140 Characters is Way Too Many Letters.
Posted on June 20th, 2011
Twitter has forever changed the way people communicate because being limited to 140 characters forces writers to be succinct. Even if you dislike Twitter, you can thank it for forcing people to shorten their prose. As editor Arthur Polotnik wrote, “You write to communicate…what’s burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.”
It doesn’t take much editing when you’re using Twitter to tell people “I just ate a yummy peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” or “The tallest building in the neighborhood is the library. Must be because of all the stories.” (Random tweets I grabbed when I was writing this post). But those words belie Twitter’s real use: instant communication with a simultaneously random yet connected universe of readers.
Those of us who write advertising for a living were tweeting long before Twitter was ever invented – we just didn’t know it. Because when it comes to writing taglines, 140 characters feel like a hopelessly indulgent all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of letters.
Consider some of the best advertising you’ve seen. Even though millions of dollars were spent on photography, special effects, and celebrity voiceovers, what you probably remember most are the powerful – and brief – taglines.
“The relentless pursuit of perfection.”
When we create a new brand for our clients, we find that the tagline is usually the hardest assignment we have. After all, the tagline is where we have to compress everything a company stands for and does in as few words as possible – almost always less than 10 and most often just three or four.
What makes the assignment even harder is that our job isn’t just to highlight the company’s business, but to create a compelling emotional connection between our clients’ products or services and their consumers’ needs and wants.
When we were hired by mortgage.com, our job was to demonstrate how their online technology made getting a home mortgage quick and painless. Our first suggestion, aimed directly at jaded baby boomers, was “Now getting a mortgage sucks less.” It was gently explained to us that the company’s investors weren’t entirely comfortable with that approach, so we came back with the heartwarming, “The easiest way home.”
When we worked for the United Way, we needed to convey not only that the United Way did great things for the recipients of its largesse, but that they also provided a vital service to the donor community they served. We did it in just six words: “Giving People Help. Helping People Give.”
For the Medicare HMO AdvantageCare, we expressed our concern for our customers’ health in just two words: “Be Well.”
For the GMCVB, Miami’s tourism bureau, we told people that Miami was the open-minded, sunny place where they could be free, uninhibited, and relaxed by inviting them to, “Express Yourself.”
Taglines are a great way to keep everyone, from customers to employees, focused on what an organization stands for. And they can be just as useful for individuals as they are for companies. Think of President Obama’s “Yes we can;” Muhammad Ali’s “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee;” or even Donald Trump’s “You’re fired!”
Each tells you who the person is, what you can expect from them, and what’s in it for you. All in all, a wonderful tagline provides a lot of value from just six or seven words. If a great tagline were an entertainer, it would be James Brown, “The hardest working man in show business.”
16 thoughts on “140 Characters is Way Too Many Letters.”
Leave a Comment
-
Follow Bruce on the Web
-
By Bruce Turkel
Bass Pro Shops – Your Adventure Starts Here
Agreed…well put!
Really….”succinct” “prose” and “belie”? I swear Marketing 101 forbid us from using such words! Maybe I’m upset that I had to look up “succinct”, my vocabulary is apparently (insert adjective here).
Once again, Bruce makes sense, common sense, and his message shines like a light in the darkness of advertising.
Well that explains it, Jeff. I never took Marketing 101. I’m an art director. To me, words and letters were those little squiggly black things we had to make fit in the area we had designed for the type!
I agree that creating a tag line or what I call a core marketing message may be difficult but once the line is established it can be very powerful. The company then “owns” the line or word but occassionally I have seen another company use the a similar line, for example: “What has brown done for you” (UPS) and then “What can blue do for you” (BC/BS)- copycat lines do not work!
It is far better to be the first at something and be identified with the message. After all, the essence of marketing is to narrow the focus for the prospective customer – these days you cannot stand for something when you chase everything.
Bruce – The most compelling statement in your missive for me was “we find that the tagline is usually the hardest assignment we have.” Everyone who’s started their own business knows just how hard it is to put into succinct terms what you/your business represents.
I’ve been discussing this very notion with several friends as we all struggle with the “where are we going with our work and what does it mean anyway” questions. So much is said about “pursuing your passion,” but is that really the solution? And if it is, do you and you and you have the fortitude and commitment to look deep inside yourself with the raw honesty it takes to unearth your passion?
If you do, great! You may actually find a way to make the subject matter of your pursuits the objective of your personal and professional satisfaction. But for the rest of us, maybe it can be just as rewarding to passionately pursue whatever it is that you’re doing – today, tomorrow, the next day? That notion seems far more achievable for us masses, than the former, with the same end result – living a rewarding and satisfying life.
No doubt, you’re asking yourself how this is related to taglines. The answer is simple If you can discover what motivates you to act (like responding to great articles written by others instead of trying to write great articles yourself), then you are on the right path to “success.”
Oh, and another great resource for this line of thinking is the Six Word Memoirs movement.
My tagline? I Sell Time.
PHB
Better read than dead
“say it like it is”
The best name I ever came up with for a client was actually my second choice. . .first was Peacock Walk. . . winner was CocoWalk.
Turkel Talks, people respond; or “We move people.” But I think that one is taken. Ample proof that a good tag line is invaluable. A bad one? Ho hum.
Hi Bruce, I am sorry to disagree with your statement that we must try to compress everything that a company stands for into a tagline. A tagline is simply the part of a brand’s position that it wishes to actively communicate. And, of course, a brand’s position is only a small part of the brand’s larger value proposition.
“We Try Harder”, one of the most successful tags in the last 100 years, is a good example. It specifically speaks to customer service as a positioning statement. It makes no attempt to speak to Avis’ offering beyond that.
You may also have made your point about a tag being used both outwardly and internally to rally the troops a little stronger. So many folks see branding only as outwardly directed. The Avis tag is a great example of internal branding as well..
Respect
Once again Bruce, your words are smart yet simple. Even a caveman would understand (except for those succint-like words you insert every now and then).
Tatum’s tagline is “Create More Value”. It is spot on; however, it hasn’t helped to reposition the company away from “rent a CFO” toward a broader service offering. There are times when the tagline must do more than make a positioning statement.
Bruce,
Allow me to tag this discussion by pointing out that none of your examples of powerful taglines compress everything a company does and stands for into a few words.
“Just Do It” for example says absolutely nothing about Nike except maybe that they understand well the importance of positioning themselves toward the goals of the consumer.
Two similar examples: “Be All You Can Be” and “Express Yourself”
Great piece, as usual, Bruce. I’m still your best fan. Andy