Lately I’ve been working at a company that is in transition. If you compare the company to a person, they’re moving from awkward teenager into young adult; they’ve just come through some tough times but have righted themselves and are ready to step up and be taken seriously. And now it’s time to define themselves.
But how?
In the last two months I’ve managed to get on two different projects: development of a new slogan and implementation of a new tagline. And while to me these two projects are wildly different, I’m finding that the blurred definition of these terms is causing confusion, and I fear deterioration in the effectiveness of the final outcome(s).
To me, a tagline is the brief summation of the essence of a company. It is a phrase that someone could utter to the completely uninitiated and would convey a sense of who they are and what they do. A slogan on the other hand is transitory – its purpose is to draw people toward the product/company but doesn’t necessarily define it. Therefore, a tagline can be used as a slogan but a slogan isn’t usually a tagline.
A few examples might help:
American Express. If you look at their press releases, they define themselves as “is a leading global payments and travel company founded in 1850” but their famous slogan is “Don’t leave home without it.”
Budweiser is “the King of Beers” but Wassup?! was the slogan for awhile.
And, one near and dear to my heart …
Toshiba. Their tagline is Leading Innovation but years ago while tasked with creating a new “brand” for them we developed the slogan “Choose Freedom.”
Sometimes a tagline makes for a good slogan, and there’s nothing wrong with that as these examples show:
Subway’s “Eat fresh”
Staples “It’s easy”
Petco “Where the pets go.”
Where I get worried is when companies avoid doing the hard work of figuring out who they are and instead use a transitory slogan to define them. When this occurs, companies tend to bounce around leaving both customers and employees slightly unsure of who they are and what they stand for.
I know as I write this I’m taking the purists point-of-view, but I honestly believe in the power and value of doing the work of defining yourself. Even if you don’t create a tagline from that work, it creates the vision needed to develop engaging creative … which often takes the form of a great slogan.
