It’s not as easy as you think. (Nor is it as difficult.)

Photo by Marc Nozell, used under a Creative Commons license.

Yes we can.

Of course we can. But exactly what is it that we can do?

Well that’s the great thing about Barack Obama’s tagline. It means whatever you want it to mean. It creates a sense of possibility, of potential, of empowerment.

The same goes for his change taglines: Change can happen, Change we need, Change we can believe in.

It’s like tofu: sweet or savoury, tangy or velvety. You decide. But whatever you do, you can’t contradict it: because the election was going to bring change anyway, since George W Bush couldn’t stand for a third term.

So it promised everything, without really promising anything.

The perfect tagline.

You want it? You got it.

Promises are at the core of taglines. Just look at supermarkets.

In the UK, Tesco has Every little helps. They’re saving you money, which is especially important in these tough economic times, when every penny counts.

Sainsbury’s takes a different tack with Try something new today. This could mean a new product, a new flavour or a new recipe. But it could also mean a new supermarket.

Both taglines look like they’re handwritten, which adds to the personal touch.

Upmarket chain Waitrose doesn’t have one. At the other end of the spectrum, neither does Asda. But Asda’s US parent company Wal-Mart has a great one: Save money. Live better.

How could you say no?

iTagline

Technology companies love taglines. And none more so than Microsoft. When I worked for them, it was Where do you want to go today? New York? The Moon? Round the corner? The White House?

No problem. We can do that.

Now it’s even more visionary: Your potential. Our passion. It says ‘you can do anything, and we’ll be with you every step of the way.’  So Microsoft is your friend, and my friend, and everybody’s friend. It’s warm and fuzzy and creates a direct connection with the reader.

Unlike Sun Microsystems’ tagline, which baldly states The Network is the Computer. That one leaves me cold - mostly because I feel as if I’m being led into a Brave New World.

And in any case, what happens when the network goes down? Does the computer go down too?

Ready, set, go.

Taglines are endlessly fascinating. And endlessly distracting. So here’s my quick-and-easy five steps to deciding what’s best for you:

• Look at your company. What do you do? How do you come across to clients? If your company had a personality, what would it be?
• Look at your audience. What do they want to hear? Will they appreciate or understand cleverness in a tagline? Do they want you to ‘tell it as it is’? Will they even read it?
• Work out your mission. What problem do you solve? What message do you want to send out? Remember, this is a mission, NOT a mission statement (nobody, but nobody, reads those).
• Don’t get into analysis paralysis. Every tagline has pros and cons. There is no right choice. And what’s right today may not be right in six months’ time. Put 10 options down on paper, then whittle them down to five, then three. Then one. Choose it and don’t look back.
• Remember, it’s just a tagline. It’s not as important as your clients, your service, your stock availability, your timekeeping, your delivery, your customer care, your responsiveness, your dedication.

At the end of the day, it really is just a tagline. And that’s just one small piece of a very big puzzle. So slot it in and admire your handiwork.

Then move on. (Yes, you can.)

[Note: the taglines in this post are all either (R) or (TM) of the relevant companies.]

For country, read company

Let’s pick a country at random.

How about Brazil? (Top row, second from the left.)

What images come to mind? Sugarloaf Mountain? The long sandy beach of Copacabana? Ronnie Biggs?

It it stable? Safe? Corrupt? Would you consider living there? Retiring there?

And where did you get that impression from?

If it’s blues day, it must be Belgium

I’ve just been reading an interesting report from Interbrand on country branding.

Yes, it really does exist - and countries spend huge amounts of money trying to control and manage their brand.

The Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index rates 50 countries based on various criteria (exports, governance, culture & heritage, people, tourism, investment & immigration).

And the winner is…

Germany (yes, I was surprised too).

The questions they asked included:

“If money were no object, would you like to visit this country on vacation?”

And a little more chillingly:

“If you were going to be falsely arrested for a crime you didn’t commit, in which country would you prefer this to happen?”

Hmm. I’ll have to think about that one.

We know what you’re thinking

Countries go to enormous effort to change the way we perceive them. And a big part of that effort is coming up with a tagline.

Some are obvious (Andorra - the Pyrenean country). Others are a little optimistic (Iran - the land of flowers and birds). Others are baffling (Philippines - more than the usual).

Some use humour. Remember Australia’s Where the bloody hell are you? campaign from a few years back?

And just occasionally, they say something they don’t really mean (Visit Berlin once).

But all are trying to achieve the same aim: managing their country’s brand by creating an image that attracts you.

To brand or not to brand

Interviewed by Sandi Toksvig a couple of years ago on BBC Radio 4’s Excess Baggage programme, Simon Anholt (of the Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index) made a fascinating point - because it applies to companies as well as countries.

He said that the alternative to branding your country is not not branding your country.

It’s letting someone else do it for you.

He also says that at some level, “every country has the reputation it deserves.” Again, something that could be said of every company.

Which is why it’s worth controlling your brand. And sometimes, that means taking the long view. Very long indeed.

Anholt said he was talking to a member of the Swedish royal family once, who asked how long it would take to change the image of the country -  if they felt it was necessary.

“About 20 or 30 years,” Anholt replied.

“Oh, that quick?” she said nonchalantly.

Find out more:

• Rating nation brands: what really counts? on Interbrand.com.
• Excess Baggage on BBC Radio 4: Sandi Toksvig talks to Simon Anholt (starts at 10′12″).

It’s not what’s in the box - it’s what’s on the box

The Government in the UK is giving serious consideration to plans forcing tobacco companies to sell unbranded cigarettes.

So instead of getting 20 Benson & Hedges in a nice gold box with the distinctive black and red text, smokers will just get a white box that looks like every other white box. Silk Cut, Marlboro, Camel - you name it. One white box after another.

The tobacco industry knows that this could slash their sales and seriously eat into their profits.

Why?

Simple. The power of brand.

Why spend nearly £6 (that’s an eye-watering $11) on some of the best-known brands, when you could have some cut-price ciggies at £3.50 to £4?

After all, it’s just one white box or the other, isn’t it?

The same - but different

Walk down any supermarket aisle and you’ll see own-brand products nestling beside big brand names.

Have the supermarkets suddenly started up their own production lines? Of course not. Most own-brand products are made by the same people who make the branded products. They probably both come off the very same production line.

The only difference is the packaging. Oh yes, and the price.

Branded products always carry a premium. And that premium depends on the power of the brand - which in turn depends on how much money has been pumped into developing that brand.

Kellogg’s decided in 2000 to invest in brand-building and positioning itself as a premium brand.

In 2007, it spent $1bn on marketing for the first time. And this year, it was able to pass on increased ingredient costs to consumers, when other companies couldn’t. Its Q2 2008 sales increased by 11% and profits by 9%, leading it to revise its full-year forecast upwards.

So we have rising costs and an economic downturn. But increased sales.

That’s the power of brand.

In fact Stern Business School at New York University has calculated that 67.7% of the value of Kellogg’s the brand-name value.

And the winner is…

Interbrand and Business Week recently released their Best Global Brands 2008 report.

Coke is on top for the eighth year in a row. The ubiquitous Google has soared from 20th to 10th place. Interestingly, IBM has jumped ahead of Microsoft.

Even more interesting is the reaction of companies to the looming recession.

Some are cutting their marketing budget (Coke, Visa and US car manufacturers) some are keeping steady at a fixed percentage of revenue (Amex and Diageo) and others are actually increasing their marketing spend (Louis Vuitton, Accenture, Kleenex).

My vote goes for the last group. You spend more, the competition spends less. The recession ends. You win.

Game over.

Find out more: 

• The Interbrand/Business Week Best Global Brands 2008 report: click here.

…or why, in the end, it doesn’t really matter. Just choose it, use it and make it work.

Often, I write for people who are just starting up a business. They need the works: web copy, sales letters, press releases, brochures. But before any of that, they have to make one crucial decision.What should they call the business?

Next to naming a business, naming a baby looks like … well, child’s play, frankly. Nobody really wonders what the market will think of Mark, John or Peter, Kelly, Sarah or Jessica. (The same may not quite be true of Brooklyn, Apple or Peaches.) A baby’s name is just a name. It doesn’t have to convey a USP or a marketing message.

But a business? Well, that’s a whole different business.

People agonise. They make up their mind. They change their mind. They change it back.

I know. I’ve been there. But in the end, you simply have to choose a name and go with it.

Really? Yes, really. After all, let’s look at some of the names we all know and love (or hate). Let’s pretend we’ve never heard them before. And now, let’s see what we make of them.

Some names instantly suggest what they do - easyJet, for example. But what about Ryanair? It’s named after the Ryan family, who founded the airline. If I were starting an airline, I’d think long and hard before calling it Walshair. But that’s just what they did, and today, it’s synonymous with low-cost air travel.

Let’s look at Amazon. Yes, it’s A to Z (look at the arrow on their logo, which doubles up as a smile). But why a South American rainforest? Does that suggest books? Surely it strays dangerously close to an alarming truth about books - that you need to cut down forests in order to make them?

How about Virgin? Say the word and you think of megastores, planes, record labels and Richard Branson. Not a virgo intacta or the mother of God. It’s hard now, with the name embedded in our psyche for over 20 years, to imagine how radical it must have been when it first appeared.

Some names indirectly refer to what they do: Surf and Tide wash away those nasty stains. Bold is brave and fearless in the face of dirt. But Daz? Omo?

Often, the more you look, the less sense a name makes. For every obvious one (Innocent Drinks, North Face, Laptops Direct) there’s one that means nothing (Skype, Asda, B&Q).

Some names are too clever - The Body Shop, for example, is a pun that virtually nobody in the UK gets. Why? Because this side of the pond, when your car is damaged you take it to a panel beater, not a body shop.

But in the end, none of it matters. Obvious names fail (Skytrain, On Digital) and not-so-obvious names are runaway successes (Starbucks, iPod).

The moral of the story is simple: it’s not the name - it’s what you do with it.