‘Think Different’ – personally, I’m not Apple’s number one fan, but man – they’ve got it right.
It’s a perfect strapline.
It encapsulates everything a strapline should be about – simple, original and emotive. Ultimately they are two words that deliver its brand promise.
Simply parfait.
Getting the Fundamentals Right
Whatever you call them, slogans, taglines or straplines – fundamentally they’re the key catchphrase which will have your audience remember who you are, what you believe in and what you’re promising to them.
I’m not here to lecture you on why a strong strapline is necessary for an audience – we all know the reasons for that (customer awareness, differentiating from competitors, making the people within the brand live and breathe in the motto etc.). But what I am interested in, is looking at the art of a strapline from a copywriter’s view. What are the magic words that just say ‘yes’ to the person who reads them?
Say it Once, Say it Twice, Say it a Million Times
Have you ever heard Chandler Bing’s strapline suggestions (skip to 6.28)? ‘Cheese: it’s milk that you chew’ or, ‘Bagels & doughnuts: round food, for every mood’. Hilarious and terrible at the same time, but Chandler has got it right on one thing – it is exactly what it is. Of course the copy could have a little more flair, but the skeleton is there.
As I was scrolling through the net, I was curious to see what impact a strapline had on a consumer – what is it about a strapline that stands out to us? Believe it or not, I couldn’t find much at all, much to my frustration. However, I did find something that put a spanner into the works and made me question the art of copywriting overall.
A study titled ‘Are You In Good Hands? Slogan Recall: What Really Matters’ asked 220 people in person to tally as many slogans as they could off the top of their minds. A list of 649 slogans organised and narrowed down to a list of 150 straplines and were then measured to six variables: ad spend, strapline age, length of strapline, use of jingle, use of rhyming and the complexity of a strapline. What was surprising is that the results actually found that the creative aspects of the slogans had little effect on their memorability… the only thing that stood out was the amount of media exposure the slogan had. The variables “ad spend” and “slogan age” were both correlated with higher memorability – oh dear.
Like Your Boxers – Use Your Strapline in a Number of Ways
BUT – this doesn’t wipe out creativity at all, because what’s interesting is the idea of reinforcement and repetition, and how it really pays off. Think about it – we remember things when they’re continuously played. Kylie Minogue’s ‘Can’t get you out of my Head’ encapsulates my point, and so do jingles (you can find my article on jingles here.) A strapline doesn’t need to have the most poetic set of words – it just needs to be reinforced within an audience by playing on a strapline in a number of creative ways – that is how you’re remembered.
BA DA BA BA BA – Make Your Strapline Loved
For example, let’s take a look at McDonalds and ‘I’m Lovin’ It’ – it’s a strapline that really is loved, and so it should be. They’ve taken these three words, and have done so much with them over the years, and I hope that they can continue to build the brand, despite their recent obstacles. From Justin Timberlake’s track to continuing the story in their March global campaign ‘Moments of Joy’, to me McDonalds have played, repeated and extended ‘I’m Lovin’ It’ since 2003, and it’s stuck with us ever since.
So the next time you’re asked to craft a strapline, strip it back to what’s at the heart of the brand. Don’t think about using poetic synonyms to create a piece of copy that could’ve come out of a novel by F Scott Fitzgerald. Keep it simple and think of a solid, emotive concept that you can mould and play with. A few words can go a long way offline and online: from drafting the 3-5 words that clicks with your audience as soon as they see your logo or product to using it on social and building towards your own trending hashtag – it’s the little characters that do the talking.
Just do it.