How do we create a tagline for a brand?
What’s a tagline?
Your brand tagline is a memorable and relevant short phrase or collection of words that evoke the essence of your brand. It helps get your brand’s message across to potential customers. We’ve heard it referred to as a business’s mantra, too, which is another nice way of putting it. Simply put, taglines sum up the gist of what you do and for whom; taglines help your potential customer get the vibe for what you can offer them.
A tagline works in tandem with your logo—they support one another. The logo evokes the visual aspect of your brand while the tagline evokes the feeling of your brand.
What’s the difference between a business tagline and a slogan?
You might have heard about taglines and slogans, and sometimes these terms are used interchangeably, but they are actually two different things. Taglines are messages for your whole company and brand while a slogan is like a mini tagline for a specific product, campaign, event, etc.
Taglines are meant to last for while; they’re an investment in your messaging for your brand. When you develop a tagline, you want it to stick around and support your branding for quite some time. It can become what your company is known for.
While a slogan is typically a phrase that is targeted to one specific product, service, campaign, event, etc. Slogan actually comes from the word slogorn, which literally means “war cry” in Gaelic, and the term was used to refer to the battle cries of Scottish war chiefs. Now, more modernly used, slogans are the message for whatever your brand is currently putting out into the world. We aren’t fond of the war analogy, so let’s just say that a slogan is a short, evocative, timely phrase that sums up and supports the message your company needs to share right now. Maybe this has to do with a new product launch or a special anniversary. Maybe it has to do with an event or a new line of services and programs you’re getting ready to offer. Whatever it is, a slogan is for the now—the fleeting, and the new things coming out of your work.
In this article, we’ll mostly focus on tagline development and our process for creating a tagline, but these principles and best practices can be applied to slogan development, too.
What’s the purpose of a tagline?
Taglines work in complement to the brand name and logo.
Taglines embody the personality of the brand so your brand can pique the interest of the customer.
Taglines should:
be unique
be memorable
be easy to say
make your brand stand out
Taglines are meant to address the pain point of your client, not to sum up your services or sound overly punny or catchy. When reading or hearing a tagline, it should impact your client at their pain points and/or inspire them to feel the way your brand hopes they will feel when working with you or using your product.
Taglines are meant to be simple and succinct, and they should be direct, clear, and accessible.
What are the types of taglines?
There are descriptive taglines and benefits/outcome-driven taglines. If a brand name is descriptive enough to explain the service (i.e. Santa Barbara Counseling Center) then a benefits-driven tagline will work better to support the brand name. The same works inversed, if the brand name is more abstract—a tagline that is more descriptive will help support the name and make it more clear what it is the brand is offering the customer.
What are some things to keep in mind when crafting a tagline?
Taglines can feature alliteration or rhythm to “roll off the tongue”, but it isn’t essential.
Taglines should capture emotion.
Taglines should speak to the mind of the customer, support the message of the brand, and motivate the customer to take action. The best taglines are simple, memorable, and honest.
Read potential taglines through the eyes of your potential client. Think of where they are at/what they are looking for. How will it make them feel? What will it encourage them to do? Do these reactions align with the overall brand message?
Let taglines sit with you for at least 1 day before giving feedback or revising.
Taglines are not:
Catchphrases
Meant to be punny
jokes
Lengthy
A chance to overpromise
avoid “#1” or “The Best”
Taglines are not meant to be sales-y or overly clever.
Brands that are household names and very established can take more license here to use a tagline that is more clever and abstract than clear and literal (e.g. Apple’s Think Different)
Taglines are not meant to appeal to everyone. They should only appeal to your target, ideal customer.
Taglines do not have to be grammatically correct. For example, what if the memorable, award-winning tagline for the US dairy industry was “Have you got any milk?” Instead of “Got Milk?”?
How do we develop a tagline for a brand?
The Look & The Feel branding methodology is built on the belief that successful brands start with the alignment of both the visuals and the voice of a brand—it starts with getting clear on how a brand should look and feel for a customer.
At the beginning of our tagline development process, we develop a brand language library —a collection of words, phrases, emotions, and ideas to describe the brand, its services, and its products.
We pull language from the product reviews, client testimonials, and also from our coaching sessions and client questionnaires. We include coaching in our process to help better hone the brand story, identify any brand standout traits, and explore the unique positioning of the brand—what makes this particular brand different from others in the industry. We look at Facebook, Yelp, and Google reviews or client-provided customer testimonials to hear what the customer audience is already saying about a brand; it’s helpful to tap into the conversation that already exists about a product or service so we can easily identify what kind of language the customers feel comfortable using about a brand.
Working with our client, we discuss how the brand solves problems or addresses issues the customer is facing, we talk about what it is the brand is working to resolve or change for the customer. We talk about how the customer wants to feel engaging with the brand.
We also chat about terms to avoid to ensure that the tagline doesn’t feel out of sync with the brand or the message it’s working to convey.
Then we start to brainstorm associations for words, terms, and phrases that show up in the brand language library. We include all the “bad” ideas—nothing is off the mark in the first brainstorming session. After 1-2 hours, we come up with about 25 ideas to review.
Then, we sleep on it.
It’s important to take space away from a creative project to see how it feels after some distance.
In the next session, we work to review the idea list and cull anything that doesn’t seem to align with the brand values, story, and overall messaging the brand wishes to evoke. We end up borrowing it down to 5-10 ideas.
We make sure to ask: how does this tagline make us feel when hearing or reading it? We focus on the target audience and imagine how a potential customer would feel engaging with a particular tagline choice. Do these reactions align with and support the overall message of the brand? If not, it doesn’t make the cut.
After we refine the list to less than 3-5 choices, we see how it looks with the logo and how it sounds with the brand name. Does it flow easily or does it feel clunky? If it doesn’t seem to fit, it gets cut.
We continue carrying on throughout our process with review, reflection, and refinement until we land on the top choice.
Choosing a tagline takes time, strategy, and creativity; it’s an essential part of the brand-building process. But, like all stages in the branding process, it’s important to not overlook it—spend time working on your tagline, and if you need help, consider working with a professional team.
