One of my favorite topics - developing a winning slogan. Aside from it being easy, at least it is for me, developing a slogan is one of the best things you can do for your company. But unless you understand the fundamentals of how to develop a catchy slogan that will stay in the minds of your customers, do not attempt to develop one on your own. So before you consider creating a slogan for your business, take a look at the following process I use when I create slogans for Young Copy clients.

First you need to understand there are two sides to every great slogan. One side represents what you do and the other side represents how what you do benefits your customers. Each side can consist of one or multiple words. And when you bring both sides together, you have an effective business slogan. For example, I wrote about Peer1's "We Get IT" slogan a while back.  Let's break the slogan into multiple pieces.

"We" represents Peer1. "Get IT" represents how customers benefit from using Peer1. If you read the We Get IT - Great Branding? blog post, you know "IT" is a play on "it" and "Information Technology." And you know that I think using a play on words as Peer1 did is brilliant. You do not always have to use a play on words, but in some cases it could help you distinguish your company's slogan from your competitors' slogans - if they even have a slogan.

Most companies do not have slogans, much less a catchy slogan. If they do, at least based on my experience, they rarely get it right. On top of rarely getting it right, the ones that do usually spend way too much money to have a team of creative people come up with the right words to burn on people's memories. I'm not suggesting that everybody who reads this can go out and create a slogan on their own and it be good, but it will help you understand what you need to know if you decide to work with your own marketing team or you decide to outsource your "slogan" project to a professional. 

Back to the two sides of a company slogan. Even though the entire slogan should represent your company and what you do for customers, the first side should represent your company's services in one or two words. Jot down a few words that describe your company's solutions, services, or products. For example, SingleHop, a  managed dedicated server company, created the "We Manage IT Differently" slogan. Again we see a play on words using "it" and "IT" for Information Technology.

Side A: "We Manage IT"

Side B: "Manage IT Differently"

Side A represents what SingleHop does best - they manage Information Technology. In this case they manage dedicated servers.

Side B represents what they do for customers - they manage Information Technology different than their competitors.

Could the slogan be better? Absolutely. But it's still a useful advertising slogan because it intrigues customers and motivates customers to find out how SingleHop manages Information Technology differently. Of course, their slogan has no meaning to you unless you are shopping for a new dedicated server hosting company and you need a company to provide management services for your dedicated server. 

To make their slogan better, let's follow the logical process I use when I develop slogans for my clients. We know that SingleHop provides dedicated server hosting and manages dedicated servers. But I have one question - how do they do it differently? Actually I have many questions. Do they do it cheaper? Do they have better support? Do they have more qualified engineers managing dedicated servers? Do they have better software in place? Is their network better? I could go on until I have exhausted every question imaginable. Yes, it takes asking the right questions, and in some cases, a lot of the right questions in order to come up with an advertising slogan that does its job well. On the other hand, it may only take a few questions to get the best information needed to develop a winning slogan for your company.

Or maybe it goes back to my original point that "it intrigues customers and motivates customers to find out how SingleHop manages Information Technology differently." Maybe customers see the slogan and start a conversation with the SingleHop team to learn more about how they do it differently. If that's the case, the slogan should work well. Down the road I will interview the SingleHop team and find out how well their company slogan is working.

Coming Up…

I have several blog posts I will share with you in the coming weeks regarding ideas on slogans. Take a look at topics coming up.

1. Developing a winning slogan for a technology management company. Learn how I created a slogan to help a technology management company stay in the minds of their clients.

2. Developing a winning slogan for Young Copy. Since I develop business slogans for my clients, why not go ahead and develop one for Young Copy.

3. Launching the new Young Copy slogan. Will it be successful? I think so. After all, if I develop winning slogans for my clients, I can do the same for Young Copy.

Tags: advertising slogan, business slogan, company slogan

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 4:03 pm and is filed under Branding, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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