Hartford Business Journal

20 Hartford Business Journal • July 8, 2019 • www.HartfordBusiness.com EXPERTS CORNER Tag lines have lost their place in the advertising world By Bill Field I t comes as no surprise that the state of Connecticut has jettisoned "Still Revolutionary" to the tag line graveyard. It served no purpose other than an- choring the state's tourism efforts into the communications world abyss. It fol- lowed a series of unforgettable tourism tag lines over the past two decades. Does anyone remember "Connecticut. We're Full of Surprises?" I didn't think so. "Still Revolutionary" felt complicated and contrived — trying to serve too many masters from tourism to economic devel- opment. It didn't have the same consumer connec- tion as "I Love NY." Much like jin- gles that ruled the commercial airwaves throughout the 1960s and 1970s, tag lines have lost their place in the fast-paced, here today and gone tomorrow, world of advertising. They've been reduced to placehold- ers that are in tandem with logos, literally and figuratively. There is growing evidence that tag lines are a thing of the past. The best tag lines endure the test of time. It's no coincidence that the most memorable ones were created in the 1980s. Nike's "Just Do It," Apple's "Think Different," or the venerable line from BMW, "The Ultimate Driving Machine." They expressed a brand positioning and personality in a way that paid off the creative embodiment in a few words. It was an overt signal to consumers about the brand's performance; cre- ative rendering in the finest sense. Those tag lines worked because the brands didn't change them on a whim. They were the bedrock against which new campaigns were developed. Absent the online world, TV, radio and print ruled the day in the decade of excess. Frequency was paramount. Brands need both a reason to believe and a reason to belong. Tag lines were the ultimate conduit to making this happen. The implicit promise articulated in the best tag lines connected with the audience, both in their hearts and minds. Somewhere along the way, tag lines lost their reason for being. They became categorized in several different itera- tions and were relegated to being victims of their own success. It morphed into slogans or descriptors, many times being reduced to a mere campaign theme. The common downfall was trying to do too much with a tag line in an ad- vertising and communications arena that is continually evolving — the "all things to all people" mentality. Audiences today don't have enough time to immerse and engage with tag lines as they once did. Today, it is all about the creative idea — quick and hard hitting. Tag lines need time to grow and evolve. Ask any creative person about tag lines and you'll see their panic-strick- en look with a rebellious overtone — "No, not that." Yet, clients still ask and, at times, demand tag lines. It's viewed as the expected last vestige of the advertising world. There's no discern- able reason behind the request — a creative box checker, so to speak. Tag lines are incredibly hard to create. They involve summing up a point of difference or brand positioning in a few concise and evocative words. When done correctly, they are powerful enough to drive transactional behavior. They provide a link between a consumer and a brand that has the potential to last a lifetime. What makes a great tag line or slogan essentially comes down to four components. The first is memorability. Is it recognizable in the two-to-three seconds consumers spend with it? Secondly, it denotes a benefit. Think Mastercard's "Priceless" — one of the few compelling tag lines from the past decade. Differentiating the brand is a third important element. Hallmark lived for years with the "Care to Send the Very Best" tag line before getting ravaged by shifting consumer behav- ior and the digital world. The final component is differentia- tion. No one did it better than Miller Lite — "Tastes Great. Less Filling." It is incredibly difficult to convey a complicated emotional concept in a few words. That is why tag lines are hard to create and are often fleeting. The great ones far outweigh the sea of tag line mediocrity that exists. For many marketers today, tag lines are either from a bygone era, or are ready to be banished. Bill Field is the founder of FieldActivate, a Connecticut-based marketing firm. BIZ BOOKS Quality managers, team leaders key to organizations' long-term success By Jim Pawlak "It's The Manager — Gallup finds that the quality of managers and team leaders is the single biggest factor in your or- ganization's long- term success" by Jim Clifton and Jim Harter" (Gal- lup Press, $34). Clifton, Gallup's chairman and CEO, and Harter, its chief scientist, had their team couple historical workplace information with roundtable discus- sions with chief human resources officers (CHROs) and economists to better understand how to maximize the potential of today's tech-connect- ed, multi-generational workplace. Whether you're a small organization or a multi-national, the research shows that the real job of managers involves escalating employee engagement. Here are the "what-employees- want" highlights: 1. Purpose trumps paycheck. While pay must be equi- table, employees engage through connecting their values with the organization's mission. When con- nected, they self-motivate. 2. Focus on development; forget the frills. Job satisfaction doesn't increase because of free food and foosball. It increases when the orga- nization focuses on constantly build- ing the skills of its employees and offering opportunities to use them. 3. Coaches not bosses. Showing employees how to use their skills to maximize their productivity and contribution increases their self-confidence. Giving them the latitude to be creative without dunning them for missteps encourages them to practice continuous improvement, which has ongoing organizational benefits. 4. Constant feedback. Don't wait for the annual review. Communicate the way employees communicate; "instant" messaging lets them keep on top of things. It also provides management with the opportunity to better assess priorities, ensure that resources are provided and nip problems in the bud. 5. Don't fixate on weaknesses. Instead of telling employees what they're not doing well, conversations should center on how to build and leverage their strengths — which helps them recognize what they must do to improve overall. When engaged employees see the need to fill a skill gap, they'll do it. 6. Acknowledge contribution. People spend more waking hours at work than they do at home; they need to know it's time well spent. Knowing their work adds value energizes them. Satisfying "wants" begins before establishing expectations. Managers should take care to match the employ- ee's skills to the future tasks required; this gives the employee a baseline con- fidence level. Managers must consider s-t-r-e-t-c-h to ensure that employees have opportunities to learn and grow. An employee will always self-evaluate assignments after-the-fact to identify what she/he learned. When employees stop learning, they start leaving. Expectations require input from the employ- ee. Input shows the employee that her/his ideas about the "what" and the "how" count. From-the- trenches input also may make the manager aware of current situa- tions that may affect the "when." Since the expectations involve the teamwork required to achieve goals, the manager needs to "help employees understand how their work aligns with the success of their coworkers, their business area and the entire organiza- tion." This provides "umbrella" mean- ing to their job as they realize that while they may think they're a small gear, they're actually an integral part of system of gears. Expectations also include a list of resources an employee needs to do the work. The authors stress that ready access to in- formation and people that will affect the tasks involved are important resources. Then, there's the feedback loop. Con- versational informal reporting provides personal interaction that written re- ports don't. On the manager's end, per- sonalized conversations should include: 1. Recognition of progress, 2. "What else do you need in the way of resources?", and 3. "Based on what's been done, what ideas do you have about adjustments needed in the next steps?" The employ- ee's answers to the questions reinforces "my opinion counts." They also open the door to discussing what may or may not work. Opinion & Commentary Bill Field Jim Pawlak Book Review … while [employees] may think they're a small gear, they're actually an integral part of system of gears.

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