The Answer Department: Taglines
March 10th, 2007 by Dominic Canterbury
Amy Woidtke wrote to the D/C Answer Department asking about how to come up with a good tagline.
It’s a great question and one that many businesses, small and large, struggle with.
With taglines a common mistake is to believe they can somehow build your credibility. But credibility is something that can only be proven. No matter how witty or bold your tagline is, nobody’s going to believe it.
My favorite of late is the one for the Venus leg-shaving razors – “Reveal the goddess within.” Wow. A razor that makes you more god-like? It’s a bold claim cleverly expressed. And still it does nothing. I doubt anybody old enough to have leg hair would think that it’s anything more than a (possibly) pretty good razor.
Though a tagline can do nothing for your credibility, it can show relevance. A good tagline tells people exactly why they should continue paying attention to you. And a REALLY good tagline does so with creativity and flair.
Businesses who struggle with the development of a tag line are often doing so under the influence of misguided strategy. As you mentioned, the purpose of a tag line is not to build credibility. The purpose is to build relevance.
While the purpose of a logo is to communicate who and what a company is, the tag line’s purpose is to succinctly communicate, in a way that no other company can, what the company does. If they are somehow hoping to communicate credibility through a tag line, they have been led down the wrong path.
Tag lines are extremely effective if the strategy and writing are exceptional. The fact is that most tag lines suck not because they are trying to build credibility, but because they are simply poorly written. This is because companies generally do not hire a professional strategy and creative writing team to conceptualize and write an exceptional tag line that will communicate relevance. If they did, our world would not be graced with the likes of “Ride the Light,” and my personal favorite, “Spirit of Service.”
What is a ’spirit of service’? I’ll tell you. It is the spirit of an non-strategic, poorly conceived, poorly written tag line. It was probably done in-house, and it probably cost the company nothing, which is exactly what it is worth.
Good tag lines are written by writers who work with good strategists. If people invest in their tag line, it can pay off big, just like an outstanding identity can. I always teach my clients about the importance of investing in a well-written tag line. It is a critical part of their identity.
Amen, Kelly!
I do love a good tagline. You\’re right, though. We\’re steeped in bad ones and it\’s often big businesses setting a bad example. Qwest\’s \”Spirit of Service\” is definitely one of the worst. It\’s a huge missed opportunity. If it\’s doing anything for them, it\’s hurting them. I mean, wouldn\’t we all prefer ACTUAL service over the mere spirit of it. Since I\’m no fan of Qwest, I like to think that they\’re acknowledging that they murdered Service with their bare hands yet to this day they are haunted by its ghost.
Here here! That’s exactly it! I was trying not to name names, but since you opened that can, what Qwest succinctly proved with their ghostly tagline is that not only do they fail to understand the purpose of a tag line, but they seem to be specifically acknowledging that they have horrible customer service. What will they blunder of next?
[…] My favorite example ever of such Claim Inflation is the tagline “Reveal the Goddess Within” for Venus leg-shaving razors. (Here’s my blog post about it.) […]