Know-How Exchange : Taglines/Names

The best tagline is the one that helps people who don't know anything about one's company to quickly "get it". If you have a bunch of candidate taglines, ask people who are your general target market to respond to your various taglines. What do they like (and why)? What don't work (and why)?

Jay's right. The only opinions that count on this are those of your target audience. This is a researchable topic, and it's important enough to warrant a quick study.

What you want to know is which tagline candidate best communicates the positioning benefit. This assumes, of course, that you've already convinced yourselves that the positioning benefit is the right one for the target audience. No sense refining, perfecting and optimizing the implementation of a flawed strategy.

Dear Schrabes,

I believe you need a nice lie down on a comfy cot in a darkened room. Thus situated, repeat after me:

"Thy client shalt not use the same word or phrase over and over in any tag line."

Here endeth the first lesson.

Several years ago, a 30 second radio ad for an East coast company (that shall remain nameless) used their company
name in their radio spot NINE TIMES.

Nine!

They also repeated their telephone number five times.

Sorry, what was that number again?

When a client wants to repeat a tag line or some element that's important to THEM, over and over again, that client has nothing new to say. Which means their prospect or customer will hear nothing new.

So, regardless of the message they put out, their message will be predictable, dull, and drab. This means their message will also be forgotten. Hardly an effective use of that client's marketing money, eh?

And in my experience, marketing that repeats the same thing
over and over again becomes something that no marketing ought to ever be and that's annoying.

This "if happy boys can't make it happy then it can't be made happy" thing sounds like Donald Rumsfeld's "there are known knowns and known unknowns" speech from a few years back.

It's meaningless.

Your client might want to consider that the story they tell becomes their customer's lasting impression. So, who are they targeting and what impression do they want to give?

Excessive repetition confuses and divides customer attention. It also wastes money and reduces return on investment.

In situations such as this, clients seldom see the ramifications of their tinkering (no matter how well intentioned) until it's too late.

And who do clients blame for the failure of such messages? Why, their marketing and design people, of course!

I hope this helps. Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

I also agree with Jay's "get it" comment.

To me a tagline works best when it provides a clear "positioning strategy" and a clear "benefit statement" making it easier for the customer to "get it".

example: Avis, we're number two, we try harder.

In this example Avis first states a clear territorial position, they are number two in the rental car business as perceived by the customers. Then Avis completes the messaging by stating why this is of benefit to the customer. The number two position means they are in the best position to become number one, they have more motivation to "try harder" than the lesser positioned competitors. And they have earned the second position meaning they are doing many things right. Lastly, people often will root for the under dog, whether it's for a team in the Superbowl or it's a car rental company.

And as for the tagline "if happy boys can't make it happy then it can't be made happy", it seems to me this is the statement of a company that doesn't have much respect for the customer. The customer is not stupid.

Hope this helps,

Steve

My personal opinion:

Good taglines are short and memorable. They also communicate a clear and important benefit the consumer/customer should expect.

You usually don't have the luxury of being able to repeat a word from your name or from earlier in the tagline.

Repetition is often a signal that there isn't much substance, or that the company doesn't really have a benefit worth explaining.


But that's just me. I don't know if I'm really in your target audience. Maybe for some repetition will actually work better. Why do you want MY opinion?