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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{ 10 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.
Don’t squeeze the Charmin ! Have a Coke and a smile ! We try harder. Let your fingers do the walkin’….All great taglines. Interesting none of them are around today – most having been gone from consumer marketing for over 10 years.
Bet the average consumer can’t come up with 5+ tag lines for active brand campaigns today.
A couple of personal observations: Most great brand tags are created by accident. The process of discovering and writing a great tag is magic. Is magic sometimes accidental? Sure. I guess. But the best of them are grounded in solid strategy based on actionable consumer insights.
One other point about the memorable taglines listed? They weren’t just lines. They were fulling integrated into advertising and marketing programming.
For years and years we saw Mr. Whipple squeeze the Charmin – and talk about it on TV. “Have a Coke and a smile” was the key lyric line in one of Coke’s most memorable jingles. “We try harder” ran for years featuring demonstrations/stories of how Avis was working harder to please their customers. Upon the launch of the campaign much of the country was wearing WTH buttons given out by Avis – the same buttons featured in their commercials. “Let your fingers” was reinforced by animated walking fingers and a song.
Brands kept and used these valuable lines for years. Now it seems every brand manager wants his/her own tag to help identify the marketing effort as belonging to them.
Not only did these lines live on for years – but they were backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in media buys.
A great tagline can certainly benefit a brand. But a great tagline can just be that – a line – unless it’s fully integrated into all marketing efforts and communications and used over an extended period of time. Otherwise they can just be another line of copy placed close to the logo. Oh, and a few million in media wouldn’t help to burn ‘em into the minds of consumers.
David Strandberg, Minneapolis
Hey David,
Your comment is better than a LOT of entire posts I’ve read.
Thanks for taking time to leave such a well thought out addition to our conversation!
Is everybody in Minneapolis as smart as you
Come back soon!