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.

“Does she or doesn’t she?”

“Imagination at work.”

“There is no substitute.”

“The relentless pursuit of perfection.”

“Just do it.”

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.”

After almost every punch line, a googly-eyed, sweating Rodney Dangerfield would tug at his tie and utter his famous line, “Awww, I don’t get no respect.”

Seems to me the entire travel and tourism industry could do the same thing. Tourism is a trade that encompasses so many different business sectors but has no single defining industry designation, and therefore, has no real way of demonstrating its value to the greater community.

Check the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and you’ll find listings for Air Transportation; Aircraft-Aerospace Manufacturing; Amusement and Recreation; Fishing, Hunting, and Trapping; Food Preparations and Food Specialties; Hotel and Restaurant; Museums, Art Galleries, and Botanical and Zoological Gardens; and the Railroad Transportation Industries – all listed as separate sectors. And that list doesn’t even include limousines, cruise lines, sporting events, nor all of tourism’s supporting industries such as Legal, Accounting, HR, Real Estate, Retail, etc., etc., etc. Yet every one of those businesses owes some or all of its success to tourism.

Funny how things change in times of trouble, though. Now that BP is dolling out money to companies whose businesses have suffered due to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, it seems every business that might have ever received a dollar from a tourist’s wallet has its hand out for relief. Watching the evening news the other day, I saw a gas station owner from Palatka complaining that BP owed him money because tourists have stopped driving down to Florida. Even the Brass Monkey Lounge in Marathon filed a lawsuit against BP for diminished business.

As Judy Sorenson, owner of the bar, said in The Miami Herald, “It‘s still beautiful here, but people aren’t coming because they think the oil is here, even though it isn’t here. That’s killing the Keys.”

Maybe so, Judy; but it ain’t killing bars. The last thing people in the Keys are going to give up is booze. In fact, I’d bet that the worse the situation gets, the more they’ll drink.

Regardless of the economic realities, our tourism industry will keep stoking the economy – providing jobs, generating taxes and showing people the best parts of the United States, all without getting the respect it deserves. It’s so bad that even Rodney Dangerfield used to diss our industry: “Boy, what a hotel that was, why they stole MY towel! Then I asked the bellhop to handle my bag and he fondled my wife.”

I’m tellin’ you, we don’t get no respect.