Watching HD channels on TV nowadays means missing out on a large number of ads. Now that may be a boon to most but as a communication professional this is unappetising. So for the last few days I have been watching the non HD channels of Star World, Star Sports, Star Movies, Colours, Fox etc.
On the whole the fare offered was disappointing, but what caught the eye and set my imagination thinking was how brand baselines or taglines are now disappearing from TV or computer screens. Or even if they are there its almost as an afterthought and not adding anything to the brand. And that made me contemplative. Let me clarify at the offset, I am talking about brand taglines and not variant or SKU taglines.
Tag lines basically had two jobs. One to define a brand and two to be a reminder of the brand. A Google search for top Indian taglines reminded me of the following gems: Hamara Bajaj, The Complete Man, Made For Each Other, Swad Zindagi ka, Taste The Thunder, Har Ghar Kuch kahta hai, Simplyfly, Born Tough, Neighbours Envy, Owner's Pride, Fill it, Shut it, Forget it.....
Most of these encapsulated the brand essence. They not only defined the brand but could be used interchangeably with the brand name. Many of them tugged at your heart strings and gave brands an edge where they had none. Most of them did not even have the brand name in the line. Yet, just the mention of the line evoked strong responses.
So what has happened? What changed? Have the brands become lazy in not working hard to get a good tag line? Or is it a part of the evolution of communication? As usual the answer lies somewhere in between.
I think three reasons have contributed to the demise of the tagline.
1) Explosion of brands: As newer products and brands came into play, innovation started playing a much more important role in the life cycle of a brand. With innovation came new benefits and new promises. Advertisers and agencies did not want to miss the opportunity of reminding a new feature or the latest innovation through a tagline. As a result brand taglines started to lose their appeal, for the advertisers. So when dual SIM phones became a rage, cell phone manufacturers made that the moot selling point. This was the case not only in durables but in FMCG also. Even soaps and detergents had 2-3 new innovations every year. Be it perfume or a new additive. Many brands realised the extinction of brand promise and mandated formats etc wherein some space or time had to be allocated to the brand tagline, but under pressure from ever increasing demand of bottom line results, the brand tag line had to give way. The luxury of building a brand over a period of time did not exist.
2) Increasing media cost made the size of ads, be it print or video smaller. Something had to give way. In the above context it was the positioning of the brand in the form of a tagline.
3) Consumers moving from once in a lifetime purchase for durables to changing frequently and accepting indulgence in FMCG. With the explosion in the number of brands playing in each category, the consumer was spoilt for choice. Just when you would have thought that was a sound reason for brands to create differentiation in consumers mind, the opposite happened. The new generation Indian consumer did not buy a car or a TV once and lived with it his whole life. He wanted to change and try new things. As a result the loyalty was not to a brand but to a feature or convenience. Advertisers realised that the power of Hamara Bajaj could not compete with the power of 220 cc Pulsar engine. Or Neighbours envy, owners pride could not fight the power of Smart TVs.
In certain categories with evolution of technology, brands started evolving much faster and quicker. So an Airtel which was all about "Expressing yourself" when a mobile was just a mobile, evolved into a friend who could help you not only keep connected but also help you surf the net, download a song, watch a movie....With such fast pace of changes the brand had also to evolve with time. It is not easy to keep changing brand taglines so frequently. The easier option was to not just have them.
And herein lies a catch too. I have always believed that a good tagline must have a philosophy which also takes into account rational benefit of the brand. Just good emotional stuff was fine in the pre innovation era. With innovation discovering new rational benefits at such rapid pace, taglines with only emotional differentiators started losing their mojo. And the ones with rational benefits had to be reinvented. That's when they were discarded.
Take another example. Hero Honda was the first 4 stroke motorcycle in India. It gave unmatched mileage. So the tagline, Fill it. shut it. Forget it. A good example of a nice emotional connect based on strong rational fundamentals. The tagline was not changed for years. Because innovation and evolution of the category was slow. The consumer was happy to buy just a super fuel efficient bike and the brand also churned a lot of the same. Bajaj also had fuel efficient, maybe better mileage bikes, but the Hero Honda tagline stuck. Till bikes with new bells and whistles, power etc started coming into play, only after a few years.
This is not just an Indian phenomena but a global phenomena. There are some very few exceptions like Nike or Adidas but these can be counted on fingers. And most of those who use taglines for brands change them frequently too.
Which brings me to the case of lazy agencies. Have the agencies gone lazy? Yes they have, but lets not forget that so have the loyalty of clients to agencies. Whenever bottom line drops the clients are looking for short term quick fix and they look for a new agency for the next project. Why should the agency which has to deliver every campaign yesterday, work hard for brand taglines which no brand manager wants, which will be overshadowed by the latest feature or innovation and die a quick death, be the guilty party for the brand tagline.
Let me be clear, taglines have not become outdated. But brand taglines have. In as much that the brands also become outdated pretty soon in today's context.
On the whole the fare offered was disappointing, but what caught the eye and set my imagination thinking was how brand baselines or taglines are now disappearing from TV or computer screens. Or even if they are there its almost as an afterthought and not adding anything to the brand. And that made me contemplative. Let me clarify at the offset, I am talking about brand taglines and not variant or SKU taglines.
Tag lines basically had two jobs. One to define a brand and two to be a reminder of the brand. A Google search for top Indian taglines reminded me of the following gems: Hamara Bajaj, The Complete Man, Made For Each Other, Swad Zindagi ka, Taste The Thunder, Har Ghar Kuch kahta hai, Simplyfly, Born Tough, Neighbours Envy, Owner's Pride, Fill it, Shut it, Forget it.....
Most of these encapsulated the brand essence. They not only defined the brand but could be used interchangeably with the brand name. Many of them tugged at your heart strings and gave brands an edge where they had none. Most of them did not even have the brand name in the line. Yet, just the mention of the line evoked strong responses.
So what has happened? What changed? Have the brands become lazy in not working hard to get a good tag line? Or is it a part of the evolution of communication? As usual the answer lies somewhere in between.
I think three reasons have contributed to the demise of the tagline.
1) Explosion of brands: As newer products and brands came into play, innovation started playing a much more important role in the life cycle of a brand. With innovation came new benefits and new promises. Advertisers and agencies did not want to miss the opportunity of reminding a new feature or the latest innovation through a tagline. As a result brand taglines started to lose their appeal, for the advertisers. So when dual SIM phones became a rage, cell phone manufacturers made that the moot selling point. This was the case not only in durables but in FMCG also. Even soaps and detergents had 2-3 new innovations every year. Be it perfume or a new additive. Many brands realised the extinction of brand promise and mandated formats etc wherein some space or time had to be allocated to the brand tagline, but under pressure from ever increasing demand of bottom line results, the brand tag line had to give way. The luxury of building a brand over a period of time did not exist.
2) Increasing media cost made the size of ads, be it print or video smaller. Something had to give way. In the above context it was the positioning of the brand in the form of a tagline.
3) Consumers moving from once in a lifetime purchase for durables to changing frequently and accepting indulgence in FMCG. With the explosion in the number of brands playing in each category, the consumer was spoilt for choice. Just when you would have thought that was a sound reason for brands to create differentiation in consumers mind, the opposite happened. The new generation Indian consumer did not buy a car or a TV once and lived with it his whole life. He wanted to change and try new things. As a result the loyalty was not to a brand but to a feature or convenience. Advertisers realised that the power of Hamara Bajaj could not compete with the power of 220 cc Pulsar engine. Or Neighbours envy, owners pride could not fight the power of Smart TVs.
In certain categories with evolution of technology, brands started evolving much faster and quicker. So an Airtel which was all about "Expressing yourself" when a mobile was just a mobile, evolved into a friend who could help you not only keep connected but also help you surf the net, download a song, watch a movie....With such fast pace of changes the brand had also to evolve with time. It is not easy to keep changing brand taglines so frequently. The easier option was to not just have them.
And herein lies a catch too. I have always believed that a good tagline must have a philosophy which also takes into account rational benefit of the brand. Just good emotional stuff was fine in the pre innovation era. With innovation discovering new rational benefits at such rapid pace, taglines with only emotional differentiators started losing their mojo. And the ones with rational benefits had to be reinvented. That's when they were discarded.
Take another example. Hero Honda was the first 4 stroke motorcycle in India. It gave unmatched mileage. So the tagline, Fill it. shut it. Forget it. A good example of a nice emotional connect based on strong rational fundamentals. The tagline was not changed for years. Because innovation and evolution of the category was slow. The consumer was happy to buy just a super fuel efficient bike and the brand also churned a lot of the same. Bajaj also had fuel efficient, maybe better mileage bikes, but the Hero Honda tagline stuck. Till bikes with new bells and whistles, power etc started coming into play, only after a few years.
This is not just an Indian phenomena but a global phenomena. There are some very few exceptions like Nike or Adidas but these can be counted on fingers. And most of those who use taglines for brands change them frequently too.
Which brings me to the case of lazy agencies. Have the agencies gone lazy? Yes they have, but lets not forget that so have the loyalty of clients to agencies. Whenever bottom line drops the clients are looking for short term quick fix and they look for a new agency for the next project. Why should the agency which has to deliver every campaign yesterday, work hard for brand taglines which no brand manager wants, which will be overshadowed by the latest feature or innovation and die a quick death, be the guilty party for the brand tagline.
Let me be clear, taglines have not become outdated. But brand taglines have. In as much that the brands also become outdated pretty soon in today's context.
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