As far as branding goes, the slogan is one of the heavy-hitting aspects of your overall strategy. Getting it right can create an immense opportunity to incorporate it into all sorts of other marketing materials, from radio jingles to merchandise to advertisements. Getting it wrong would be a real shame, since, in the hyper-competitive world of marketing, you’re really shooting yourself in the foot. With some concerted effort, it’s not hard to come up with a really good slogan and you have to be using any possible tool you have to try and get ahead of the rest of the pack and carve out your brand’s future success. Along with your logo, the slogan will be leading the charge for your overall marketing and branding scheme and taking the time to make a slogan that will really hold weight will work wonders. If you’ve got doubts about how worthwhile investing the time you need to make a great slogan is, then all I can say is ‘Just Do It’! Let’s look at some ways to go about making your slogan.
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Begin With The Logo
The slogan is always the supporting character of the logo lead character. When a brand specialist gets to work everything they develop, as the slogan and color schemes, comes out of the logo, which is the first port of call. The way the logo is designed can really help guide conversations about how to design the slogan. A lot of that will have to do with space; how many words you can really afford to actually have written. One of the things about designing a slogan is that you’ll find yourself desperate for limitations, which is quite counter-intuitive. The thing is that when you sit down you have all the possible words in existence available to you. Giving yourself a filter like a logo is important in guiding your design. This guidance could make your life a lot easier.
Avoid Bravado
Companies that unironically boast about their reputation in their logo only occasionally get away with it. Some really top companies can afford to tout their status as number one nationally or globally. But starting out, slogans need to do more for you than just boast. Consumers will be skeptical, particularly in an age when the internet means that companies can appear overnight, of slogans that seem too overconfident. Similarly, by using your slogan to make a boastful claim you're missing the opportunity to use it for more important ends, like boosting sales potential or anything like that. Try your best to be neither too boastful nor too humble and focus on sending a message with the slogan.
Simplicity Is Key
When you think about the great slogans, the ones that the second you hear them you instantly picture a product, they all have simplicity in common. Simplicity doesn’t just mean that a slogan is short- long slogans don’t really exist. It refers mainly to the simplicity of language and clarity of expression. Going in for complex puns or plays on words, or any slogan that makes a reference of some sort is very risky and largely inadvisable. It’s simply a question of ensuring that everyone, no matter the demographic, can look at your slogan and instantly understand it. That instant understanding is what really helps to make your slogan stick in the memory of those who encounter it, which is the key to making a branding success of your chosen slogan.
Take Your Time
Sitting around a table with your colleagues and firing off slogans for an hour before arriving on the best sounding one isn’t the way to do business. Picking a slogan is a process that requires a lot more time than you think. This is not least of all the cases because you really ought to be doing some sort of testing to establish the best slogan. Focus grouping your slogan ideas in a trial period will give you some concrete data about memorability and will be a very helpful way to guide your search for the best slogan choice. There can be an impatience that creeps in with business branding elements like slogans but, for the sake of the long-term goals, you want to suppress this and spend the time searching that your slogan really deserves.
Conclusion
Getting a great slogan for your company can be a fun and rewarding task when done effectively. It’s a great opportunity to add a real booster to your later marketing efforts and can be used to buy you a big sway over the general public. Don’t skimp on the work required to make a success of it and always aim for memorability over all else.
Darryl Martin is a professional writer and branding professional at AcademicBrits. His role relates to project management and business strategy, motivated by psychology and behavioral economics. He is highly creative in his problem solving for marketing. Check out his writing at OriginWritings.
