The Last Three Seconds: How to Turn Taglines into Powerful Equity Building Tools

I've given a lot of thought to taglines (also known as slogans, straplines, end lines, payoffs, claims, tags, and signatures). I re-baptized the term "tagline" to "positional translation" years ago, because the tagline phrase (as if it were just being tagged on) diminishes the profound value a great tag can have. I'm not nuts about "positional translation" either, but at least it comes closer to describing what a tagline can and should be, but usually isn't.

The majority of taglines reiterate preceding content rather than translate it. The problem with reiterations is that they represent significant lost opportunity, both short and long term. Their use also implies either a lack of knowledge, or even laziness, on the part of those responsible for putting the advertising together. Positional translation, on the other hand, requires creating a re-perception, and has characteristics that do not exist with reiteration.

The Positional Translation Concept

Following are the eight essential characteristics of a powerful positional translation:

• It is a catalyst. It pulls the commercial together.
• It is an essence. It has the appearance of not being able to be restated in any other way.
• It is pre-emptive. It has the quality that, as long as it is spent against at appropriate levels, nobody can take it away. This means that nobody can take the position away, either. The brand owns it. In fact, the brand becomes it.
• It is a kind of paradox. It provides a different perspective, in a memorable manner, which at the same time is completely faithful to what has come before.
• It is a restatement in new semantic form, a re-creation.
• It is semantically easy to grasp in the extreme. The language element is of great importance, particularly regarding the value of alliteration.
• It redelivers the brand's primary benefit.
• It has equity-building characteristics.

*The graphic treatment designed into the super of this tag is a particularly enlightening example of how graphic relevance can add dimension to exactly what the positional translation states in written form.

Optimizing Positional Translations

Analysis suggests that there are six elements common to good positional translations:

1. Correlate Audio and Video Aspects The fusion of audio and video has a synergistic impact far exceeding that of either factor alone. A Dutch research project executed among Dutch TV viewers found that when the English text was not just spoken but was also shown on screen, 50% of the subjects interpreted it correctly. But when it was not shown, only 22% gave a correct indication of its meaning.
2. Support the Translation with Voiceover I became interested in taglines when (prior to acquisition by Ipsos), ASI was asked by the federal government to evaluate the impact of warning label tags in drug advertising. They took an antacid commercial and tested it with us three times: once with no tag; once with a three-second tag with text but no voiceover; and once again with the same text, but also with voiceover. The results were fascinating. There was very little difference between the commercials with and without the tag when voiceover was absent from the tag. When voiceover joined the equation, the impact was dramatic, affecting evaluative data and significantly reshuffling perceptions:
   The obvious analytic observation has to do with the intense value of voiceover as a reinforcing device to visual content. The less obvious but arguably more significant implication has to do with the enormous power potential inherent in those last three seconds of television advertising.
3. Keep the Environment Clean and Uncluttered Half the commercials made--or more--load those last seconds in a way that diffuses rather than unifies focus. Example: a current campaign for a well-known drug product lays both package and tag line over a large house, a dog, a person climbing a tree, a stepladder, movement, dark shade and bright sun, and more.
4. Link the Brand Name and the Translation Aleve employs an enlarged package close-up as a final visual, with the brand name in large letters on the package. The tag line is laid out directly above the brand name, inescapably linking the two.
5. Make Certain the Translation is Fully Legible Many taglines leave a feeling of having been treated as afterthoughts, as if with resentment. They show up in barely legible font sizes, strange angles, buried in clutter, and other reflections of prejudice.
6. Add Dimensionality via Relevant Mnemonic Treatment The right mnemonic in the right strategic situation is a gold mine. Relevancy is one key to that dynamic. The Aflac duck, a visual as well as auditory mnemonic, has enormous power because of its particularly high relevance to the creative objective, which was to raise awareness of the brand. Aflac had a 20% national awareness level in the U.S. at the time the campaign broke; within a year, it was up to 95%. The fact that sales also increased more than 20% per year for the next three years did not escape attention. That a duck quacking sounds just like the Aflac name when spoken--i.e., is relevant--is the cornerstone of its public acceptance. An otherwise ridiculous concept for an insurance commercial, the duck became an icon and impossible to wipe from the mind. The use of mnemonics--both auditory and visual--and the relevant use of graphics offer great tag line leveraging opportunities.

A good positional translation is an equity-building accomplishment with long-term implications, while somewhat paradoxically creating an instantaneous recognition process for the viewer. Bounty's "quicker picker upper" evokes the brand and its two primary benefits in three words. Not bad for efficiency!

Good positional translations are difficult to achieve, but once one is created, it is good for ten or twenty years, so the up-front investment is more than worth the effort. Personally, were I making airing decisions, no campaign would get on the air without having met the "great tag-line challenge."