It also doesn’t have to be famous. Take a B2B brand like Cintas. Once known as “The uniform people,” the apparel maker adopted a new line, “Ready for the workday,” to communicate a far broader range of facility services, all geared toward prepping business customers to open their doors each day with ready confidence.
Will that line reach the stature of “Finger lickin’ good”? Probably not without a few extra billion in ad spend. But when a customer sees it on a delivery truck or a sales presentation, it gives a good idea of what Cintas is there to deliver in four simple words.
Still, if Apple and Airbnb have downplayed their taglines over time — and Amazon, Google, et al. don’t have one at all — they can’t be necessary, right? It’s true: They’re not for every brand. If the goal of a tagline is to associate your brand with a meaning that everyone already knows, the line might just be redundant. For brands like Disney or Patagonia that have built such consistent meaning over the years, we know what they stand for without being told.
…But for everything else, there’s taglines
If you find yours among the vast majority of brands that still have room to strengthen brand meaning across audiences, a tagline is a powerful asset. It’s no longer enough just to shout your brand idea from the rooftops; you need to live it. Boldly, proudly asserting it to the world in the form of a tagline makes every action you take in support of that idea more salient.
A modern rulebook for taglines can help build yours into a more effective asset:
- Make it synonymous with your big brand idea. Does it capture the most fundamental meaning your brand strives to create in the world?
- Own it. Is it distinctive as a brand asset you can trademark? If it’s your brand idea, it should be your line — protected in the same way you do your name and logo.
- Ensure it’s a “giving idea.” Is it expansive enough to span disparate campaigns as a red thread of brand meaning?
- Use it where it helps. Does it pay off the message you’re trying to convey in the moment? Use it. If not, skip it. Taglines shouldn’t be used reflexively, only purposefully.
- Use it inside as much as out. Does it belong on the HQ wall, in email signatures, on T-shirts, or anywhere else that rallies pride in employee culture?
- Tag your experiences. Beyond ads, where can a line bring more of your brand into key interactions, from product packaging to retail environments to app welcome screens?
- Build from it. Can a line do more than describe the brand, but spark its inventiveness? If “Red Bull gives you wings” catalyzed its famed Flugtag event, what will yours inspire?
- Play the long game. Remember, you don’t have to use it always, but continually revisiting it in brand marketing will keep the line fresh along with your meaning in the world.
