Whether you’re shopping in the grocery store, watching TV on the couch, or reading your favorite blog, you see taglines everywhere. Sometimes it’s just a little text under a logo, or perhaps it’s the jingle that’s now stuck in your head from that commercial you’ve seen a million times. Regardless, just about every business and brand has a tagline. Are they necessary?

Let’s start with the purpose of the tagline. A tagline is something that offers additional insight into a business or brand beyond what a logo provides. In the case of a jingle, a tagline is also something that can stick in your head, ensuring you won’t forget that brand anytime soon. Of course, even if a tagline isn’t put to music, you might be surprised how memorable they all are. See if you can guess the company each of the following taglines belong to:

1. Think Different.
2. A Diamond is Forever
3. Just Do It.
4. The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand.
5. Can you hear me now?
6. Where’s the Beef?

I’ll bet you could name most of those, if not all of them. Many of those taglines were launched as campaigns decades ago, but have been so successful that they’re still used and remembered today. Now why are they so memorable? They’re short and catchy, they make us think, and they engage us as their audience. Why are they important? Because even without seeing the logo, we KNOW what brands those taglines belong to…and that means any time we hear even just a piece of a slogan or jingle, we’ll think of the brand.

So back to our first question…are taglines necessary?

The answer is YES…as long as you can create a GOOD tagline. Some experts will say that taglines are obsolete and extraneous…just one more thing to cram into an already crowded ad (see some examples of bad taglines here: http://www.moviezeal.com/ten-worst-movie-taglines-ever/). Well, if a tagline sucks, then yes, it’s unnecessary and a waste of time. In order to create a great tagline, you need to know your target audience, know what reaction you want that audience to have to your product, logo, and tagline, and narrow all that down to just a few words (about 7 words or less). Those words need to convey something memorable, whether it’s clever, rhymes, or goes well with music. If you don’t think you can come up with something that constitutes a great tagline, consider hiring someone who has experience in the matter.

Here’s an interesting video about using taglines. Now, the video specifically mentions non-profit businesses, but the facts and ideas it brings up apply to ALL businesses and taglines.

Just in case you wanted the answers to the tagline quiz above:

1. Apple
2. De Beers
3. Nike
4. M&M’s
5. Verizon
6. Wendy’s