Straplines are funny things. The really good ones ("Just do it" or "Don’t leave home without it") gain a life of their own in the consumers’ minds, and really resonate throughout the life of a brand. The bad ones, well, they tend to be made fun of on blogs like this.
Interesting examples of straps I’ve come across over the past 4 years:
1. Eye Institutes
Asian Eye Institute - Asian care for asian eyes
American Eye Institute - If you or someone you love needs eye care, We Care. (sic)
I totally understand the need for any healthcare brand to affirm their commitment to TLC, but when it’s as in-your-face as these two local rivals, it tends to sound clunky as hell. The Asian eye strap is insipid, but the American Eye one is just horrible. It doesn’t have any rhythm, uses repetition inappropriately, and actually capitalizes "We Care."
The interesting thing is that these eye institutes — especially with their Lasik procedures — have become successful by commoditizing eye care such that each patient will rarely get more than a few moments with their doctors. In other words, if you’re looking for a lot of handholding and backrubbing, you might have a better chance of that somewhere else.
2. Real Estate
Landco Pacific - Look at what we’ve done to our country
This one is a real killer. Landco develops a lot of good-looking leisure/resort properties in Luzon and they’ve got a great eye for detail. But their main tagline friggin’ sucks. It’s the kind of wording you’d expect to see on a WWF ad (the organization, not the wrestlers) right next to a picture of an oil spill, a deforested mountain, or a barren landscape. When I first met these guys, they were telling me how the entire organization was excited about this new strapline they had cooked up. I was glad they didn’t hire me.
3. Consumer Products
Robinson’s Department Store - Fashion Everyday
Creativity is a gift, I guess.
National Bookstore - The country’s national bookstore
The thought process that went into coming up with this bit of redundant tripe is just awe-inspiring. Notice that if you remove either "country" or "national" from the strapline, it still means the same thing. The bigger problem is that this strapline is conceptually equivalent to the name of the bookstore itself, i.e., "national," so it is a complete waste of space to print both the name and the strapline together on anything. (Which of course, they stubbornly still do.) I was pretty taken aback when I first saw this strap on their branding manuals, as they had just finished explaining to me how they had gone to a Singaporean design firm to reengineer the NBS look. I hope they got their money back.