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WebWord Weblog Posting Posting Date: September 24, 2002 Web site homepage usability deconstructed, Part 2 -- "I’ve actually played a little game called “Tag Line Jeopardy” when I present information about the book, where I take a bunch of the tag lines and challenge the audience to figure out what company has that tag line."
Reader Comments...
John, nix the Hulk tagline. Use "Kiss me, I'm Irish." Then, the next time some Anglo-Saxon mother conjugator complains about the lime green, you tell that racist punk where he can stick his shamrock. Posted by: Jack on September 24, 2002 10:41 PM
Come on, you can say it. I'm trying too hard. Shark. Jumped. Posted by: Jack on September 25, 2002 09:51 AM
I think she is spending way to much time worrying about tag lines. The simple fact is that all corporations have brand guidelines which state that the tag line is not to be used in isolation. What she is doing is not what a corporation would do. Also how many sites out there today have the tag line of the company on their home page and not the brand image. For a small unknown, obscure company she has valid comments, but for Ford or Visa or Boeing...come on...big stretch...but maybe she is finding that big stretches work well in NNg, but not in the real world. By the way guess what the tag line on Intuit is.....yep...nada, zip, zilch.... Why can’t I be considered an expert damn it (stomping feet loudly) – I can make stuff up just as well as the next person!
Forget the pointless article. I find Marie Tahir very sexy. Anyone else feel the same way? Posted by: Pung Kao on September 25, 2002 01:51 PM
I completely disagree JB. I feel that taglines are necessary especially in our era of MadeUpName.com, many of which are new and have no history in the mind of the visitor. If the tagline (or positioning statement) does not shed some light on "what the company is all about" then the visitor is likely to get confused and leave. I highly recommend this easy-reading book called Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind which was originally published in the early 80s. Posted by: boysen on September 25, 2002 03:49 PM
boysen, I bought Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind about two weeks ago. I blasted through it in about an hour. Very easy reading. For those folks that don't want to buy the book or read it, I think I can summarize it this way: Be sure, no matter what, that your product, service, or whatever, "owns" a word or short phrase in the mind. The way I understand the concept is this. When you think of X it should remind you of the word Y. In the case of Coke, they own the word Soda (or Pop) in the mind. They dominate the concept almost completely so they are well positioned. In the case of Mercedes, it might be Great Car Engineering or Luxury Car, Great Engineering. In the case of WebWord, it might be Hulk Green or Amazing Wondeful Awesome Usability Web Site or Shut Up, John. You get the point. The core idea is to dominate a word or words by associating your stuff with that word, phrase or concept. That's the summary. Nothing else to see; move along now. Posted by: John S. Rhodes on September 25, 2002 04:21 PM
boysen I see where you are coming from, but to use her example, if I went to the Ford site and see the ford brand mark and their tag line...do you really think people are going to read the tag line and expect to be instantly fulfilled from a "I know what to expect on this site now..." Tag lines are but one part of the overall brand strategy for an organization. They are actually progress over time and I believe the examples she gave were poor. As I said, if you are a start up then your tag line should be more literal... but as you mature as an organization your tag line is not a literal representation of your companies services, but more about how it impacts a customer at an emotive level. I think it is wrong to pull tag lines out by themselves...ask propel what they mean in terms of a companies service and then hypothesize that because people didn't get it...the tag lines are wrong. Remember we are talking about the web and seeing the Ford brand mark with whatever tag line is two components of the overall brand strategy - not to be viewed in isolation.
JB, you took the words right out of my mouth. Taglines need to evolve. Starting literal is good, evolving to be memorable when there is more brand recognition is better. What I don't get is that she slams Ford for having an uninformative tagline ("Striving to make the world a better place") and in the next breath praises Dell for their "You’ve got a friend in the business" tagline? Um, hello - that doesn't tell me anything about Dell. What business? I just don't know what her criteria is after that example. Next example of an apparently laughable tagline is "Dream. Plan. Go" from Travelocity. "What's that?" chuckles the interviewer. I dunno, sounded pretty good to me. I mean, if you can't get that the site is about travel from their freakin' name, then a tagline isn't going to help! What their tagline tells me is that I can research information, plan my trip, and even arrange travel through their site. I think it's an excellent tagline. I don't think they need a "good editor," as she suggested. Posted by: Lydia on September 25, 2002 07:21 PM
Taglines ... Since becoming a more regular traveller to webword, for me what this site provides, apart from the *hulk green* is a sense of "community" that the other usability sites dont quite offer, its the *user* (human element) part of the usability thats captured well here and the knowledge that there are people out there who are pitching the same thing out in the trenches (US,UK,India etc etc)Its been nice. Posted by: daniel szuc on September 26, 2002 12:40 AM
Daniel, you are spot on the mark. This really is about community. Posted by: John S. Rhodes on September 26, 2002 12:52 AM
I think she needs to stop plugging her book. Mac tag lines and chat up lines are the same thing. Take any tag line and use it in a bar...it sounds just as corny as the chat up line you would have used.
Well, she's part of NNg, JB (or peripherally related, at least) - part of their Orientation is "Plug. Plug. Plug." Posted by: Lydia on September 26, 2002 12:45 PM
I agree that taglines should not be viewed in isolation, but I disagree that that they "need to evolve". People somehow always think that things that "evolve" are doing so in a positive direction. There is such a thing as "devolve". I guess what I mean is that not all changes are positive. As the Positioning book points out (as does many of their subsequent writings), there are many an organization that effectively positioned themselves in a given organization only to then come out with a new marketing campaign (evolve their position). If the new campaign doesn't support the position that they've been building in the minds of consumers, it's actually a negative. With Ford as the case in point, they are currently working multiple positioning attributes/phrases. I see one, "No Boundries" as very vague and not high on the ladder of attributes important to car/truck buyers. The other (remember, trying to convince consumers that you are multiple attributes is not a good idea) attribute is "Toughness." This one corresponds to "Reliabilty" which actually does well in testing for consumers in this industry. If I were the consultant, I would advise Ford to work the "Reliablity/Toughness" attribute into a positioning statement, then consistently push it across all marketing outlets. This would certainly be more productive than "Striving to make the world a better place" which says little about the cars they make. Posted by: boysen on September 26, 2002 02:36 PM
I wish MT would let me Edit a post. 8^( "...effectively positioned themselves in a given industry only t then..." Industry, not a second organization. Doh! Posted by: boysen on September 26, 2002 02:39 PM
Education That Lasts Beyond A Lifetime
Most of those school taglines are not taglines. They're slogans used in recruitment campaigns. When they're used on the web site it is to tie into an existing real-world marketing effort. A tagline describes the content or purpose of a web site. A slogan conveys a deeper meaning or philosophy that often requires supplemental material (explanation) to fully appreciate.
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