What’s in the business slogan?

Experts say that a good business slogan evokes emotions and ideas and associates it with the brand, even without naming the product. For instance look at the brand Nike. The company doesn't have to write the name of the brand in its advertising. The brand slogan "Just do it" used with the logo in itself tells everyone whose brand it is.

But at the same time, the brand should be able to deliver the slogan. Brands that are not honest with the slogan will lose its customers who will notice it immediately. Inc.com suggests five tips for writing an effective slogan. First give the slogan a rhythm, rhyme, and ring. For example County's slogan "The quilted quicker picker upper" has the rhythm, rhyme and ring to it. The second tip is highlighting a key benefit of the product or service. The slogan should help differentiate your product from competitors and that's what we need to focus on. For example Miller Lite's brand slogan "Great taste, less filling" highlights the key factor of the product. The third tip is to explain the company's commitment. Here we need to say what differentiates the company from competitors. For example Avis brand slogan "We're number two, so we try harder" makes use of this tip. The fourth and the most important tip is to stay honest. The slogan should accurately reflect the business. For example Visa's slogan "It's everywhere you want to be" very honestly conveys its business. And the last tip for effective slogan is to keep it short. Experts say that a slogan should not go beyond one sentence and would be best if it is between six to eight words long. For example Apple's brand slogan "Think different" may be a simple two word slogan but it can create a strong impact (Smith, D.).  

  However critics say that a brand slogan is really not required to market a product or service. For example brands like Starbucks, Whole Foods, Lululemon, Nordstrom do not have a brand slogan (Lee Yohn, D. 2013).

Critics say that 100 of the most influential brand slogans were written before 1948 and two-thirds ran before 1980. Even half of Forbes' best loved brand slogans ran before 1975. This clearly shows that brand slogans were a thing of the past when advertisers were needed to summarize their product in a tagline. Also brand slogans help differentiate a product or service from the competitors’ products and services. But in today's world most brands are distinguished less by their products and features and more by their values and personality. So if this is the case do we really need to wreck our brains finding the right brand slogan for our product or service?

Reference list

Lee Yohn, D. (2013). The Death of the Tagline Flexible branding is the new name of the game. Adweek. Retrieved from website link

Smith, D. 5 Tips for Writing an Effective Slogan. Inc.com. Retrieved from website link

Brand promise can make you or break you

A corporation's brand promise is the commitment to deliver made between the brand and its audience. A brand promise motivates the audience to buy. So ultimately what is important is to live by the brand promise. If the brand doesn't deliver the promise, it will die. In a Gallup survey involving four-million customers, it was found that one in five unhappy customers feel that the brands they patronized were not keeping up with promises (Timmerman, J. 2013).

The brand message, the customer expectation, and execution have to be aligned with one another. The minute there is disengagement, people will begin to be disinterested in the brand. It's like making a promise to your friend and then not keeping it. But a friend might give you a second chance, a customer will never give a second chance.

I believe that as a brand it is important to be able to touch the heart of customers and prospective customers. Doing that will help us emotionally connect to our audience. For instance, I am not brand conscious at all. But when it comes to my shoes, it has to be "Adidas." Over and above, if anyone asks me to recommend some good pair of shoes, I recommend Adidas. So without actually paying me, I have become a brand ambassador. If a customer is emotionally engaged with a brand, they become fully engaged brand ambassadors. Gallup finds that an effective brand promise is compelling, connecting and credible.

A lot of thinking goes into setting up a brand promise. And more efforts go into keeping the brand promise. A brand promise must be able to convey a compelling benefit, it must be authentic and credible, and it must be kept every time (Hinge Marketing). A few examples of brands that have kept their promise are FedEx's "Your package will get there overnight. Guaranteed," Apple's "You can own the coolest, easiest-to-use cutting-edge computers and electronics," McKinsey & Company's "You can hire the best minds in management consulting," and The Nature Conservancy's "Empowering you to save the wilderness."

Before developing a brand promise, the company should ask itself a few questions, What is the value of the company and its brand?; How is the brand different from competition?; What are the attributes of the company’s brand?; Then, what is the company’s brand promise? Companies that manage to answer these questions honestly, create a livable brand promise.

Reference list

Elements of a Successful Brand 4: Brand Promise. Hinge Marketing. Retrieved March 7, 2014 from website

Timmerman, J. (2013). Your Brand Is Your Company's Engine. Gallup Business Journal. Retrieved March 7, 2014 from website

Why media relations is important in public relations

A non-profit or profit organization may have the best strategies, goals, ideas in place, but if these ambitions and goals are not conveyed to the public, it serves half-the purpose. Hence as PR professionals, it is very important to build a rapport with media to communicate the organization's goals and ambitions (Epperly, J). As the name suggests, public relations is about building relationship with the public, but it is equally important to build relationships with the media to be able to reach out to the public.

Dennis Rutzou from PR Blog says that just building media contacts and relation is not enough. It is more important to churn out newsworthy and convincing stories that your media contacts will be ready to publish (Rutzou, D. 2011). According to Rutzou, media is always on the lookout of news content that is competitive with their competition and there is no way that they will publish your story because they have a good relation with you.

Media relations have many benefits. It can help with raising funds for research, help get offers of consultancy and helps promote brand name (E.S.R.C.). Media attention can also raise the public profile of the organizations discipline and in turn increase public discussions.

A study Examining Modern Media Relations: An Exploratory Study of the Effect of Twitter on the Public Relations – Journalist Relationship, author Drew Wilson says that Twitter has changed the traditional relationship between PR and media professionals. It has changed the way practitioners and journalists interact. The traditional forms of writing a press release and sending it to journalists is becoming outdated. Social media has opened public platforms for public relations professionally to reach out to the public. And the need to the media is slowly dying. Public Relations don’t really need the media anymore to reach out to the public (Wilson, D. 2013).

Thus looking at all the studies and expert opinion on the relationship between PR and journalist practitioners, it can be seen that public relations is slowly weaning off from being dependent on journalists to get their stories out to the public. Thanks to the internet and new technology like Twitter and Facebook, public relations practitioners can reach out to the public themselves.