A slogan should be memorable

1. A slogan should be memorable

Memorability has to do with the ability the line has to be recalled unaided. A lot of this is based on the brand heritage and how much the line has been used over the years. But if it is a new line, what makes it memorable? I suggest it is the story told in the advertisement - the big idea.

The more the line resonates with the big idea, the more memorable it will be. 'My goodness, my Guinness!', as well as being a slick line, was made memorable by the illustrations of the Guinness drinker seeing his pint under some sort of threat (perched on the nose of a performing seal, for example). It invoked a wry smile and a tinge of sympathy on the part of the audience at the potential loss if the Guinness was dropped.

If it is successful, ideally the line should pass readily into common parlance as would a catchphrase, such as 'Beanz meanz Heinz' or 'Where's the beef?'

In addition to a provocative and relevant illustration or story, alliteration, coined words, puns and rhymes are good ways of making a line memorable, as is a jingle.

2. A slogan should recall the brand name

Ideally the brand name should be included in the line. 'My goodness, my Guinness!' thus works, as does 'Aah, Bisto!'. On the other hand, 'Once driven, forever smitten' does not easily invoke the word Vauxhall, nor does 'All it leaves behind is other non-bios' scream out Fairy Ultra. This, by the way, is possibly the worst endline in the history of advertising! It certainly gets my vote. It's a brand manager at P&G speaking to a brand manager at the competition and it means it doesn't leave a nasty residue in the wash -- the laundry equivalent of 'no bathtub ring'. No 'housewife' could possibly understand it.

What's the point of running an advertisement in which the brand name is not clear? Yet millions of pounds are wasted in this way. If the brand name isn't in the strapline, it had better be firmly suggested. Nike dares to run commercials that sign off only with their visual logo -- the 'swoosh' -- like a tick mark or check mark, as the Americans say. The word Nike is unspoken and does not appear. This use of semiotics is immensely powerful when it works, because it forces the viewer to say the brand name.

Rhymes - with brand name

One of the best techniques for bringing in the brand name is to make the strapline rhyme with it. Here are some lines we've selected from the AdSlogans.com database. See how well it works if the brand name is the rhyming word.

3. A slogan should include a key benefit

'Engineered like no other car in the world' does this beautifully for Mercedes Benz. 'Britain's second largest international scheduled airline' is a 'so what?' statement for the late Air Europe. You might well say "I want a car that is engineered like no other car in the world." But it is unlikely you would say "I want two tickets to Paris on Britain's second largest international scheduled airline!"

In America they say 'sell the sizzle, not the steak.' In Britain they say 'sell the sizzle, not the sausage.' Either way, it means sell the benefits not the features.

Since the tagline is the leave-behind, the takeaway, surely the opportunity to implant a key benefit should not be missed? Here are some...

4. A slogan should differentiate the brand

'Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach' does this brilliantly. When the line needed refreshing, it was extended in later executions to show seemingly impossible situations, such as a deserted motorway in the rush hour, with the line 'Only Heineken can do this', and lately showing unlikely but admirable situations, such as a group of sanitation engineers trying to keep the noise down to the comment: 'How refreshing! How Heineken!'

The distinction here is that the line should depict a characteristic about the brand that sets it apart from its competitors. In the above examples, we see Swan Light, an Australian low-alcohol beer. 'Won't make a pom tiddly' is brilliant. It plays on the expression 'tiddly pom', the sort of noise a stiff-upper-lip Brit would say in the colonies when reviewing the troops as they march past, and, of course, a Brit to an Oz is a pom. And what could be worse than a tiddly (tipsy) pom? This line gets my vote as one of the all-time greats. And it runs on double-decker bus 'super sides'.

5. A slogan should impart positive feelings for the brand

Some lines are more positive than others. 'Once driven, forever smitten', for example, or 'Aah, Bisto!'. Contrast this with Triumph's line for its TR7 sports car in 1976: 'It doesn't look like you can afford it', or America's Newport cigarettes: 'After all, if smoking isn't a pleasure, why bother?' "Because I'm hooked, you bastard!" might well be the answer from those who are addicted to the weed, a sentiment the cigarette company may not appreciate as part of its message.

Publishers will tell you that negative book titles don't sell. It is my belief that negative advertising is hard to justify.

Notice how boring all the negative electioneering is in general elections. The voters just want to turn off.

6. A slogan should reflect the brand's personality

How can a brand have a personality? Our dictionary says personality means 'habitual patterns and qualities of behaviour of any individual as expressed by physical and mental activities and attitudes; distinctive individual qualities of a person considered collectively.'

So think of the brand as a person. Then consider whether the line works for that person.

7. A slogan should be strategic

Some companies can effectively convey their business strategy in their lines.

8. A slogan should be campaignable

This means that the line should work across a series of advertising executions. It should have some shelf-life. Then you could have a dozen different ads or commercials, each with its own unique story, with a single common tagline that supports them all.

9. A slogan should not be usable by a competitor

In other words, you should not be able to substitute a competitive brand name and use the line. For example, 'My goodness, my Murphy's!' just would not work, but 'A company called TRW' could be a company called anything. Let's look at these characteristics in more detail, illustrating the points with more examples.

So many slogans have absolutely no competitive differentiation. You could add any brand name to the line and it would make sense. And this often is proven by how many users of a line there are.

10. A slogan should be original

In advertising, originality is king. A new way of sending a message can set a brand apart from copycats and also-rans.

11. A slogan should be simple

Remember, the endline is what you want the punter to 'get'. So KISS (keep it simple, stupid!).

12. A slogan should be neat

We're using the word neat in the teenage sense. A neat line helps portray the product progressively in the punter's perception.

13. A slogan should be believable

Poetic licence is allowed. Even exaggeration.

14. Does the line help when you're ordering the

product or service, or at least aspiring to it?

15. A slogan should not be in current use by others

The more different users of a slogan, the less effective it is.

AdSlogans.com offers its LineCheck service so you can make sure your line isn't in use by others.

16. A slogan should not be bland, generic or hackneyed

Slogans that are bland, redolent of Mom and apple-pie, clearly suffer a weakness.

17. A slogan should not prompt a sarcastic or negative response.

18. A slogan should not be pretentious

This is the pomposity test.

Try reading the line with the utmost gravity, like an American narrator in a 50's corporate film, giving it the true spin of importance.

19. A slogan should not be negative

Publishers will tell you that negative book titles don't sell. It is my belief that negative advertising is hard to justify.

Notice how boring all the negative electioneering is in general elections. The voters just want to turn off.

20. A slogan should not reek of corporate waffle, hence sounding unreal.

21. A slogan should not be a "So what?" or "Ho-hum" statement

22. A slogan should not make you say "Oh yeah??"

23. A slogan should not be meaningless

These are... What on earth are they trying to say?

24. A slogan should not be complicated or clumsy

25. You should like it

26. It could be trendy - All in a word

There area two trends in slogans these days. One is the single-word line, such as exemplified here:

Budweiser: True

Hankook Tyres: Driven

IBM: Think

Irn-Bru: Different

Rover: Relax

United Airlines: Rising

It could be trendy - All in three words (or three terse ideas)

It is hard to deliver a complex message in a single word, so that brings us to the other trend - the triple threat...

Air France: New. Fast. Efficient.

British Gas: Energy. Efficiency. Advice.

ICI: World problems. World solutions. World class.

Jaguar: Grace... Space... Pace...

Marks & Spencer: Quality. Value. Service.

And of course...

AdSlogans.com:

Check. Create. Inspire.

It could be trendy - The twenty most frequently used words in slogans

We thought it would be interesting to see which words were the most prevalent in slogans, so we delved through the AdSlogans.com database.

Omitting such words as 'the' and 'and', etc, here's what we found. The percentages represent the number of lines using that word out of the total number of lines.

1. you 11.15%

2. your 7.94%

3. we 6.03%

4. world 4.18%

5. best 2.67%

6. more 2.54%

7. good 2.43%

8. better 2.12%

9. new 1.90%

10. taste 1.85%

11. people 1.54%

12. our 1.49%

13. first 1.42%

14. like 1.41%

15. don't 1.36%

16. most 1.19%

17. only 1.16%

18. quality 1.15%

19. great 1.13%

20. choice 1.08%

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