycles in the future, after DNA evidence becomes admissible.
- It needs to be general enough to apply to most or all advertising, yet not meaningless. Too specific (Ford's “Quality is Job One”) and some ads don't jibe with it. Too general (IBM's “Think”) and the tag line can seem pointless.
- Never change a tag line that works well. Some companies succumb to tag line changes with each ad campaign or with each new ad agency. The impression left with customers is “tag line noise.” Tag lines seem to work only after much repetition over different contexts. This is what helps gives companies identity. I believe the greatest tag line travesty to be United Airlines abandonment of the “Fly the Friendly Skies” tag line.
- Don't let different divisions or product groups invent their own, separate tag lines.
- Enforce tag line consistency across advertising, but also have some flexibility. Some “out-there” ads may not be suited to the tag line. Exceptions should be made with some intelligent consideration.
