News
Playing Tag
June 25, 2010
Sparking your brand. A series of ideas to make you stand out in a crowd.
Part 1: Playing Tag
Great brands usually include a memorable tagline. Lines such as “Just do it,” “I’m lovin’ it” and “the future is friendly” are as well known as the “swoosh,” “golden arches” and threading-the-needle “T” they support.
A good tagline effectively signs off an ad or a TV spot and also gives employees a “mantra” to encourage their best efforts. A strong tagline is a statement of what a company stands for. Winning taglines resonate on an emotional level. They secure the logic that goes before in a “selling” communication.
Taglines don’t sell. They close.
So what’s involved in coming up with a tagline that will really work hard for your company? Several things should caution you against the mistakes people usually and seemingly out of good logic make.
Here they are:
A tagline is not an ad. A tagline “signs” your message. Make your offer as clearly and cleverly as you can and with that job done, your tagline should create a sense of “that’s so true. It makes sense. I like these people.”
A tagline should be treated gently. Don’t ask your tagline to do too much. A tagline does not address the issue-of-the-moment or provide a call to action for Saturday’s midnight sale. A tagline is just a credible and warming expression of what you are, all the time.
A tagline should be simple and memorable. The best taglines use familiar words in an unfamiliar context. Words like “quality” and “leading” “usually don’t belong in taglines. Words like “we” and “you” do.
A tagline should be used. Taglines work better as close friends than as casual acquaintances. As an expression of what you simply believe, a tagline should be the final sentence in everything you say.
A tagline should be surprising. A good tagline wears black to a wedding and somehow it works. The trick is to stand out and yet be the perfect fit at the same time. “That’s so cool. I wish I’d thought of that.”
Looking for a hard-working tagline for your company? Spark can put you next to the author of the “What are you doing behind the wheel,” What’s holding you back” and “Wonderful By Nature” lines for Mission Possible Traffic Safety, seatbelt use and Jasper National Park.
And when we come up with just the right tagline for you, we can place it anywhere from the end of a TV spot to a pen, hoodie or any of thousands of unique promotional items.
Our tagline says it all: “Spark, the Branding Shop.”
A World Unbranded
March 18, 2010
Imagine a world without branding.
The earth has no name and everyone just calls it “the planet we happen to live on”. No corporate logos, no advertising, no brands, no marketing. You wake up, pull on your unlabeled jeans and a nice blank shirt and brush your teeth with no-name toothpaste, eat some unbranded bran flakes cereal, hop in your generic car and head to work at your no logo company.
On the way, on your ad-free radio, it’s your favourite band, who happens to be The Band. You check out the billboard-free scenery and zoom by thousands of active yet bland businesses and store fronts. You need a coffee. What was that beige, not-too-memorable store on the way that specializes in selling coffee? Oh right, it was the “coffee store”. You stop and grab a semi-medium regular coffee. So far so good.
You get to work on time at the widget factory and start your job, building widgets in the factory. It’s a good day and you get several hundred units of style #R52 widgets made. At home, you search for a restaurant near your home by firing up your generic computer and using a cool search engine called “search engine”.
Off to a lovely dinner at the Italian Style Restaurant – its hard to choose between several unbranded cola options. Afterwards you head off to the hockey game, with the Edmonton hockey team (the guys in the grey jerseys) versus the Pittsburgh hockey team (also in grey jerseys). It is a good game and you drive home happy.
Welcome to your unbranded life in a generic world.
By Glen Ronald