Because I’m Worth It

Sat in a bar the other night I thought I’d try a local brew and so I ended up drinking a bucket, (they don’t do pints in Canada), of Coors Light. Saw it, tried it, won’t bother again… But what caught my eye was the tag line that sat neatly below the product name. ‘Cold Certified’. What the hell does that even mean? They’re obviously proud and a little possessive over the nonsensical phrase as they’ve had the verbal diarrhoea trade marked.

What purpose do tag or strap lines have? Most are ridiculous either because they claim to be the biggest, the best or somehow unique or even worse they supposedly contain or create a component or effect that has quite clearly been invented by the manufacturer or supplier.

It occurs to me that most tag lines exist purely to explain or justify what a business does or a product is. Surely it would be better if it illustrated a key benefit. It also occurs to me that the tag line is an ad agency invented item derived purely to increase their remit and therefore revenue. Generally they sound pompous, reek of corporate speak and more often than not prompt a sarcastic response.

They are supposed to be memorable phrases that reinforce the viewers memory of the product or service but when you consider them in the cold light of day without the Multi million pound moody video, pumping backing track or seductively pouting sex goddess they make no sense at all. Think of the long gone and very definitely not missed, British Rail. They famously had the tag line, ‘We’re getting there’, no they didn’t and it hardly inspired much faith that they ever would. British Telecom, ‘It’s you we answer to’, oh really? Not in my experience and as for Heinz and their ’57 Varieties’, apparently they’ve always had far more. They do in fact have over 5700 products but 60 at the time of the slogans invention. 57 was chosen as it was thought to be a lucky number.

As for Red Bull, giving me wings or McDonalds lovin’ it I’m afraid it’s not happened for me, and as for Nike telling me to ‘Just do it’… You get the picture. I did come across one tag line that did make me laugh out loud. It hardly trips off the tongue and and conjures up all kinds of images of corporate shenanigans and committee decisions before they settled on this beauty. Tellabs have the strap line, ‘Leadership in providing innovative solutions to the telecommunications industry worldwide’. You’ve got to hope that was an inside job and not an agency created piece of waffle. I would definitely be asking for my money back.

To me the tag line is a sterile marketing tool that seems left over from another age, one where consumers were more naive and less aware of the choices available to them. There are however some fine examples of strap lines, which to me now seem far more suited to the promotion of films. Two that stick in my mind are for the movie Chicken Run, ‘Escape or die frying’ and for The Forty Year Old Virgin, ‘The longer you wait, the harder it gets’.

Right, whine over, off to wash my hair. ‘Because I’m worth it’.