A Tag Line That’s Got What It Takes

Don’t skimp on the brain power you devote to developing your tag line. Even though by name it sounds like an afterthought, it should be your most powerful marketing message.

Again this month I’m tapping the wisdom of two long-time colleagues and friends, Bill Schley and Carl Nichols, who literally wrote the book on branding and positioning, “Why Johnny Can’t Brand: Rediscovering the Lost Art of the Big Idea.” The following article is a result of that book and is reprinted with permission. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Their book is available on Amazon.com.

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A Tag Line That’s Got What It Takes

By Bill Schley and Carl Nichols

“Tag Line” is a trifling term for what used to be, not long ago in branding history, one of the most powerful, shimmering tools in the marketer’s tool kit.. Today, its art and application seem all but lost. The term has indeed become what its name implies– a pleasant sounding slogan tagged onto a brand or pasted below a logo. A feel-good aspiration or superfluous throw-away. It need not be.

In the hands of the brand masters of the 1950’s and 60’s, a “tag line” was designed to be a precision-cut selling gem, the catalyst for a singular, Dominant Selling Idea for the brand. It infused your name or logo with instant selling power on sight. It was your core idea gift wrapped in a magic word package, signed, sealed and delivered to the customer’s mental doorstep. Any place it appeared became an instant selling place—a billboard, the side of your building, your logo, golf shirts, business cards, the employee kitchen wall or the refrigerator door. It was a golden brand asset.

For too many companies today, tag lines have evolved to a different state, as evidenced by the following lines that were ripped from today’s advertising pages:

With You All The Way. Driven to Excellence. Ideas for Living. Leading the Way. Expect Something Extra. We Mean Business. A Passion to Achieve. Inspired to Do Great Things. Putting You First. Doing What We Do Best.

If you’re not sure whether these are worthy of greatness, or the ten cent table at your next tag sale, here’s a quick mental test you can do whenever you see one to decide if it’s a selling idea or a just another fluff ball. It’s doubly important to ask when you’re creating one for yourself:

  1. Does it directly state, or support a unique selling idea? (Read: does it promise a specific, tangible difference I want to buy?)
  2. Is it ownable–i.e., could another product substitute their name for yours and say the exact same thing?
  3. If answer is yes to 1 and 2, then is it evocative, colorful or phonetically memorable?

Most of us would agree that the lines above fail questions one, two or all three. In fact, most come across as corporate self-congratulation for some positive character trait that’s positively forgettable for everyone but the company’s CEO and Chief Marketing Officer.

Now, into the tepid broth listed above, throw in:

  • “Join the Navy and See the World.”
  • “Please Don’t Squeeze the Charmin”
  • “Federal Express: When It Absolutely, Positively, Has to Be There Overnight.”
  • “Ivory: 99 and 44/100 Percent Pure.”
  • “National Enquirer: Inquiring Minds Want to Know.”
  • “Perdue: It Takes a Tough Man to Make a Tender Chicken.”
  • “Bounty: The Quicker Picker-Upper.”
  • “Johnson’s Baby Shampoo: No More Tears.”
  • “A Diamond is Forever.”
  • “Rocky(the movie): His Whole Life Was a Million-to-One Shot”

Specific, colorful, superlative, important, memorable. They rarely make ‘em like they used to. And judging by what you see at the end of print ads, commercials and logos these days, most companies don’t know what they’re missing and can’t get it right. But now that you know, you can.

Fail-Safe Ingredients for a Great Tag

Take the three core message parts of what we call an “idea centered brand” and blend them together. It makes differentiating substance nearly inevitable, as long as you cover all three. The three ingredients are:

  1. Your unique, ownable category or specialty, (Poisonless Roach Trap, SUV- Wagon, Jumbo Jet, Heat Pump)
  2. Your articulated positioning statement (We’re the company that’s best at_________.
  3. Your exclusive name (Wet-Ones, Cheez-its). The exact recipe proportions are left up to the cook’s taste. But if you’ll examine the famous classics above, you’ll discern the three core ingredients in all of them.

Having these core ingredients in-hand before concocting your tag line is a positive sign that you’ve given yourself the most crucial advantage in branding by default: It means you’ve articulated a definitive, own-able positioning and a unique, memorable name first, before attempting any other down stream expression like a tag line. Power positioning and naming are beyond the scope of this three-column article. For, us, they required the scope of a full length book. The point is, having positioning and naming in your quiver automatically sets you up for a great tag line, if you then stay focused on the ingredients.

Here are some additional tips:

  1. The “tag lines must be short” mandate is a myth. Look at one of the best DSI Tags Ever, Fedex’s original When it Absolutely, Positively Has to Be There Overnight which originally put them on the map. Or Vicks Nyquil: The Nighttime, Sniffling, Sneezing, Coughing, Aching, Stuffy Head, Fever So You Can Rest Medicine. At 14 words, Nyquil is obviously an extreme. If you can say it in two or three words, say it. But what’s important is that it works, not that it works in three words or less.
  2. Rhyming and other tenets from 8th Grade Poetry class are good. Some people stick their noses up at rhyming. Tell that to William Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss or any bard who’s defined the culture or been around for 500 years. Rhyming is a musical, memory trick that’s as old as time. Alliteration, assonance and other simple poetry devices add to smooth satisfying feelings to the ear and tongue. People love them.
  3. We should all be so lucky to come up with a tag like Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking. Or The Whole TV Scene in One Magazine.
  4. Putting your brand name in the tag is not always required. It’s a case by case judgement, based on the context and structure of the line. Join the Navy and See the World is a natural to include the brand name. Please Don’t Squeeze the Charmin is another one. It’s not TV, It’s HBO is a third. But VISA doesn’t require it. The line is simply locked under the logo: It’s everywhere you want to be.

The most famous of all times is M&M’s: The Milk Chocolate Melts in Your Mouth, Not In Your Hand. It was such a complete, evocative, statement of a selling proposition, it’s not only lasted for over 60 years, it is a total selling package all by itself, inextricably linked to the name every time you hear it or even think it. You’re messaging job is 90% done, before you’ve even begun.

All in all, when it comes time to find your tag line, it’s nice to be Shakespeare but you don’t have to be. You’ll get 95% of the way there by adhering to the proprietary guideposts of your positioning, your category and your name. And that’s 95% better than Passionately Inspired to Achieve Inspiration.

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Bill Schley and Carl Nichols are the principals of david ID, a strategic branding firm in Southport, Connecticut. Their latest book, Why Johnny Can’t Brand: Rediscovering the lost art of the big idea from Penguin Books was published in November, 2005. You can find them at www.davidid.com.

It All Starts with Positioning

Many marketing books have been written, and many speeches given, on the topic of positioning. It’s one of those elusive topics that everyone thinks they know, but few truly understand.

For the past 15 years, I’ve been fortunate to know one of the titans of branding and positioning. Bill Schley cut his teeth on Madison Avenue, in New York City, at one of the leading brand agencies. He has a mind as fertile and creative as few I’ve ever known. A few years ago, Penguin Publishing saw the wisdom in publishing a book on the topic by Bill and his equally talented partner, Carl Nichols. The following article is a result of that book and is reprinted with permission. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Should you want more, their book, “Why Johnny Can’t Brand: Rediscovering the Lost Art of the Big Idea,” can be purchased at Amazon.com.

What the “P” in Positioning Really Stands For

By Bill Schley and Carl Nichols, david ID

There may be dozens of “immutable laws” of branding which are fun to discuss, dissect, and occasionally write about. But when it’s our moment to step up and swing the bat–when we’re actually called upon to choose the core identity for our own brands; to make the critical call that our colleagues, shareholders, bosses and customers depend on us to make–only the big fundamentals will do. We can’t juggle 27 nuanced principles in our brains, nor should we try to, if we want to avoid positioning paralysis. It’s time for the branding equivalent of “keep your eye on the ball.”

It’s true in any challenging endeavor: the superstars are invariably those who’ve simply mastered the fundamentals and apply them more consistently than the rest of us. To see it in action is called “groove and focus.” And so it is in branding. We’ve found over the years that the superstars are masters of the following mantra—something we call the Positioning Paradox. Those who never let this rule out of their sight; who remind themselves of it daily; who test their brand development efforts against it at every touch point; who tattoo it to their foreheads and stare at it the mirror every morning before they brush their teeth…are the ones who still manage to brand things mightily these days in a world of chaos.

The rule is this: In branding, the more features you show, the less you are seen. The more details you provide, the more vaguely you communicate. The more directions you give, the harder it is to be located. The higher the number, the lower the value.

Sounds almost like Guru-speak, doesn’t it? But that’s why it’s a PARADOX.

Amateurs are afraid to leave a single feature or benefit on the table, fearing they’ll lose some corner of the market. So they say everything and communicate nothing. They become professionals when the understand and live by the notion that the opposite is true. By capturing undisputed leadership in one single, important benefit, you are far more likely to be noticed, remembered and associated with a series of other great benefits–made all the more credible because you have reached prominence in one, meaningful specialty.

It’s the bed of nails phenomenon. A bed with a single nail sticking up will penetrate you the second you lie down. But a thousand nails can’t penetrate anything. The pressure of each nail is completely diffused by all the others around it.

The Postioning Paradox is also behind other axioms like the Least Number of Words principle, for example. Generally, the shorter and crisper the expression of the core idea, the more impact. Messaging can be shorter and crisper when the idea is singular:

ADP—The payroll company.
Rolex—The luxury watch.
Duracell—The longest lasting battery.
ESPN—The Sports Channel.

Owning the Gold Medal in one critical value like safety or durability associates you to a ream of other important benefits for your target—quality of construction, intelligent engineering, company caring, trust—and on and on and on.

It takes discipline, and frankly some guts, for businesses to thwart their instinct to tell all in every communication. But the pros know what the “P” in positioning really stands for: the big Positioning Paradox:

In every aspect of branding, you say the most
by saying the least. The simplest message wins.

Bill Schley and Carl Nichols are the principals of david ID a strategic branding firm in Southport, Connecticut. Their latest book, Why Johnny Can’t Brand: Rediscovering the lost art of the big idea from Penguin Books, was published in November, 2005. You can find them at www.davidid.com.