Tagline - a hidden gem in the brand toolbox
As General Electric CEO Judy Hu noted when she received the 2005 Advertising Week award for her company's inspired slogan, "Imagination at work is more than just a slogan...it's part of our DNA."
However, despite the apparent power of well-known slogans such as Volkswagen's "Drivers Wanted", "Let Your Fingers Rotate" on Yellow Pages, and Coca Cola's "It's the Real Thing", the slogan is often overlooked in branding strategies.
Despite the growing importance of brand image and identity in the professional and small to medium business sectors, there may still be a golden opportunity in your branding toolbox to gather dust.
Tagline.
What is the slogan? A short descriptive phrase, often accompanied by your slogan, conveys the character associated with your professional practice.
An original and relevant logo gives you an extraordinary ability to communicate something compelling about your professional practice in everything from your official paper to your website to your marketing campaign.
As General Electric CEO Judy Hu noted when she received the 2005 Advertising Week award for her company's inspired slogan, "Imagination at work is more than just a slogan...it's part of our DNA."
However, despite the apparent power of well-known slogans such as Volkswagen's "Drivers Wanted", "Let Your Fingers Rotate" on Yellow Pages, and Coca Cola's "It's the Real Thing", the slogan is often overlooked in branding strategies. For architects, engineers, interior designers, chiropractors, accountants, veterinarians, naturopaths, and other professional practices.
Let's explore seven essential steps to creating a strong logo for your professional practice.
Whether you plan to develop your own logo or hire a marketing consultant to write it for you, here are some helpful tips as you start the process:
To write a strong slogan:
1. Keep it ruthlessly short - Ideally, your logo should vary between one and three words. Remember IKEA's first slogan, "Fits"? In a word, it was packed with a hard punch to squeeze any number of words to match. This logo invited us to envision how an Ikea product would not only efficiently come together, but would coordinate with whatever décor we had in mind.
2. Capture Key Messages and Ignore the Rest - The challenge is not to come up with a list of what your company does right, but rather to reduce to the top of one to three traits. Reuters' slogan "Know. Now." Memorable because despite everything they do right, they have had the discipline to focus their message on two key strengths: speed and accuracy.
3. Choose your style of writing, don't let it choose you - the impact of your logo will be largely determined by your writing style. Think of the famous Nike slogan - "Just Do It" works because it's casual and commanding, and it's a very compelling style with the Nike audience.
4. Sleep on it - Once you've created the tagline, put it away. Come back to it with new eyes after a few days and decide if it still delivers the effect originally envisioned.
5. TEST THE ROAD - Once you have a guard, test it. Get feedback before the official launch.
6. Incorporate the Final Logo into Your Logo Design - To increase the impact of your new logo, incorporate it into your logo design. While it can be a key element in the creative direction of your logo, the tagline should always be treated as a secondary element in both size and popularity, to avoid confusion between your company name and your logo.
7. Update it - yes. No matter how much time and energy it took to develop your logo, you need to update it regularly.
Did you know that McDonald's has used 23 different slogans, including the ever-popular "You Deserve a Break Today" and the current "I'm Loving' it"?
Taglines allow us to constantly renew our branding strategies. Unlike the company name, the logo can be changed every three to five years without harming the awareness of the brand name. You can use your logo as an opportunity to take advantage of industry trends that are expected to be relevant for a number of years.
So before you even think about starting your own branding strategy, remember the logo. You will be in a position to take advantage of opportunities often overlooked by other professional practices and small to medium businesses.
You may be pleasantly surprised to return.
Choose your style of writing, don't let it choose you - the impact of your logo will be largely determined by your writing style. Incorporate the Final Logo into Your Logo Design - To increase the impact of your new logo, incorporate it into your logo design. While it can be a key element in the creative direction of your logo, the tagline should always be treated as a secondary element in both size and popularity, to avoid confusion between your company name and your logo.
