Taglines and their definitions
When it comes to the subject of taglines there is usually little agreement and a lot of confusion about what exactly a tagline is. One person’s tagline can be another person’s business descriptor. As with many things in branding, there is no universally accepted definition of “tagline” as a term, so for the purposes of consistency here is our working definition.
Broadly, there are four types of language described by the term “tagline”: corporate brand lines; campaign slogans; competency statements; and endorsement lines.
While there are no precise definitions for these expressions, we have attempted to create aworking taxonomy as a guide to help you to distinguish between the different kinds of language that are identified under this description and when, where and how to best employ them.
The characteristics that all taglines share in common are:
1. A communication objective (or objectives) e.g., articulate strategic positioning, express a particular product or service benefit, describe a business domain
2. A spatial or graphic disposition to the corporate identity, signature or logo, e.g., locked to the signature, embedded in copy or text, free-standing
3. A more or less pre-determined, appropriate “shelf life,” e.g., 1, 5, 10 years or more
4. Occurrence in specific communications media, applications or contexts, e.g., architectural signs, business systems, in print ads, on uniforms, advertisements, etc.
Corporate brand line
Examples
- HP: Invent
- GE: We bring good things to life
- Cigna: A business of caring
Objective: The one “big idea” you most want associated with your company/brand in the mind of the marketplace; an essence-defining benefit statement. A related benefit-objective of corporate brand lines is that—in the case of coined or eponymous names, e.g.,
Accenture or Johnson & Johnson, respectively—they communicate important information that the name does not.
Graphic disposition: Always locked to the corporate signature, either “underwriting” it or following it. Does not occur “embedded in” copy or in stand-alone position, in print ads, for example.
Shelf life: Not campaign-dependent, but positioning-driven and strategic, therefore “shelf” life of minimally five years.
Campaign slogan
Examples
- Drivers wanted (VW)
- Think different (Apple)
- Got milk? (American Dairy Association)
Objective: Designed to express a specific product (or service) benefit, as opposed to an attribute or characteristic of a corporate entity.
Graphic disposition: Not locked to the corporate signature or logo, necessarily. If so, it usually precedes it.
Shelf-life: Positioning-based, but campaign-driven and tactical. Therefore, shorter “shelflife” than a tag line proper: one year minimally (dependent on campaign life)
Competency Statement
Examples
- Thomson & Thomson: World Leader in Trademark Services
- The New York Times: All the news that’s fit to print
- British Airways: The world’s favorite airline
Objective: Describes business domain/s.
Graphic disposition: Locked to the corporate signature, which it follows or “underwrites”. Can be uncoupled from a signature and embedded in copy.
Shelf life: Varies. For a new entity, particularly one which doesn’t resort to wide-broadcast advertising and campaigning to establish itself, such statements are used until it is determined that the newly named entity has sufficient equity and recognition as to business
domain so as to make the information tendered virtually unnecessary. In this sense, competency statements can be “correctives” to names—particularly coined and eponymous names—that do not clearly or intuitively communicate business domain.
Endorsement
Examples
- The Wall Street Journal: A Dow Jones Company
- Pontiac: A Division of General Motors
- San Diego Gas & Electric: A Sempra Energy Company
Objective: Defines organizational relationships, as for example, between a holding company and a held entity or a corporation and one of its business units.
Graphic disposition: Locked to and follows the corporate signature.
Shelf-life: Determined by the duration of the relationship it describes and/or by the communications context (for example, org charts; business cards versus—most obviously—architectural or vehicle signage).
Developing at tagline: Methodology Overview
Fact finding: the first step in the process of tagline development is often the most important one. With a new client, learning everything we can about your company, its product, services and business is the objective. To that end, we closely review company
fact sheets, product launch and business plans, solicit product demonstrations (where relevant), interview senior management, key managers in communications, product development, marketing and sales, and audit competitive offerings and the brand nomenclature under which they market their goods and services.
Tagline generation and the creative brief: the creative brief is a distillation of the information gathered during the fact-finding phase. Once reviewed and approved it
becomes the strategic “blueprint” that guides all subsequent creative activity. The brief not only drives tagline development, but also contains the criteria used to select out the best, most strategically relevant taglines. Items comprising the brief include: primary communications objectives (rank ordered), name conventions to be explored (e.g., descriptive or coined), list of foreign language markets in which your company does business (if applicable), relevant trademark classes, linguistic, aural and oral criteria, etc.
Once the brief is approved, tagline development begins along three “tracks”: original tagline development by our writers and appointed freelance consultants; “mining” of a “Tagline Bank” archive and group brain storming sessions. The outcome of this threefold
effort is a comprehensive master list of tagline options.
Evaluation and screening: The first step in establishing a “first cut” list derived from the master list is to match the tagline against the criteria of the creative brief. Once this sublist is developed, tagline options are further “tested” employing a set of filters such as:
preliminary legal availability, distinctiveness, memorability, ease of pronunciation, etc.
The resulting recommendations are then submitted in the form of a Word document that is reviewed and becomes the focus of a work session/presentation with the client. Recommendations are discussed; the client will identify favored candidates from the recommendations and, if desired, scan the master list for other viable options.
If a tagline decision is reached—assuming the approval of relevant senior management or key decision makers is gained—the nomenclature is then submitted to the client’s in-house or appointed intellectual property or trademark counsel for comprehensive legal review
and to initiate registration activity. If the nomenclature needs to operate in foreign language markets, we submit the language to a linguistics consultant for analysis. An estimate, based on the number of languages to be tested, can be obtained prior to approval of this component.
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