Author: Chris Campeau

How to Write Taglines That Don’t Suck

Let’s talk about taglines.

These tiny but mighty lines were probably born in a room full of whiskey-steeped mad men in the ’50s. They’ve since helped countless businesses become household names. But are they still valuable?

We’ve come a long way from Madison Avenue. Smaller attention spans, smaller screens – in today’s digital world, brands need to maximize every second, word, and pixel in their marketing and communications. Some argue taglines aren’t the best use of real estate.

Our take? While the playing field has changed, taglines are still a powerful way to reinforce your brand. If anything, they’re more important than they’ve ever been. In a saturated market, a tagline is yet another tool to differentiate and build memorability through consistency.

Let’s take a closer look at the most important words your brand will ever stand behind.

What’s a tagline?

A tagline is a mental shorthand. It’s your brand promise distilled into a handful of words (usually two to eight) that tell your audience what you stand for or what you can do for them.

But don’t be confused. Like a name or logo, a tagline by itself can’t tell your full brand story – and nor should it. It’s but a single, mnemonic marketing device designed to draw people into a bigger brand narrative.

A tagline can also be a campaign hook. Some people call these slogans, or straplines, but there’s no consensus, so we’ll stick to taglines for the purpose of this article.

Effective taglines are nuanced, memorable, and connotative. They flow with a satisfying cadence and stick to your consciousness like ketchup to fries (ahem – I’m lovin’ it – ahem). They’re corporate poetry at its finest.

But taglines aren’t easy to write. As author Cameron Day puts it, “Most great taglines waste no words. One word cannot be easily swapped out. It can’t be improved upon.”

It can’t be improved upon.

It. Can’t. Get. Any. Better.

No pressure, right?

What makes a good tagline?

So, how do you write the perfect tagline? While there’s no silver bullet for coining the next Think Different, there are few principles you can follow to steer clear of a dud.

Simple but meaningful

Nothing’s worse than trying to decipher a string of buzzwords so far detached from an organization’s business you feel lost in space. Reimagine the possible. Uncover tomorrow. Innovation, redefined. Worse yet, toss in a verbified noun. Together we data. Painful, right?

Try these tactics:

Keep it short (the rule of three is a good place to start)
Try not to confuse or mislead people
Be intentional and intelligible
Focus on a benefit

Consider this old tagline from Slack: Where work happens. Simple? Check. Understandable? Check. Tied to a user benefit (productivity)? Check. It’s a home run.

(Note: Slack has since changed its tagline to Where the future works. It’s got a nice double meaning, but it’s less specific. It could belong to any “progressive” company.)

Here’s another example, a tagline we devised for Tourism Kingston as part of a bigger rebrand. On the surface, Fresh Made Daily feels redundant. A layer deeper, it’s an accurate reflection of what to expect from Kingston, Ontario. From its world-renowned research institutions to its music, food, and maker culture, there’s something new coming from Kingston every day. A newness that’s always changing.

Undeniably you

Almost every article on the topic says taglines should be distinct. We say on brand.

Your brand’s verbal identity is just as important as its visual identity. Therefore, any personality traits in your messaging should surface in your taglines.

Canned water company Liquid Death is a great example. Its tagline could’ve been Quench your thirst, but as a brand that’s intentionally humorous about its heavy-metal swagger, it opted for Murder your thirst. It’s a simple tagline made memorable by an appropriate edge to the language. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

A bridge between your brand and audience

Mike Reed, Co-founder and Executive Creative Director at Reed Words, a global verbal branding agency, might’ve said it best:

“Good [tag]lines are built from truths in both the brand and the audience: what you’re offering, and what people are looking for.”

This was the case when we partnered with Canadian Parents for French (CPF) to launch a national recruitment campaign. The goal was to encourage Canadians to consider a meaningful career teaching French, as there aren’t enough French-second-language teachers to meet the demand.

Here’s how it maps to Mike’s advice:

Brand truth: prioritizing the French language

Audience truth: people don’t want a job; they want a sense of purpose

The line was right in front of us.

No clichés

Clichés do to brand language what crocs did to fashion: consume originality. (Sorry not sorry.) While there’s a case for being conversational, there’s a difference between familiarity and sameness. Just look at this list of taglines and headlines curated by copywriting authority Vikki Ross.

Say hello to being forgotten.

Make it stop pic.twitter.com/azVvrTOncD
— Vikki Ross (@VikkiRossWrites) February 22, 2023

No commands

Just Do It worked for Nike, but no one’s Nike but Nike, and no one’s keen on being told what to do, as harmless as it may seem. So, Don’t Do It^™, unless you’re sure the context you’re operating within merits the risk.

Full transparency: we considered the tagline Live Better for a brand campaign for our client Minto Communities Ottawa. Fortunately, we realized it could feel patronizing, as if prospective homeowners aren’t currently happy with their quality of life. We then pivoted to Built for Better, a more fitting and on-brand choice.

Emotionally positioned

There’s no formula for writing a winning tagline (like a lot of creative endeavors, it’s educated guesswork), but there’s plenty of brain science to help.

Taglines that appeal to our emotions or basic human desires, like the need for attention or belonging, can help positively predispose us toward a brand.

Taglines can also employ tactics like cognitive dissonance to evoke feelings of discomfort. Take Hallmark’s old tagline of When you care enough to send the very best. What it’s really saying is, “You’re going to feel guilty if you choose a less expensive product.”

Some angles are more aggressive than others, so pick your words wisely and ensure they align with your values. Here are some other examples of emotional positioning.

From brand to campaign.

At the brand level, taglines hold the potential to strengthen awareness and recall. They can be powerful brand builders, reinforcing your identity and swaying audience perceptions.

Taglines also come in handy when connected to an offering or campaign. They can answer or resolve creative executions. The poster series below, part of a recruitment campaign we developed with the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario, is a great example.

Here, the tagline Work doesn’t suck gives context to the headlines. Together, the two tell a captivating story: this unexpected circumstance could be your job.

The same goes for Tinder’s first global campaign, which celebrates the vibrancy of the app’s relationship possibilities. Yes, you can argue the tagline It starts with a swipe isn’t necessary (doesn’t the logo say enough?), but there’s a certain satisfaction and memorability in how it answers the headlines. It secures Tinder as the genesis of the outcome.

The bottom line.

Whether it’s at the brand or campaign level, taglines should be simple, meaningful, and easy to remember. Some work and some don’t (we’re looking at you, Regina Tourism), but that’s up to your market to decide.

So, take your time and give it time – time to craft and time to root. Adoption won’t happen overnight, especially if you’re repositioning. Remember that a tagline is an investment, so Make Those Words Count^™.

Need help communicating?

Tagline, messaging framework, multi-channel campaign – if you need words, we can help articulate your story and turn it into a powerful business driver.

Contact our brand experts to get started.

industry

The Art of the Marketing Shift

Human beings are inherently nimble, whether we know it or not. Every day, each of us makes a number of adjustments to how we go about our lives: a road closes for construction, so we take another route; a product goes out of stock, so we try an alternative; a friend needs support, so we cancel our plans.

For the most part, we’re experts at shifting gears, sometimes subconsciously, so why does it feel so taxing in the business world?

Not to sound like a broken record, but we know what organizations are capable of in the face of change. COVID-19, as an obvious example, put a fire under businesses everywhere. The flexible found a way to survive. Others, unfortunately (and for a number of reasons), didn’t. It was a rude awakening.

Still, even hardened by the anomaly of a global pandemic, it can feel difficult at times to adapt to new circumstances. Let’s look at what brands need to consider to master the art of the shift.

Expect the unexpected

Change is constant. It’s relentless. It’s intimidating.

Consider the technologies we use daily – the apps, platforms, and systems under constant refinement to make our lives easier. Every update offers a faster, smarter, and generally better user experience, but with so much evolution, it can be hard to keep up with the latest and greatest, especially when it comes to new products or services.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a great example. From enterprise data systems to Photoshop plugins to the large language models expediting content creation, AI applications are suddenly abundant; in fact, the global AI market, currently valued at $100 billion USD, is expected to grow twentyfold by 2030.

The business potential for these applications is huge, but there’s a steep learning curve around AI and data literacy. And with the technologies evolving at a breakneck pace, we’ve only just scratched the surface of the machinal revolution. Who knows what’s next?

All this to say, we need to get comfortable with change, as difficult as it may be, and define strategies to change with it – because, as we all know, technology isn’t the only culprit capable of throwing a curveball. There are many reasons why your organization might need to restrategize:

the market changes, and your messaging no longer resonates;
your team’s productivity software isn’t producing a good return;
a crisis occurs, and you need to communicate with stakeholders.

Whatever the case, as a marketer or brand manager, you’re likely to experience some degree of surprise almost every day. Being at peace with this reality can help you better manage uncertainty, which can make you that much better at pivoting.

Assess the urgency

If you want to be good at being adaptive, you need to be systematic. Start by asking yourself: how urgent is the issue?

Say you just launched a Facebook campaign only to learn that your target market is spending more time on TikTok. In this case, you’d want to course correct quickly to avoid hemorrhaging your media spend.

Now, imagine you drafted a new content strategy. You’re planning on doing video content, but new research shows that podcasts also resonate with your audience. You have an opportunity to pivot and diversify your media, but you also have time to think it through since you haven’t gone to market yet.

The bottom line is that when it comes to shifting directions, start by gauging the urgency around the decision. Do you need to act today, or do you have time to be more methodical? Is this healthy stress or stress stress?

Be decisive

When faced with a circumstance beyond your organization’s control, even a prediction, it never pays to be passive. It’s too easy to fall into a state of inertia and go about your business as usual, expecting the same results. You need to act quickly and decisively based on the knowledge at hand.

If you notice something trending, whether it’s a market change or otherwise, consider its potential impact on your business and set a deliberate plan of action.

This was recently the case for our client Minto Communities Ottawa. As the housing market heated up during the pandemic, the company noticed a shift in buyer behaviour: whereas location used to be a primary decision driver, consumers were now considering buying a home anywhere in the city. Knowing the market wasn’t likely to cool anytime soon, we worked with Minto to quickly evolve its messaging and go-to-market approach.

By emphasizing the brand promise then funneling users to discover the locations where they could live that promise, we helped Minto make a calculated move during a tough time for business. It was a subtle but intentional switch.

Collaborate to recalibrate

When you need to be nimble as a marketer, nothing’s more valuable than collaboration.

Tourism marketing, for example, has always required an element of collaboration to adapt to new market conditions and traveler expectations. This was definitely the case during COVID-19, but even post-pandemic we’re still seeing strong, continued collaboration among destination marketing organizations (DMOs), industry partners, and local communities.

This is especially true of Tourism Kingston, a DMO that knows travelers aren’t just motivated by a destination’s attractions; they want to experience the culture of a place. So, part of a strong destination development strategy is to celebrate a destination’s people, involve them in your marketing, and, ultimately, galvanize pride in a place, which creates a strong economic ripple.

In this respect, Tourism Kingston offers a case study in shifting your mindset. How can your brand be more human? How can you pivot your marketing to create a more emotional response? How can you tell stories that connect with people?

Here’s an example of that mindset shift in action: a recent video for Tourism Kingston, an authentic collaboration with poet Armand Garnet Ruffo and videographers Untold Storytelling, all from Kingston.

In conclusion

Change stops for no one, and while not every situation requires a shift of COVID proportions, being comfortable pivoting will always be pivotal to your success. Learning to assess the urgency, be intentional with your decision-making, and lean on collaboration can help you get the best results.

Struggling with a circumstance that impacts your brand? Try running a group brainstorm or thinking inside the box. Better yet, contact Alphabet^®. With more than 20 years’ experience helping destinations, associations, and non-profit organizations push through change, we can help your organization do the same – and even get ahead of it.

Get in touch to learn more.

culture - industry

Hitting a Creative Wall? Try Thinking Inside the Box.

“Think outside the box.”

We’ve all heard it. A mantra so married to the creative industry, so embedded in our lexicon, it’s as commonly uttered as “two rounds of revisions.”

But it’s not surprising.

Increasingly, these four words are a result of today’s marketplace. As consumers continue to be bombarded by brand interactions (it’s estimated we’re exposed to as many as 10,000 ads a day) brands have to work double time to compete for attention. The pressure’s on.

As a result, marketers and agency partners are challenging their creative teams, today more than ever, to produce work that stands out. To strike gold with blue-sky ideas. And while a strong creative team will never rest on its laurels, it’s important to step back and recognize a valuable truth—that some boxes exist for a reason. And we can use them to our advantage.

Six boxes. Eighty-nine per cent.

In 1999, a team of Israeli researchers from the Jerusalem School of Business Administration analyzed 200 award-winning and highly regarded ads. They found that 89 per cent fell within just six categories: pictorial analogy, extreme situation, consequence, competition, interactive experiment, and dimensional alteration.

More than 20 years later, these blueprints are still visible among much of today’s advertising. Consider this campaign from KFC that uses the brand’s chicken in lieu of fire—a pictorial analogy. Or Intel’s new counter to the old “Mac vs. PC” ads—classic competition.

In their accompanying paper, “The Fundamental Templates of Quality Ads,” researchers Goldenberg, Mazursky, and Solomon concluded that “creative ideation is a highly complex process, difficult to formalize and control.” Still, “even in a complex thinking context certain patterns of creativity may emerge.”

By observing the patterns laid before us—by stepping inside these boxes—we can explore routes of creative thinking that have been “proven to lead to productive ideas.” That’s not to say we should take the easy road, and let our creative muscles atrophy, but if a path exists, why go off-roading? Familiarity resonates. It’s just a matter of what we do with it.

Billions of stories. Seven boxes.

On the topic of resonance, perhaps nothing’s more powerful than a story.

Thanks to neural coupling, as SJ Murray notes in her 2014 TEDx talk in San Antonio, “the brain of a person listening to a story mirrors the brain of the person living the adventure for the first time.” Put simply, if you tell a captivating story, your audience can touch, taste, smell, and hear the experience. They can see themselves within it.

How does this apply to brands and boxes?

Brand storytelling is a convention so firmly rooted in the marketing wheelhouse that it’s no longer a buzzword but a best practice. And at the heart of every good story is a conflict and resolution—i.e., a customer challenge and solution.

Further to this, as literary theorist Christopher Booker argues in his book The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, nearly every story stems from one of seven archetypes: rags to riches, the quest, rebirth, overcoming the monster, comedy, tragedy, and voyage and return. These plot structures have influenced storytelling from Greek theatre to the modern paperback. And brand storytelling is no different.

We see the rags to riches trope all the time. A classic Cinderella story, brands use it to show the transformational nature of their products or services, how they help you reinvent yourself or become something better.

Overcoming the monster is also common—pitting audiences against an antagonist and demonstrating how a brand empowers them to triumph. Think of the villain here as a customer burden: a cyber threat, maybe, if you’re an enterprise security firm; or low self-esteem if you’re a fitness brand.

Again, these narrative throughlines are patterns we can follow to hook attention and hold it. To champion our audiences as heroes. And to craft brand stories more likely to stick because we’re compelled by similar frameworks.

Boxes or building blocks?

These are but a few examples of the many boxes we have at our disposal as creative thinkers. Others, though not as obviously, include creative briefs and deadlines. (Yep, constraints are good!) This isn’t to say we should limit our creative thinking—it’s important to encourage the free-flow of ideas—but channeling it can help, especially under pressure.

So, the next time you’re tasked with drumming up a great idea, wired on your fourth cup of coffee, trembling with creative paralysis, remember that what’s novel can still be familiar—even if it’s not obvious. The important thing is how you innovate. How you seek inspiration within these boxes then stack ‘em to build something new.

We can’t guarantee your work will go viral (is it ever that easy?), but chances are you’ll be proud of it. And your clients should be, too.

industry

Copy vs. Content: What’s the Difference? (And Do you Need Both?)

There’s an ongoing debate among us marketers (or at least us writer-types). Are copywriting and content writing the same thing? If not, what’s the difference?

They both employ the written word, do they not? And they both support brands. So why are they two terms? Why are there two job titles? Doesn’t one encompass the other?

So many questions, so many opinions.

Here’s ours.

Copywriting: the art of persuading.

While no one’s job description can be reduced to a singular focus, we’d argue that, at the highest level, copywriters exist to prompt action – be that placing an order, subscribing to a newsletter, or simply clicking a button to learn more.

Copywriters harness audience insights to craft tailored, empathy-infused messages that hook attention. They open a dialogue with a single person. They articulate the value of a brand’s product, service, or solution in a way that addresses a pain point and that can’t be ignored. And finally, they persuade a user to do something. That’s the goal, at least.

That doesn’t mean a desired action needs to be immediate. Sometimes – in the case of brand-awareness marketing, for example – a user might see a message that resonates, form a positive brand sentiment, store that message away, then recall a particular brand at a later date when they’re ready to consider a purchase type.

In other words, it’s not always about moving prospects through the funnel. Sometimes, it’s enough to just move them.

Copywriters come in all shapes and sizes – direct-response, UX, brand, and creative copywriters – just like doctors with their unique disciplines. But regardless of their specialties, all copywriters serve people, which makes it doubly important that they write like one.

To summarize, a copywriter’s job is to connect and inspire action. Sometimes that materializes as big-thinking advertising, loaded with pithy headlines, or a landing page geared for lead generation; other times, it shapes up as a PowerPoint presentation for an annual general meeting, motivating employees to meet new sales quotas. The deliverables can look different, but the outcome should be the same: moving the needle.

Content writing: the art of engaging.

I know what you’re thinking: how many more times are we going to hear this word “content,” and could it be any vaguer? The answer is many more. And no, probably not.

Content has taken the digital world by storm, with 70% of marketers actively investing in content marketing as of 2020. And for good reason: good content is yet another way to introduce people to your brand and to nurture existing relationships. It demonstrates proactivity and expertise. It helps users see your brand in a positive light. But it’s not always clear what it constitutes.

Content can be anything a brand publishes, from articles to social videos to podcasts and eBooks. It’s media users can read, watch, listen to, or engage with – like this! But for the purposes of this argument, we’ll look at the cornerstone of content: long-form writing.

The majority of content writers are responsible for crafting articles or blog posts. Why? To help brands stay top of mind and to grow their reach. In fact, odds are, and according to Forbes, a user won’t even discover your business if you’re not creating content.

The key difference between copywriting and content writing comes down to this: a piece of content doesn’t need to incite action. But it should definitely be insightful.

Whether it’s a makeup tutorial or an article covering the financial benefits of modular construction technologies, readers should feel like they’re taking away something useful. Don’t feel obligated to jump on the bandwagon strictly because you’ve heard that “content is king.” Without purpose and strategy, content for content’s sake can come across as noise, and consumers can see through that. It’s a balance. A transactional relationship. If a customer or prospect is giving you their time, you need to provide something worthy in return. In other words, if you’re not adding value, you’re not adding much.

Additionally, content writers tend to have more expertise in SEO. And while you certainly want to avoid keyword stuffing, it doesn’t hurt to engage someone who’s skilled in optimization. After all, if you’re investing in content, you want to make sure you’re getting eyes on it.

Where copy and content intersect.

So, here we are, where things get messy. (But not really.)

If content can be anything a brand publishes, then copywriting is content. But that doesn’t make content copy. Confused yet?

Let’s put it this way: if you consider long-form content writing, the goal isn’t necessarily to encourage action. As mentioned, it can simply be to inspire or inform. Where the two meet, however, is when a piece of content becomes a soft-sell for your product or service.

For example, if you were to write about how to deal with a rodent infestation (now that’s useful content!), and you signed off with a subtle call to action to hire your company, Acme Pest Control, you just infused a dash of copy into a piece of content. You’ve become both a humble helper and a salesperson, killing two birds (or rats) with one stone. Congrats!

As Copyblogger puts it, “content without copywriting is a good waste of content.” Which is all the more reason to consider both.

And let’s not forget that a good content writer can harness other copywriting principles, too, elements like compelling headlines or a sense of urgency. Succinct sentences. Undoubtedly, there are plenty of ways to weave the two together, but the primary difference boils down to purpose.

What’s the best option for your brand?

Well, the cat’s out of the bag. The answer is both.

A skilled copywriter can help you with more than just words, working behind the scenes to define or reimagine your brand – including its tone of voice – and then share your story across a variety of channels, ultimately convincing a user to act. A skilled content writer can run with your copywriter’s efforts to engage leads and nurture clients via long-form writing that adds value to the customer experience. Together, the pair is unstoppable.

In short, if you’re a digital marketer or a brand planning a campaign, you’ll want to harness copywriting and content writing to get the best results. But don’t forget to see where you can overlay them.

At Alphabet^®, our writers have a knack for both skill sets, not to mention a fiery passion for language. If you need to elevate your brand’s writing, get in touch and we’ll see how we can help.

See what we did there?