Comments on: Follow. Forget. Fail. Why 3 Word Taglines Suck

By: Gregg D'Bully

Gregg D'Bully — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 06:18:12 +0000

Good point. I always tell my students to go back to their product and brand positioning before finalizing their creatives. Being students, they can be victims to cliche.

By: aprildunford

aprildunford — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 18:02:19 +0000

I understand where you are coming from on that one. Frankly it’s terrible that you have to think about “marketing” to potential investors but it’s a reality you can’t ignore (at least in my experience). It’s a fine line to walk though and if you ever really have a tie between doing something for customers and doing it for investors, you should be biased to the customers. Investors are always interested in and impressed by revenue above everything else.
Good luck!
April

By: Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 17:07:56 +0000

@aprildunford,

Thanks for the feedback. Right now we are looking for seed money and that may come from investors who are interested in solar but don’t necessarily know the technical details or terminology. So far the response has been pretty good from this group.

For our customers, I could use the term “solar string monitoring” and it would be more descriptive of our product, but I fear loosing certain investor-types.

Tom Johnson

By: aprildunford

aprildunford — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 16:11:52 +0000

Hi Tom,
I think it sounds pretty good to me (but I don’t know anything about your business so take that for what it’s worth). It’s descriptive, uses plain english that people would say and clearly expresses the value of what you do. What I can’t answer is whether you target audience understands that they are a good fit for what you do and that the message works for your audience. Talking to customers a lot and asking a lot of questions about how they found you and why they chose you will tell you whether or not you are on the right track.
April

By: Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 16:01:44 +0000

Our tagline is “more revenue from the same solar panels.” Our target is solar integrators installing into commercial-scale solar sites. I’m on the fence as to whether it needs to be more descriptive.

By: aprildunford

aprildunford — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:36:20 +0000

I know there are exceptions to every rule but in general I’m anti-tagline. I think that a descriptive phrase gets more to the point and is more likely to be shared among people. I’m also pretty cautious about putting the tagline in the logo – markets change, marketing strategies change along with them, particularly for startups and it’s easier to move with those changes when you don’t have to make a change to the logo to do that.
That said, I like the “Stay Safe” part of that tagline a lot and I think it gets to the value of what Guardly does. Connect on the other hand is a really over-used word right now, particularly in 3 word taglines.
But that’s just me – the real proof is whether or not it works with customers (not marketers who are probably the worst possible test cases for these things) which you will know soon enough.
Also, I’m a big Guardly fan so anyone reading this should check out Guardly – http://www.guardly.com Go Guardly!
April

By: Robert Lendvai

Robert Lendvai — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 19:13:25 +0000

April, I’m on the tagline fence. If the company/brand is well established then I’d agree there’s really no need for a tagline. We all know what Microsoft does and their current inane tagline; “Be what’s next” certainly supports your argument.

I’m guessing that tagline was originally meant as an internal moral booster and like the Bronx Zoo Cobra, somehow managed to slither from its Redmond cage and hissed Steve Ballmer into submission.

I’ve always felt strongly that startups should have a tagline/descriptor that clearly says what they do. As for a new tech startup, a good tagline should be an integral part of their top level messaging which from my perspective includes the logo.

Let’s take Guardly, as an example. Guardly is a Toronto startup that I recently did some messaging work for. The soon to launch company offers a mobile location-based app that allows you to alert, connect, and then collaborate with your personal safety network in an emergency situation. It allows you to communicate with friends, family, and authorities in real-time via voice, sms, email, and web conferencing. Guardly can help emergency services reduce response times which will help to save lives.

While that’s a great elevator pitch or press release boilerplate, it would be tough to tuck all that under the Guardly logo. Working with Josh Sookman, the company’s founder, we began to extract a few key themes from the elevator pitch. I brainstormed several ideas until I came to what I thought was a keeper.
While he initially pushed back due to it simplicity, I encouraged him to sleep on it and present my idea to others.

I also told him to remember The Rule of Thirds for all subjective marketing work like naming, branding, fonts, colours, etc..

One third will love it, one third will hate it, and one third won’t give a rat’s ass.

In the end, the Guardly logo with their tagline gives them a much stronger brand that clearly states what they do and why someone should care.

Guardly. Alert. Connect. Stay Safe.

Click here to see the Guardly logo with tagline in place: http://robertlendvai.posterous.com/the-guardly-logo

By: Market Readiness

Market Readiness — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 21:00:11 +0000

Why 3 Word Taglines Suck… http://ow.ly/2YRJf

By: Suresh Sambandam

Suresh Sambandam — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 11:19:18 +0000

Meaning-less Taglines that Suck #Marketing #RockectWatcher http://bit.ly/48GFKE

By: Traci Pearson

Traci Pearson — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:41:02 +0000

Follow. Forget. Fail. Why 3-word taglines suck: http://bit.ly/67r0kV