 The B.S.-Free Zone
Tagline: You’re It! (How to catch a good one)
By Barry Callen
Call it a tagline, a themeline, or a slogan. Whatever you call it, there is no rule that requires you to have one! If you are in a category where sounding “addy” or “selly” feels like you’re trying too hard (The Church of Our Divine Lady of Angels™, Your soul source of salvation!), or if your name says it all (Madison Budget Printing), then you are probably better off with a simple category descriptor line (Madison Budget Printing™: Printing, Mailing, Graphic Design). It says what you do and/or who you do it for. This is useful on a website or in a telephone directory, where people need to know quickly if they have come to the right place.
On the other hand, a great tagline can have phenomenal marketing power. I bet you can complete most of these brilliant taglines: “What happens in _______ stays in ________”, “The few, the proud, the _______”, “Got ______?” They help you recall the name of the organization or product. This recall can last for decades, long after the ad campaign ends. It’s like having a million dollar media budget, free.
A great tagline can also inspire: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” or “The toughest job you’ll ever love.” The best taglines use a few concrete specific fifth-grade-level words to craft a clear, powerful promise that makes you feel something instantly.
A tagline alone can’t save your business (there are little things like quality, price, service, distribution, weather, media budget, and competitors that also have a rather large effect). But I have personally witnessed the power of a great tagline to help generate profits.
I co-wrote “Think Black Ink” for an accounting/consulting firm (then) called Williams-Young. I have never seen a client take a tagline and run with it like they did. They threw out anything with color. Everything – printed materials, pens, website, building – became black and white and used the tagline. A year later, their president appeared in the pages of this very magazine and attributed a huge increase in sales to “thinking black ink.”
Taglines with staying power are often rather short, simple, and dumb (ad professionals like to refer to them as being “conversational”). Back around 1992-93, I wrote a tagline for Zatarain’s New Orleans-style box dinners. The line was so obvious that I wasn’t particularly proud of it: “Jazz it up”. But it tested through the roof. Zatarain’s stuck with the phrase and used the accompanying campaign to expand across the U.S.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of taglines are so forgettable that there is a board game called Adverteasing™ where you are given a tagline and asked to guess the company that uses it. It is hard to guess accurately because most taglines sound like this: “Professional people helping people with quality technical solutions.” Try remembering that the next time your car breaks down in a bad neighborhood.
For a list of 23 proven creative approaches to tagline writing (plus 99 examples you can steal), I humbly and selfishly refer you to pages 12-19 of Perfect Phrases for Sales and Marketing Copy.
[Editor’s note: Barry’s book is available online and in bookstores].
Once you have come up with a few taglines, use the following test to weed out the losers: Sit across from a real customer, and say the tagline out loud to their face. If you feel stupid doing that, don’t use it.
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