Tagged

admin —  June 30, 2014

Taglines can be cool.

But how necessary are they?

A good one distills your core business objective as well as resonates a feeling for your audience. A bad one usually tries too hard or is too opaque leaving your audience dissatisfied or confused.

A tagline is not a throwaway saying or simply a cute phrase. It’s also not a mission statement or a long diatribe about how wonderful you are.

At its best, a tagline is a succinct advertisement for who you are. It’s uniquely you. That’s why it stands out. People will often remember your tagline before they remember your company. But that’s not necessarily bad. If your tagline reverberates in someone’s mind as they silently repeat the organic statement of your company’s personality, then you’ve already planted a seed that will grow with time. Usually in the short term.

Along with your company’s name, a tagline should be a summation of your character, why you’re here and in some way what you offer, whether subtly or directly. All in one line.

Most importantly creating a tagline (either through a writer, agency or in-house) may prove to be the best money (re:relatively inexpensive) you can spend on any kind of advertising. Taglines carry a shelf life that can last a long time (It’s the Real Thing, Have it Your Way, Just Do It…) and have a way of digging into the psyche of your audience as few things can.

So the next time you’re thinking of spending some ad dollars, think first about a tagline. Do you have one or do you need to reinvent the one you currently have? Coke went through four iterations from the early seventies with all those fresh faces singing, I’d like to Buy the World a Coke to Bill Cosby saying you can’t beat The Real Thing in the nineties.

A tagline can open up your business to a new audience. And it will mostly likely make your current clientele appreciate you even more. It’s a critical part of your brand, especially in today’s crowded advertising space.

But remember; short and sweet, defining the essence of who you are.

Oh, and you probably don’t want to leave home without it…