I remember several great advertising tag lines:
Don’t squeeze the Charmin !
Have a Coke and a smile !
We try harder.
Let your fingers do the walkin’.
I also have seen a million terrible ones, too. Just yesterday I looked over a piece of crappy copy that someone was thinking of using and the tagline on the top of the page was as poor a choice as could have been made.
That started my thinker and I tried to come up with an answer as to how and why the good ones come from. Pure luck is what I’ve decided.
Whatever you do, don’t force it. If you can’t come up with one, just run the ad and see if anybody suggests one after they see the campaign.
Most of the time the really good one’s are accidentally created anyway.
Good tag lines stand alone and make people think of your product.
Bad tag lines make people think your company is run by monkeys.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I think I’ve met some of those monkeys.
I KNOW I Have !
Thanks for stopping by Liz.
Developing a good tag line is much easier than luck.
Poor tag lines are developed in the boardroom, far away from a deep understanding of the customer.
Compelling tag lines – those that capture in just a few words what it is that makes customers perk up – are a natural result of developing a deep understanding of what is important to our target market.
Apparently FedEx’s super-successful “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight” was first uttered by a customer in a focus group – after watching a planned [and very average] TV commercial.
Bose uses “Better sound through research,” which says so much in so few words to their target market. Same for “Everything is easier on a Mac.”
In all three of these examples, the tagline is presented from the CUSTOMER’S point of view; articulating what the CUSTOMER values.
Lousy tag lines articulate what the company thinks about themselves and leave the customer thinking “Says who?”
Dov Gordon
Great addition to the post Dov.
Thanks for taking time to enlighten us with that.
I agree with Dov that a process can be useful. The best tag lines are simple and simplicity is the hardest thing. Was it Mark Twain who said “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead?”
To elaborate on Dov’s comments – the worst tag lines have ego involved. From the technical world they are trying to show too much expertise, from the consumer world, they are trying to be too cool. If you are going to play to an ego, wouldn’t it be better to play to your customers?
To get started, I advice my clients to sit back and pretend they are a customer who has just had a superb interaction with their company. What are the first words out of their mouth?
One of my favorites is “That was easy”. It says so many things.
Hey Lisa,
Thanks for adding to our conversation.
Your tip about pretending to be a customer is a great idea. Mind if we steal it ?
Lisa’s comment is brilliantly spot-on! It truly is all about the customers–what they need, want, and are willing to pay for. I’d not considered it in this way before, but As Lisa observed, far too many people are simply trying too hard to show how brilliant they really are. Yet their customers have one or two things that are truly important to them, and when the two are not aligned, ad results are mediocre at best, disastrous at the worst.
I’ve often taken it one step further and asked customers, “If a colleague were to ask you what makes us different and better than anyone else, what would you say and how would you say it?” Ofttimes, their own words are far, far better than anything I could come up with.
Great addition Curtis !
We appreciate you for jumpin’ on and addin’ to.