Everything in branding plays a role in boosting a company, no matter big or small. This includes a tagline and a slogan. Almost every brand has a tagline or slogan, or both. Both of them are good ways to make your brand gain recognition and brand recall. That aside, a lot of people are still unsure of the differences between a tagline and a slogan. This can lead to brands creating unsuitable taglines or slogans for different situations. It’s good that you clicked on this article because we will be explaining their similarities, differences, and their importance in branding.
CR8 Consultancy’s tagline.
What Is a Tagline?
In the context of branding, a tagline is a phrase that is often created to be used as a permanent, or long-term, expression of your brand’s entire purpose or mission. It can change throughout the years to reflect your brand but it will always surround the main purpose or mission of your company. Although there isn’t a specific rule book for taglines, it is universally acknowledged that a tagline should not be longer than 7 or 8 words. Both taglines and slogans are typically short phrases or sentences. This is because the tagline would be on billboards, banners, business cards, etc. If your tagline were too long, that decreases the readability and can cause you to lose many potential customers. Plus, alongside being short, it should be catchy in a way that captivates your target audiences and allows them to remember your brand.
A good example of a tagline would be KFC’s, which is “It’s Finger Lickin’ Good”. It’s short, it’s simple and it shows KFC’s main purpose of serving food so good that you lick your fingers clean. It’s catchy too, so when people see it, they immediately know that their food is good and people are enticed to try it.
There’s even a story behind how the famous tagline came about. One of the franchisees, Dave Harman, was eating a plate of chicken behind the scenes while filming ads for the restaurant in the early 1950s. Following that, they received a call complaining that Harman was licking his fingers. His restaurant manager, Ken Harbough, then spontaneously replied “Well, it’s finger lickin’ good!”. Since then, the phrase stuck and became a permanent tagline for ads, billboards and so on.
What Is a Slogan?
A slogan, on the other hand, isn’t permanent or long-lasting. Slogans, similar to taglines, are simple yet catchy phrases. The big difference is that slogans are meant for campaigns or individual product promotions. It’s to align with those campaigns or individual products or services. In other words, it’s product-specific. A slogan’s main purpose is to reel your targeted market in and allow them to have a good first impression of what you’re trying to sell.
One of the marketing campaigns that really worked was Dollar Shave Club’s campaign. It still works to this day too. Their campaigns perfectly encapsulated their brand personality which is described as fun, relatable, and unapologetically truthful.
Alongside “Our Blades Are F**king Great”, they also stand by their tagline of “Shave Time, Shave Money”. Their slogan is daring and humorous and, at the same time, it indirectly jabs at all their competitors. On top of that, their tagline is short and catchy while showing their positioning of being high quality and affordable.
Importance of Both in Branding
Without further ado, let’s get into the importance of having a tagline, slogan, or both, in your branding:
1. Brand Recognition & Recall
As mentioned in the first paragraph, both taglines and slogans are great for boosting your brand recognition as well as recall. Brand recall is basically how likely people are to remember your brand name with minimal prompting. The way a slogan or tagline helps is that it embeds a message in the target audience’s mind of what a company offers and what its unique selling point is. For example, BMW’s slogan is “The ultimate driving machine”. This leads to the connection of cars with their brand. In other words, when people think of cars or driving, they think of BMW.
Another good example would be Nike’s “Just Do It”. What makes Nike’s slogan so iconic is not because of any product description or unique selling point, it’s the positive feeling they evoke with their simple yet globally-known slogan. It was the inspiration they spread, the feeling of “if they can do it, so can I”. With this way of evoking feelings in their targeted audience, they became one of the world-renowned athletic brands.
2. Conveying Brand Messages & Values
To put it simply, a slogan and tagline can both be used to convey a brand’s messages and values. In other words, a short message that encompasses what they do and why consumers should choose it. This gives the target market a glimpse, or better yet, a brief introduction to what that company does and how they stand out from other companies within the same industry. For instance, aside from Dollar Shave Club mentioned earlier, another good example would be Airbnb’s tagline. With a short and simple “Belong Anywhere”, they imply that no matter where you go, you always have a place to stay thanks to what they offer. This shows that even something as short as two words can say so much about what you do.
3. Stand Out From Your Competitors
Standing out is important especially since almost every industry is more competitive in this day and age. As an example, there are so many chocolate brands out there, right? So, what makes your chocolate different and worth choosing over other chocolates? For that, let’s take a look at M&M’s. Their tagline is “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand”. This alone beats out so many other competitors in the same industry because chocolate generally melts easily in your hand and makes a mess. They’re eliminating the mess, which is the problem, while still offering high-quality and great-tasting chocolate.
4. Branding & Marketing
Having a tagline, slogan or both will really help with your branding and marketing in the long run. This is because, although it is not compulsory, your tagline or slogan can include the unique selling point (USP) of your brand. For reference, brands that use their USP in their slogan or tagline include Dollar Shave Club, M&M’s, Airbnb and a lot more famous brands. By doing so, any advertisement, billboard or social media post stands out from all the rest within the same industry. Sprinkling in some of your brand personality like Dollar Shave Club also creates a connection or sense of relatability between your brand and your consumers. This can lead to an increase in traffic, sales and more.
Types of Taglines & Slogans Alongside Examples of Successful Ones
Aside from the brands we have already mentioned, here are 10 more examples of brands that successfully created and marketed their taglines or slogans:
1. Imperative: McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It”
Imperative taglines or slogans are usually a direct call to action (CTA) or command that engages a brand’s target audience. It implies a sense of urgency or what kind of experience consumers will go through when they engage with that brand.
2. Descriptive: Disneyland’s “The Happiest Place On Earth”
Descriptive taglines and slogans are as the name suggests. It describes an experience or a feeling, overall being informative or straightforward.
Source: adobe.com
3. Provocative: Burger King’s “Have It Your Way”
Provocative taglines or slogans are meant to provoke consumers in a good way. It either includes humour, irony, controversial remarks or daring and witty remarks. This sets a brand apart from its competitors, making them stand out.
4. Superlative: FedEx’s “The World On Time”
Superlative taglines or slogans touch more on the unique selling point (USP) of a brand. Usually, it’s statements that show off what the brand does best, commonly including words like “the best” or “greatest” to further reel in their consumers.
5. Interrogative: Mastercard’s “There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s Mastercard.”
Interrogative taglines or slogans are designed to pique the consumer’s interest by using thought-provoking statements or questions. These questions or statements lead the consumers to reflect on their own needs or desires.
6. Specific: Subway’s “Eat Fresh”
Specific taglines or slogans are as their name suggests, they specifically highlight their unique selling point and aim to be as informative as they can of a brand’s products or services.
7. Visionary: Coca-Cola’s “Open Happiness”
Last but not least, visionary taglines or slogans mainly portray a brand’s long-term vision, purpose or goal that aims to evoke the right emotions from its target audience.
Source: colinhj.com
Other examples of successful taglines & slogans include:
1. Taco Bell: Think Outside The Bun.
2. Toyota: Let’s Go Places
3. KitKat: Have A Break, Have A KitKat
4. Oreo: Twist, Lick, Dunk
5. Air Asia: Now Everyone Can Fly
Conclusion
As a recap, a tagline encapsulates the entire brand purpose, mission or identity while a slogan is typically used for campaigns or ads, being shorter term than taglines. While they have their similarities and differences, they are both important for the good of your branding. They create a sense of connection between the brand and the consumer, allowing better brand recognition and recall while also being a great way to advertise your brand and its products or services.
If you’re having trouble coming up with an effective tagline or slogan, you can always turn to us, CR8 Consultancy, for a consultation and we could hopefully create a fruitful brand guideline together as well
CR8 Consultancy can provide the perfect slogan and tagline for your brand!
At CR8 Consultancy, we specialize in providing comprehensive branding services that include branding strategy, design and more. Take the first step towards enhancing your brand by scheduling a free consultation with us today!