Asbury & Asbury

LOCOG unveils new (brief for a) slogan

Some thoughts on the London Olympic slogan, which has been ‘unveiled’ by LOCOG today. (Not sure how you unveil a slogan). The chosen slogan is ‘Inspire A Generation’, which most commentators agree is pretty uninspiring.

As I said on Twitter, it reads more like the brief than the answer.

Slogans are tricky things to generate – many of the best ones arose by accident, conceived as part of an ad campaign, often without a long-term future in mind, but growing naturally to take on the status of a brand line. As soon as you begin a formal process to generate a slogan, you’re facing an uphill struggle.

This is partly because even the best slogans can never tick every box in the brief. They’re not rational animals. If Nike had drawn up a detailed brief for a new slogan, ‘Just do it’ would probably have been rejected. The brief would have asked for something warmer, more engaging, less confrontational. As it was, ‘Just do it’ was a last-minute line conceived for a single campaign, which then grew in status after it received a positive response. It’s hard to re-create a process like that.

That said, LOCOG could have done a better job. ‘Inspire A Generation’ is a reasonable sentiment and ties in with the overall bid theme, which is a focus on young people and the legacy that the games will leave. But the best way to inspire a generation is to have a more inspiring brand message.

At this point, it would be nice if I could supply a brilliant answer myself. Given the brief, my first reaction would have been to question whether they needed a slogan at all. Is it really worth trying to hang everything on one phrase that will probably get slated by the media in any case? I’d also have warned them not to expect a single slogan to answer all their expectations. I’d have supported the idea of an open competition, but also encouraged them to get a panel of copywriters to cast an expert eye over them and suggest other answers. And I’d have sent them the recent Creative Review slogans issue, which shows how haphazardly a great slogan comes into being.

But some first ideas? I wondered about something trendy like #GBPB – the idea being that everyone in Great Britain this year should be aiming to achieve their PB in whatever they do. (PB = personal best – we’ll hear the abbreviation a lot this summer.). It’s a message that appeals to everyone and is cast in the language ‘the kids’ speak. Maybe #worldpb is less jingoistic. Either way, the media would probably hate it.

A more grown-up version of the same sentiment might be ‘Excel yourself’, in the sense of urging people not simply to spectate, but to get involved in the Olympic spirit – do whatever you do better than you’ve done it before. It’s a hard one to say ‘meh’ too on Twitter without sounding like a lazy oaf.

I’d like to think I’d arrive at a better answer than either of those, but they’re there to demonstrate the point that, if ‘Inspire A Generation’ is the brief, there are many potential creative expressions of the same thought.

But ‘Inspire A Generation’ will do its job to an extent – it gives the media something to talk about for a few days. It’s a three-word slogan that you can stick on all the merchandise. And it won’t scare the horses – no one could really object to such a safe sentiment.

Doubt it will make the next slogans issue of Creative Review though.

NB: I was going to use the 2012 logo to illustrate this post, but decided to use Daniel Eatock's alternative logo instead.

Top twenty tweaks

I’ve been meaning to blog about #clienttweaks, a hashtag that came out of a Twitter conversation last year, full of imagined amends to classic lines. It was partially documented on this Creative Review post.  

I thought it would be interesting to take the top 20 slogans from the recent edition of Creative Review and imagine how they might have been tweaked in the hands of less imaginative clients. Amends are detailed below.

1. Beanz Meanz Heinz
Nice – just a couple of typos:
Beans Mean Heinz

2. Just Do It
Love the sentiment, but it’s a bit abrupt – can we make it more of an invitation?
Feel Free To Do It

3. Does Exactly What It Says On The Tin
Not all our products are in tins, and we need to emphasise how we add value:
Does Exactly What It Says On The Packaging – And More

4. Make Love Not War
Can we cover ourselves by adding in a message about safe sex? Something like:
Use A Condom, Not A Cannon
(Needs work)

5. Every Little Helps
Sounds small-time – please amend to:
Every Massive Saving Helps

6. Have A Break. Have A Kit Kat.
Let’s not confine ourselves to breaks – we need to occupy the entire snack territory:
Have A Kit Kat Any Time, Anywhere.

7. Vorsprung Durch Technik
Love it – this will be ideal for our German market.
Please let us know the English version.

8. Think Different
Pretty sure this should be an adverb:
Think Differently

9. It is. Are you?
Definitely use this, but need to tweak it as we’re not independently owned any more:
It is, in spirit. Are you?

10. It’s Finger Lickin’ Good
Nice – just missing the ‘g’:
It’s Finger Licking Good

11. Say It With Flowers
Too generic – need to own it:
Say It With Our Flowers

12. Keep Calm And Carry On
Please change to:
Keep Calm Going Forward

13. It’s The Real Thing
Please change to:
It’s The Genuine Article

14. You Either Love It Or Hate It
Love the opening – rest seems a bit negative. Please change to:
You’ll Love It!

15. Because I’m Worth It
Love this. Any suggestions for making it more exploitative would be great.

16. Snap! Crackle! Pop!
Nice three-part structure, but can we get more selling points into it? Something like:
Taste! Nutrients! Value!
… not quite the same ring to it yet, but I’m not the writer.

17. Never Knowingly Undersold
Love the simplicity, but legal have asked if we can tone down the ‘never’:
Infrequently Knowingly Undersold

18. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité
Très bien. Fraternité est un petit peu sexiste, n’est-ce pas? Tant mieux!

19. Refreshes The Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach
Like it, but the url and Twitter handle will be a problem. Can we go with:
Refresh Yo’ Head

20. No One Likes Us, We Don’t Care
Really brave. Can we try flipping it round to emphasise the positive? Something like:
Everyone Likes Us, Because We Care

Otherwise, all good to go.

 

Footnote: You can read more about the original #clienttweaks here, with Mike Reed as one of the early pioneers, alongside Tom Albrighton, who later initiated the entertaining #xmasclienttweaks over the festive period. Many others have contributed to the hashtag, although it was sufficiently long ago for Twitter to have lost the results. Will have to excavate them and put them all in one place at some point.

Sloganz Meanz Commentz

I recently had the strange experience of being quoted at length in the Daily Mail. They'd picked up on the recent top twenty slogans edition of Creative Review, which placed 'Beanz Meanz Heinz' at number one. The most entertaining thing was reading the 69 comments that followed.

It should be said that laughing at Daily Mail commenters isn't so much like shooting fish in a barrel as draining the barrel of water, nailing the fish to the bottom and hiring fifteen trained marksmen to spray them liberally with machine gun fire.

There is also the lingering suspicion that these may be spoof comments, possibly even written by someone at the Daily Mail to keep the traffic up. Nevertheless, they have the ring of truth about them. 

The poll may have had most people pondering what makes a good slogan, and which one might be their personal favourite. That's most people. Daily Mail readers immediately fear for the future of our once great nation:

Mr G of South Yorkshire angrily dismisses Heinz and marches off to Aldi:

This sparks off quite a debate, with the suspiciously named Albert Hall:

Mr or Mrs Wind in the Willows tries to make the peace, reminding us that beans are good whatever the brand:

I'm not sure what this next comment is getting at, but I think they're suggesting a rewrite of the greatest slogan of all time:

Meanwhile, Paevo from across the Atlantic has perfected the Daily Mail tone of voice:

Paul from Lancashire makes what is surely a spoof comment, but then who knows?

A Spurs fan from North London makes a telling point that may lead to a reprint of the Creative Review issue.

But my favourite comment came from Mr M in London. It's not the spelling, it's the contribution itself:

There's a kind of genius in that one. My favourite is that one I can't remember.

The story appeared in the Mirror as well, but no one commented on it.

(Top image taken from The Guardian, following Google image search for 'Daily Mail reader'.)

The best slogan of all time

The new issue of Creative Review features the top twenty slogans of all time, with 'Beanz Meanz Heinz' a welcome winner.

I ended up being closely involved in the issue, joining the panel to decide the top twenty, writing an introductory article for the magazine, and being asked to ponder ideas for the front cover. 

The front cover is normally an entirely visual affair, but there seemed a good opportunity to do something more words-based. The natural answer was to use the slogans in some way and I thought it would be good to compress them all into one big slogan. Given the quality of its constituent parts, it must logically be the best slogan of all time.

This is how it reads:

Keep calm and just do exactly what it says on every little finger lickin’ tin of beanz and pop because you’re never knowingly worth the parts other beers cannot think different with flowers are you the real thing we don’t care have a break make love not vorsprung durch fraternité or hate it and carry on.

Catchy, isn’t it?

It’s been brilliantly brought to life by illustrator Miles Donovan and photographed by Stephen Lenthall, under the watchful eye of Creative Review art director Paul Pensom.

Feels like a rare honour to write a Creative Review front cover, albeit by cutting and pasting words by other people.

Will write more about the results in a separate post. (They've already been picked up in the Daily Mail, which is deeply unsettling.)

Every little probably does exactly what it says on the tin of beanz and Pop!

Creative Review is in the process of working out the 20 best slogans ever created. They've invited some people to send in their personal top fives. This is what I went for: 

1. Every little helps

I put this ahead of the others because it’s not just an advertising endline – it’s also a proper brand positioning. This is the comment I left on the original Creative Review post:

For me, the best strapline ever is also arguably the most evil: Tesco’s ‘Every little helps’.

It’s clever because it’s rooted in folk wisdom – a saying that has been passed down through generations. Exactly the kind of thing your grandma used to say. So it carries the everyday authority of a proverb.

It’s tonally appropriate – conversational and impossible to misunderstand (unlike John Lewis’s mind-bending ‘Never knowingly undersold’).

It’s strategically spot-on, because it taps into the customer’s mindset, and also works as a brilliant internal motivator. It’s about the tiny things that add up to a big difference – the penny cheaper on the baked beans, or the penny off the price you get from a supplier. Multiply tiny differences by something as big as Tesco and you have world domination.

And that’s the evil bit. The line is a classic example of verbal misdirection. ‘Little’ ought to be the last word you associate with Tesco. You should think of them as a multinational giant crushing everything in its path. But instead they plant that word in your head, with all the folksy charm it implies.

I don’t like it, but I admire it very much.

2. Beanz Meanz Heinz

The classic brief – associate our name with the generic product. The prosaic answer would be ‘Think beans. Think Heinz.’ This is the poetic answer – a brilliant piece of wordplay rooted in the brand name.

3. Does exactly what it says on the tin

Created a new idiom that will probably survive in the language long after Ronseal has gone. It’s a kind of anti-strapline – no wordplay, no clever twist, and a message so obvious it shouldn’t need saying – why wouldn’t it do what it says on the tin? But the hyper-clarity is perfect for the bewildering world of DIY.

4. Snap! Crackle! Pop!

The definitive example of a strapline driving an entire brand. Like many great lines, it wasn’t conceived as a strapline – it was part of a radio ad that got picked up and developed into a series of characters that are still used today. Interestingly, the product makes a different sound in other countries: Pif! Paf! Puf! (Denmark), Cric! Crac! Croc! (France), Knisper! Knasper! Knusper! (Germany), Pim! Pum! Pam! (Mexico).

5. Probably the best lager in the world

A classic example of a brand taking ownership of a word. Look up ‘Probably’ in a dictionary and you half-expect a TM to appear next to it. It’s even better because Orson Welles voiced the original TV ads – the greatest voice reading one of the greatest lines. They don’t make them like that any more. (They make ‘That calls for a Carlsberg.’)

Also-rans:
Other contenders included ‘Yes we can’ (reinventing the political slogan), ‘Made in Scotland from girders’ (the surreal approach), Wasssup (dated now, but fresh in its time), and for sheer longevity: ‘Say it with flowers’ (Interflora). But I could probably have picked several more.

You can see all the other top fives here.

 

UPDATE: I've just remembered another personal favourite slogan, for Boost. "It's slightly rippled with a flat underside." Voiced by Vic Reeves. A nice deconstruction of the strapline.