I love a good corporate tag line. You know, the little phrase following a company’s brand name, like Panasonic’s Just Slightly Ahead of Our Time.

The tag line is supposed to be the embodiment of a company’s corporate vision. It should reflect the company’s brand positioning and, if possible, capture the company’s unique selling proposition (assuming it has one). It should drive the marketing spend, look and content.

The best tag line my former company ever used was during the period when it was part of the Masco group, a collection of upscale home renovation and home furnishing companies that over time have included the likes of Merillat kitchen cabinets, Delta faucets, Weiser locks, Behr paints, as well as Thermador appliances and Hendredon and Drexel Heritage furniture. The tag, encapsulating the premium nature of the group’s various businesses: Where quality finds a home. The play on home worked in principle and in fact.

Tagging in Tough Times

It is interesting to see how companies shift their focus as the winds blow hot and cold. Keeping to the home sector, one of the engines that drive the economic well-being of the nation, The Home Depot strived to be your go-to partner in renovation with their tag: You can do it. We can help. Their commercials appealed to cocooners everywhere and tugged mightily at the heartstrings. But budgets are tighter now and the Big Orange has shifted to More saving. More Doing. This matches up neatly with Walmart’s Save Money. Live Better, a tactical shift that aims at crossing demographic boundaries. Ironically, Lowes Home Improvement Warehouse, Home Depot’s natural born enemy, has gone the old Depot way with its tag: Let’s Build Something Together. Most interesting.

Another company that shifted its emphasis, trying to deke out the recession was Scotiabank, one of Canada’s big five chartered banks. For a number of years, its tag was You’re Richer Than You Think. Scotiabank wanted you to know that it was the one to handle all your ill-gotten gains. But times got tougher in the millennium’s first decade and people just didn’t feel all that rich. So Scotiabank switched on a dime (9.5 cents for American readers) and came up with a new message to potential customers: Get a second opinion. Scotiabank invited Canadians to take advantage of a no-obligation second opinion on their portfolios. The focus was on service and solutions, things it assumed consumers were looking to bank on in tough times. But things are getting better north of the 49th parallel and so Scotiabank has happily brought back the Richer than You Think tag.

Scotiabank hasn’t cornered the market on service, however. Another Canadian chartered banker, TD Bank, stays open from “8 till late”, 50% longer than the competition. TD’s tag is Banking can be this comfortable and the primary visual is an iconic, massive (and, in my wife’s opinion, perfectly ugly) green leather chair.

Zoom Zoom

Ever since the birth of segmentation by GM’s legendary Alfred P. Sloan, car companies have tried hard to match tagline to brand aspiration. Some of these tags have become almost iconic; others, however, are as forgettable as the cars themselves. Following are our best and worst automotive taglines.

Starting with The 5 Best:

#5. Volvo. For Life. This one, though relatively innocuous, resonates because it plays off Volvo’s well-known and well-deserved reputation for safety.

#4. BMW’s The Ultimate Driving Machine may be a bit pretentious but it certainly captures the company’s image of and aspiration for itself. The good news for BMW is that both are shared by its target audience.

#3. Lexus: The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection. Lexus has clung to its M.O. and its tag since day one. Perfect. (Side note: I had a terrific assistant who was a bulldog when she had to follow up on something. I told her to add a tagline after she signed one of her menacing memos: The Perfection of Relentless Pursuit.)

#2. Chevy Trucks: Like a Rock. What can I say? I love the song. And it’s certainly better than Ford Tough and Dodge’s Grabbing Life by the (Ram’s) Horns.

#1. Okay, so the header gave it away. Number one is Mazda’s Zoom Zoom. Fun. Fast. Forever young.

And now for The 5 Worst:

#5. If Volvo is fifth best, its Swedish compatriot, Saab, is fifth worst.  Saab never could get it right, however. Born from Jets was bad. Its new Move your mind is truly, mind-bendingly, bad. It would rank higher on the hate scale if anybody actually cared.

#4. On the other hand, there is the curious case of Mercedes Benz. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Mercedes recently dropped its Unlike Any Other for The best or nothing. It’s part of Mercedes’ new strategy to highlight the fact that the company is introducing 16 new models by 2011. Really? I mean, do you get that? Considering the heritage of Engineered Like No Other Car in the World, how did Mercedes Benz come up such a cropper?

#3. Late and unlamented. In another case of what were they thinking? how about Pontiac’s fighting it out with Ford over the rights to Car. Ford’s recent ads let you know that the company “speaks car”. But Pontiac is Car. Don’t get it? Here’s the company’s own explanation: “Car. One simple word. Packed with so much meaning. To some, it stands for freedom. To others it’s hood scoops and horsepower. For others still, it means fun and escape. We all have our own personal definitions. They all mean something special. So let’s bring car back. And all the good it stands for. From the company that always was, and will be, Car.” There you go. From the company that always was, but no longer will be. Car.

#2. Mercury: New doors opened. Case closed.

#1. Toyota tops (bottoms?) the list. You have to question the thinking behind Toyota’s Make Things Better. Seriously, is that a call to action for their own organization or their potential customers? It gets really weird when you remember Toyota’s previous tagline: Moving forward. Considering the sticking accelerator pedal recall crisis to follow, the marketing folks were clearly prescient. All around, this has not been a good year.

Haunted

Of course, when the tagline follows the name but not the thinking way up in the corner office, the words ring more than just hollow. They come back to haunt you.

Consider BP Global’s Beyond Petroleum.  That BP pays lip service to alternate technologies has been well documented. So for anyone paying the slightest attention, Beyond Petroleum is, like everything else BP says, beyond belief.

Enron’s slogan was Ask Why? The “thinking” behind the tag was that Enron was an innovative company because it questioned conventional wisdom. Now, when we look back and consider the actions of “the smartest men in the room”, you know the answer.

Microsoft abandoned its Life Without Walls, which may or may not have been its way of asking the Antitrust folks to leave them alone. Of course, the irony of Life Without Walls is not lost on Windows users who depend on firewalls to protect them against unwanted viruses. Well, at least its new Be What’s Next tag can’t get them into trouble.

Then again, with taglines you never know.

This was the headline in a Financial Post editorial written by Hollie Shaw:

Love It or Hate It, Nike’s Ad Got Noticed

The sub-head: Widespread reaction means ad worked, executives say

Really?

I have a lot of respect for Hollie Shaw and I am sure her reporting is accurate. I also swore to myself way back when that I would not weigh in on the whole Tiger thing on the basis that enough ink had already been poured into the sea of Tiger Woods reporting to keep the Titanic afloat. But the premise that noise for noise’s sake is a good thing bears discussion.

You all know about the commercial. Trading in on the dead father’s memory and the respect in which that memory is held. A cut and splice job assembled to set the stage for the son’s redemption. A swirl of publicity ensued in the wake of the ad’s appearance. Some decried it for being in bad taste. Others, including a goodly number in the advertising industry said that bad taste or not, the commercial wouldn’t hurt Nike a bit. Indeed, they surmised, all that publicity would be a boon for a company that seen its golf sales decline 11% in 2009.

“If I were the marketing guy at Nike the day after that ad ran, I’d be a pretty happy guy”, said the chief creative officer at one large at agency.

Why?

In the bad old days, that mantra was a variation of the line usually attributed to master showman, P.T. Barnum: “I don’t care what they write about me, as long as they spell my name right.” Which is reminiscent of the classic from Mae West: “Call me anything, but call me often.” (Note: you may also find the first quote ascribed to Mae West and, another old time entertainer, George M. Cohan.) Any publicity, it was said, was good publicity.

Well, we know better now. And, somehow, I don’t see where the Nike ad is good publicity. Here’s my thinking.

1. Reflected Glory?

Nike’s promotions are celebrity-based, with Tiger Woods the centerpiece of its celebrity platform. If the ad reflects badly on Tiger Woods – and even the ad execs admit it doesn’t help polish Woods’ already tarnished image – how could it be a plus for the advertiser who clearly produced the ad to play off that image? Sorry, but ugly is as ugly does.

2. Bottom Line Contribution?

The link between Woods and Nike is well-established…and well understood by the golfing community at large. If this ad had not been aired, would Nike’s notoriety be one wit less impressive? I doubt it.

For example, none of Nike’s 2009 sales decline is attributed to the Tiger factor (if there is such a thing).

According to a survey conducted by TNS, a world leader in market research, global market information and business analysis, the scandal may have hurt Woods’ personal reputation, but not those of the brands he endorses. Respondents to a TNS survey said they had a more favourable opinion of Tiger’s brands including Nike, EA, Gillette and Gatorade (which did drop Woods but only at a point too close to the survey to have an impact).

I cannot see where this ad did Nike any good in the market or that missing out on the publicity garnered by its airing would have done it any harm.

3. The Fatigue Factor

Polls confirm that most people are tired of hearing about the Woods scandal. It was interesting…even titillating. For a while. But most now feel it’s time to move on and time to let Woods move on with his life, sympathy for Elin Nordegren notwithstanding. The ad, therefore, did nothing but keep the embers lit. It contributed to the fatigue.

Plus, frankly, the ad wasn’t that interesting. Or the production quality that good. In fact, objectively, the ad was pretty boring and, were it not for the context in which it was placed so callously, it would have been eminently forgettable.

In short, if I were the marketing guy at Nike the day after that ad ran, I wouldn’t be that happy with myself.

Any good presentation will be a combination of interesting information and arresting graphics. Graphics aid in concentration, comprehension and retention. The better they are, the more likely the message being communicated will be understood and remembered.

In the many presentations I have made over the years, I seldom counted on delivery alone to ensure that the information I offered up would have the desired impact. I was just not that good. So, I liked to use props, and the best and most readily available props are invariably the graphics by which the information is being conveyed.

There are basic rules for infographics, be they in a PowerPoint presentation, in a printed document or on screen.

1. Each graphic should make one point. Which means that if there is no point, don’t have a graphic. (Actually, if there is no point, don’t do a presentation at all.) The corollary is that if you want to make several points, then use several graphics. Layering can work, if your points are sequential and if the layering is handled delicately and judiciously. It’s a dangerous practice, however, that should be attempted only by the most adept.

2. The graphic itself should be obvious. Obvious doesn’t mean plain. It doesn’t mean boring. It does mean clearly understandable. Whether you are showing market share, population densities, product life cycle stages, elevations or critical paths, the viewers’ or readers’ eyes should know instantly where to focus.

3. If you have devices like legends, eyes are forced to hop from place to place just to have a reference point. Legends are not helpful. They cause clutter. They cause confusion. They should be avoided. Graphics where the legend is built into the concept are most effective.

If you are looking for a really great website on infographics, check out infographicsblog.com. It showcases some of the finest – and, sometimes, the less than finest – infographic work being done, saluting innovation and creativity as well as the ability to educate and impress. For each example, the author explains what works well, what doesn’t, and what essential element is missing that might, if present, have put the illustration over the top.

One of my favourite, if slightly flawed, graphics from this blog shows the evolution of Crayola crayon colours over time (100+ years). The kid in you has got to love it, though the ability to have the colour name pop up as your mouse rolls over each colour strip would have been a wonderful touch.

A particularly troublesome illustration tries to present the 10 best places to buy a house in America. Focusing on small cities, it looks at such factors as median family income, average property tax, the number of universities and museums within 30 miles, the number of librairies and movie theatres within 15 miles, the number of sunny days per year, as well as unemployment levels. It uses a variety of charting tools, several overlapping X and Y axes, and a map where the cities are identified by numbers for which you must refer to a legend. I would challenge anyone to actually identify, at a glance, which city would top the chart. Actually, I would bet that, given 10 minutes to study the graphic closely, most people would still be hard pressed to choose. It is one of those well-intentioned if ill-conceived graphics laden with data but light on useful information.

Spend some time at the site. It is as much fun as it is enlightening.