Brand claims: dinosaurs with a future?
Written by verbal identity and branding specialists, Simon Andrew and Phil Ramsell, joint founders of Sticky Name Design and both native English copywriters & creative directors based in Germany
Taglines have supposedly been dying for a while, due to a rapidly evolving media environment. ADWEEK prophesied their demise back in 2013 and a quick flip around the Internet reveals at least one other publication declared taglines dead as far back as 2007. Despite these confident predictions, taglines still walk among us: Nike uses “Just do it” to great effect; relative newcomer, Dollar Shave Club, consistently racks up sales with "Shave Time. Shave Money”; and L’Oréal keeps on adding value to its bottom line with “Because you’re worth it.” This seems reason enough to keep using taglines for a while yet. But for how much longer? And might there be a better way to provide the functions of a tagline in the modern media environment?
Nike still does it
Not everybody is doing it, though
Despite the examples outlined above, it’s abundantly clear taglines are no longer the marketing staple they once were. Mega-brands such as Google, Starbucks and Amazon don’t overtly display or push taglines (although they do have internal mottos and slogans) and Apple has long-since stopped using the famous “Think different” tagline associated with its core brand. Even Heineken, which used to “refresh the parts that other beers cannot reach,” shies away from taglines in current campaigns on the grounds that their research says people pay little attention to them.
No tagline visible in this work from Heineken
Why taglines aren’t what they used to be
In addition to the case made by Heineken’s research, there are other compelling reasons why the tagline is on the endangered list. First off, the way taglines are typically used – in a lockup with the logo – is too limiting for many digital media formats. The lines don’t sit well with the way content is consumed in different formats across multiple devices with widely varying screen sizes. The mobile environment, in particular, often lacks sufficient time and space to effectively display taglines.
Going, going, gone? A look back at some tagline greats
The predicament of the rapidly-receding tagline is made worse by the fact that consumer attention spans have never been shorter. Credible research shows most people don’t read past headlines or might only watch the first few seconds or minutes of a video – never mind get all the way to the end of a piece of content, the traditional domain of the tagline.
Finally, the rigid standardization and constant repetition once applied to branding in passively consumed media is no longer a winning formula. This is because consumers in the stimulus-rich digital environment have little patience for anything that bores or, worse, annoys them. They have the option to actively and immediately dismiss irritating brand messages at the touch of a finger, and they usually do.
What won’t change any time soon
Taglines have served marketers well. The good ones set brands head and shoulders above competitors by conveying a distinctive attitude, promise, personality, or inspiring insight that customers and staff could really get behind. Taglines also provided a single-minded focal point that kept messaging consistent across communication channels. Not least, they ensured core brand messages were remembered when used in passive channels that allowed effective repetition. Despite the declining fortunes of taglines, brands and marketers still have these very same needs.
Another thing that won’t change in the foreseeable future is the human brain (unless Elon Musk keeps good on his promise to upgrade the human brain by next year.) The brain remembers things through force of repetition. This means consistency of messaging in some form or another will remain important for brands wishing to remain top of mind.
The challenge facing brand custodians then, is to find new ways to meet their branding requirements at least as effectively as taglines have, if not even more so.
In search of a new approach
Whatever new vehicle is used in place of the tagline, it will have to be something more flexible and fluid, capable of flowing seamlessly across different media environments, digital platforms and devices. Like the tagline it must be able to serve as a key differentiator and standard-bearer across all channels and touchpoints, from billboards and storefronts to responsive content on digital devices. In a nutshell, it must adapt easily to whatever environment it finds itself in – still the best survival strategy of the last 4.5-billion years – and it must work in a way that positively engages customers without annoying them, as the endless repetition of old sometimes did.
Exploring possible alternatives
The tagline as we know it will likely survive in the media formats where it works, such as print, Out of Home, or in TV commercials. But it will no longer enjoy pride of place in the verbal branding panoply.
Some have argued the hashtag could serve as a contemporary incarnation of the tagline. But hashtags suffer many of the same shortcomings taglines do in terms of going unseen, being screened out, or not being applicable across all media environments. Others have suggested headlines could address branding challenges by always including some element of the core brand message. There is wisdom in this approach because, as mentioned above, few people read past headlines but, for most brands, this would likely be an unwieldy and impractical solution.
The way forward
So is there anything that can fill the gaps traditional taglines are no longer able to? Anything that marketers can deploy to generate the same universal “stick” in the modern digital brandscape? We believe there is. So stay tuned for our next post.