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07/21/2001 Archived Entry: "21-July-2001"

Tagline Blues: What's the Site About? (Jakob Nielsen) -- "A website's tagline must explain what the company does and what makes it unique among competitors. Two questions can help you assess your own tagline: Would it work just as well for competitors? Would any company ever claim the opposite?"

Replies: 3 comments

"Would any company ever claim the opposite?"

That is such a bogus test. Sometimes JN's rhetoric is really grating.

Why is it bogus? He implies that since no competition would claim the negative, that means no products exists with those negative features, and ergo making the positive claim is empty and content free.

The problem is that there quite likely are competing products with those negative features ... they just made different compromises, and like good little marketers thay emphasize their positives, not their negatives. A product that is claimed to be "robust and scaleable" is different from one that is claimed to be "affordable and efficient", but no one would actually claim their product is "fragile and limited", nor "overpriced and wasteful".

Of course, if your competition happens to be Volkswagen then don't be suprised if they do have the chutzpah to claim the opposite.

The proper test would be: is it possible that any company/product be described in the opposite, even if only by their enemies? If so, then you have a differentiator.

A real example of content-free filler: "Granny's Health Food : it's nutritious and good for you!"

Posted by Eric Scheid @ 07/22/2001 01:22 PM EST

Steve Krug's book had a few good sections devoted to this as well (if anyone wants additional reading).

Posted by Lawrence Lee @ 07/22/2001 03:59 PM EST

Jakob's stretching the truth to make his point a bit here.

If you look at the sites he's picked on, Angara have the phrase 'Creating Customers Online' in their page banner, which he says is bad.

His GOOD example (Autotrader.com) has the tagline 'Your car is waiting', NOT the phrase he quotes in the article. This is further down, in the page content. Not exactly a fair comparison.

He has a point though - what your home page should tell your visitor is what you can do for them. A snappy tagline may look good, but you need some content right up front that says "We're good at this and this and this, and you should choose us because...". Only, in a more elegant manner.

Posted by Alan Fisher @ 07/23/2001 10:46 AM EST

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