Taglines and AI: Navigating Branding in a Digital Age

This week on "Naming in the AI Age," Namestormers Ashley Elliott and Mike Carr discuss the evolving relevance of taglines in today’s fast-paced digital world. While some critique taglines as outdated distractions, Mike argues for their enduring value, suggesting they enhance brand names by providing emotional appeal and differentiation. He highlights examples like Dr. Pepper's changing taglines and discusses how AI tools, such as Meta's LLAMA 3.1, are revolutionizing tagline creation with precision and efficiency. The podcast emphasizes that, despite varying opinions, taglines remain crucial for branding, and AI is becoming a key resource in crafting impactful and memorable taglines.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: Reflecting on Timeless Taglines
• 1:07 The Relevance of Taglines in the Digital Age
• 2:12 Dr. Pepper: A Case Study on Evolving Taglines
• 3:01 Modern Examples of Powerful Taglines
• 4:13 Leveraging AI for Tagline Creation
• 6:08 Raw Tagline Ideas and Conclusion

Transcript

Ashley Elliott (00:10):

All right , well, welcome to naming in an A I Age. As a person born in the 19 hundreds, a lot of people would consider me ancient, my kids especially, but some things do stand the test of time. In fact, some of my favorite taglines are from the late 19 hundreds, AKA 1990s. One of those being Got milk,

(00:35):

Got milk.

Ashley Elliott (00:37):

I can't believe it's not butter.

(00:38):

I can't believe it's not bother. Taste your love without the cholesterol

Ashley Elliott (00:42):

Or the infamous, where's the beef?

(00:45):

Where's the beef? Hey, where's the beef?

Ashley Elliott (00:48):

But the question today, in today's fast-paced digital culture is are tagline still a thing? Do we really need that short phrase that accompanies our brand name? Craig Briggs, a marketing professor, actually says, taglines are dying, arriving painful death. Are they worth it? What do you think, Mike? What are your thoughts?

Mike Carr (01:07):

Back in my generation, much older than you, Ashley. David Ogilvy was a well-known advertising guru and pundit, and he said, agencies waste countless hours. Concocting slogans of incredible fortuity, right? Of just worthless. Just a distraction. But I don't agree. I mean, I think a name can only do so much. And each letter, each syllable of a name is just invaluable real estate. So if a name is very focused, it just does one thing. Well, if you have a tagline that's very short and punchy, it takes some of that pressure off the name. It connects emotionally. So when I was an intern during college at Dr. Pepper Company, we never changed the Dr. Pepper brand. I mean, that brand's been around for a hundred plus years, but we would change the tag. And so young and Rubicon was the agency, and when I started there, it was Bea Pepper. That was the tagline. Wouldn't

(02:12):

You like to be a Pepper too? They're saluting peppers too. Pepper,

(02:17):

Pepper, man,

(02:18):

Wouldn't you like to be a pepper? Be pepper, Dr. Pepper. Be a pepper, Dr. Pepper,

(02:26):

Sir.

Mike Carr (02:27):

Well then a little bit later they changed the tagline to just what the doctor ordered.

(02:32):

Just what the doctor ordered, what the doctor ordered,

Mike Carr (02:44):

Which is sort of cool and clever. And so the whole idea is the tagline can keep your brand name fresh and relevant and cool and hip. And it also can help you differentiate from your competitors as they sort of change what they're doing out there in the landscape.

Ashley Elliott (03:01):

When you think of Nike, just do it. That call to action.

(03:05):

People ask me how I keep my teeth from chattering at a wintertime. I lead in my locker.

Ashley Elliott (03:16):

Apple think different

(03:18):

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do

Ashley Elliott (03:31):

L'Oreal because you're worth it.

(03:33):

Actually. I don't mind spending more for L'Oreal because I'm worth it.

Ashley Elliott (03:38):

Even KFC's, finger licking, good

(03:41):

Finger licking, good finger licking, good finger licking good. That's how every piece of chicken should be.

Ashley Elliott (03:48):

I mean, that's a call to action if I ever saw one myself describing how my children look after they eat that or Amazon delivering smiles. But what all of these have in common is, like you said, they're short, they're punchy, they have that emotional appeal, they have that stopping power. Should a tagline always be short like that, or do you think there's a time where your phrasing should be longer? I mean, what is the tagline for, are you showing any of your value prop in

Mike Carr (04:13):

In general? I think the shorter and punchier the better. But there are some taglines that are more successful that are a little bit longer. And part of it is what do you want the tag to accomplish? What else is going to be wrapped around the name? Right? So you think about names where the packaging is really critical, like Angry Orchards, which we've created for Boston Beer. Well, if you look at an Angry Orchard six pack and the image of this very angry looking apple tree with a few of these really ugly looking apples on, it conveys an awful lot about the brand and the persona and the edginess of it. And so it takes some of the pressure off of quote the written word versus in a totally different situation, you're selling a B2B service. It has something to do with AI or has something to do with the cloud.

(05:07):

Well then maybe words are going to be more important because the visual elements aren't as pronounced, they aren't as obvious. And I want to talk a little bit about AI because I think AI is incredibly capable at coming up with taglines that will blow you away. This idea that you can create a very short tagline or a longer tagline that is very focused on exactly what you need it to do with AI's help in less time and probably even better. And I went through a brand voice exercise with Kami, who's the founder at Zoetica Media. She's down in Houston yesterday, and we went through a series of prompts. AI was consistently you better and better responses as you went through these prompts to get a brand voice that was spot on. You had to do a little bit of tweaking, but it was just amazing.

(06:08):

So I haven't done this yet with taglines. I've got three taglines though that I want to throw out. These are pretty raw and this is my limited effort. So name Stormers, you've got the storm in the name. If you're not agile and nimble, you're going to be destroyed. And these big companies aren't there yet to approve a new ad campaign to approve a new digital campaign. Often it takes weeks or months, whereas their new, smaller competitors are doing it in days or weeks. So we as an agency are very used to this. We have a lot of clients that come to us and they needed a name yesterday. So we're used to working pretty quickly. So a tagline for us could be like, go like Lightning with a great name. Go like Lightning because name Stormers Lightning not real good, but it gets to that speed idea or flash into view.

(07:00):

So flash relates to speed, but flash also relates to a name that sort of catches your eye. It grabs your attention. It's not just about speed. It's about something that's very evocative. Or the last one I was playing around with helping you kick up a storm that we're named Stormers. And when you think about a storm, a storm isn't like a rain shower, right? It isn't like a little sprinkle, a storm gets your attention. We want a tagline that conveys this sense of disruption, of excitement that we're going to create names that cut through all the clutter like a thunderstorm does, that they're delivered quickly and they'll let you as a client be very agile and very nimble. So I think taglines are important. I'm not sure whether they need to be always short or long. I think AI is going to be an incredible resource if you aren't using it already. I think it's going to turn into something that you will never want to do anything like this without at least using in your hip pocket.

Ashley Elliott (08:02):

Yeah, as you were talking about the storm analogies, I was thinking of man A names a Bruin out there and we just were ready for it. The storm's a Bruin. But we would love to know your thoughts. Do you think taglines are worth it? We would love to maybe even have you share some of your favorite taglines. Where's the beef that I shared?

(08:21):

Alo? Where's the Beef?

Ashley Elliott (08:24):

Or even just some tagline ideas that you may have. Feel free to reach out to us or email me at Ashley@namestormers.com. And you can email Mike at mike@namestormers.com. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Have a great one.

Mike Carr (08:36):

Thanks guys. See you.