In the old sitcom “Bewitched” the heroine’s husband, Darrin Stevens, worked at an ad agency and many of the episodes showed him and his wonderful wife Samantha, teaming up to come up with that perfect phrase and all your marketing woes will be solved. This same mindset still lives on in a lot of television newsrooms around the country.
Slogans can be divided into two main categories:
1) Those that promote product attributes.
2) Those that promote emotional attachment.
The best slogans will do both.
For example, New Balance has a product brand slogan, “Fit for you, fit for your sport.” Their athletic shoes come in narrow and wide sizes, so their brand is all about the perfect fit. Conversely, Nike has an emotional brand slogan with, “Just Do It.” While they do specific product advertising, the main focus of their brand is the emotion. They put a priority on attaching emotion to the product through imagery of tenacity and perseverance. You will rarely see shots of shoes appear in their ads.
Most television stations have product attribute slogans that describe their coverage priority:
Coverage You Can Count On
Live, Local, Late Breaking
Digging Deeper
Where the News Comes First
The Weather Authority
On Your Side
Your Jaguars Station
Typically, these slogans showcase a specific news component, such as weather, breaking coverage or investigations.
Product attribute slogans can be further divided into two subcategories. Those that have a literal interpretation and those that have a vague interpretation.
Literal Slogans
A literal slogan leaves the customer with a clear understanding of the specific product attribute that will be featured in the newscast. This can be a specific segment such as weather, or a particular reporting style such as “fast and breaking.” Each of these slogans leaves you with a clear understanding of the station’s priority. For example:
Live, Local, Late Breaking
More News, Less Crime
Your Investigation Station
Standing Up for Working Class Families
Everywhere
After reading these literal slogans, you quickly understand what the station is all about. Literal slogans can be both a blessing and a curse. They are ideal for products just starting or changing a brand. Their clear meaning easily conveys the essence of the brand in just a few words. The station can hammer away at that one attribute and more quickly win mind share. Literal slogans are very popular and very effective for television news because many stations constantly change their brand and their slogan line.
The problem with literal slogans comes after you get a little success under your belt. Let’s say the station spends a few years pounding away at the message that it is the “breaking news” station. Its consistency wins mind share and gains preference. It did a good job of winning all the hearts of breaking news buffs in the market, but now it needs to grow its product. Problem is, there aren’t a lot more breaking news buffs left to convert, so continuing to pound home the breaking news message isn’t going to win it a lot more converts. What does it do now? Its entire branding campaign is about breaking news. It must now change the slogan and transition the brand – a very painful and slow process.
FedEx is a classic example of a literal slogan’s need for transition to a more emotionally based brand. FedEx started out with a literal slogan “When it Absolutely Positively has to be There Overnight.” They quickly dominated the overnight game and needed to expand into other product lines to continue the growth. They launched FedEx Freight, FedEx Ground, and FedEx Home Delivery. Problem is, the old slogan wouldn’t work with these new product lines because these products weren’t about overnight delivery. FedEx had to transition its literal slogan to a more emotionally based slogan, one based on trust and dependability. They chose “Relax, it’s FedEx.”
By doing this FedEx was able to expand its product line and build on the trust that “Absolutely Positively” started for it in years past. The more emotional brand of “trust and reliability” will allow much more flexibility in years to come. It can expand into more product categories without diluting the FedEx brand position.
The opposite of the literal slogan is the vague slogan. A lot of TV news operations use these kinds of slogans that have no inherent meaning.
These include:
Where the News Comes First
Local 9
Coverage you Can Count On
Oklahoma’s News Station
See the Difference
The Valley’s Choice for Local News
Because these slogans can mean anything, there is both a danger and an opportunity here. If the station can clearly define the meaning of the slogan, it will be able to keep it and transition it for years and years. The brand can transition, adding product line after product line, without the need to change slogans.
For example, “Coverage You Can Count On” could be all about breaking news in phase one, methodically include an investigative product in phase two, and eventually morph into a weather brand. Because of the slogan’s vagueness, it can weather the change. If a company can rigidly police its brand position and guard against premature brand expansion, a vague slogan can work for many years.
Problem is – this rarely happens in television news. Few stations have the discipline to keep a focused brand. Because the slogan line has no specific meaning – it begins to encompass every product attribute of the station. The brand tries to be all things to all people, all at once. “We’re ‘On Your Side’ with weather, investigations, breaking news, farm reports, and bake sales.” The station is “On My Side” with the latest crack-house drug murder. The brand becomes hopelessly diluted and loses any real meaning.
Things to Remember:
A slogan is not a brand.
The job of a slogan is to clearly convey the brand position, not to drive it. Create the laser focused brand position first – pick a slogan last, or not at all.
You don’t need to have a slogan
Some of the most incredible brands in the world don’t have slogans – Cheerios, Tide, Starbucks. It is okay to have a slogan, just make sure you don’t use it as a crutch. The hard work of focused branding is not driven by a slogan, but a focused plan that hones your product and your advertising to an easily understood priority.
Great brands are narrowly focused and definable
One of my favorite Reis & Trout quotes: “Expanding the brand weakens it. Contracting the brand strengthens it.” The more news components you promote, the more diluted your brand will be. Great brands are built one product line at a time. Nothing will kill a brand faster than premature expansion.
Realize that most of your branding comes from the newscast, not from the advertising.
Far too many news stations feel that branding is primarily a job of the marketing department. The promo team produces slick promos that push a specific viewer relationship, but these values are nowhere to be seen within the product. Your newscast is on the air for hours and hours each day. All the promo time does not add up to a fraction of the exposure that the shows receive.
Saying the slogan line a million times is not branding.
Brands are based on coverage and strong stations demonstrate their brand without the need to endlessly repeat their slogan line. Far too many newscasts lack a clearly evident brand position, but they manage to kid themselves because their slogan line peppers the shows. Nike’s commercials don’t endlessly repeat their slogan line “Just Do It.” They live a brand of tenacity in everything they touch. Nike’s branding campaign would still be wildly successful even if it had no slogan at all.
Each department should have a written branding plan.
Do you have an actual branding plan that clearly defines the product attributes and emotional drivers of your brand position? This isn’t just a promotion thing. Every department in the station should have a living branding document that actually gets used. How does the brand show up in news? How does the sales department use the brand to sell the product? How does the engineering department buy gear and provide maintenance so that it facilitates the brand? The brand should drive everything at the station.
All branding must start with the product.
The advertising can sell what is already there, but it can never lead the way. The product should always be the primary branding vehicle. That means the stories, talent and editorial content must all live the brand every minute of the newscast.
The fastest way to kill a newscast is to do a great branding campaign for an unbranded product.
You only get one chance to keep your word. If your branding efforts claim that your news is “on your side” and the product is not passionately advocating for those in trouble, you have clearly established another brand – as a liar. Fix the product first. Advertise the product after the brand is clearly evident in every segment of the show. Always let the advertising catch up to the product, not the other way around.
If you don’t have a strong external branding slogan, create one just for in-house use.
Lack of strong branding position is often made worse by a vague slogan line. Last month I was at a station with a slogan line “Where the News Comes First.” I asked everyone in the room to pull out a piece of paper and write two sentences that defined that brand position. Everyone in the room came up with a different answer.
Narrowly defined slogan lines have the benefit of clearly conveying the brand position to the staff. For example, if you are “Live, Local, Late Breaking,” or “The Weather Station” you pretty much know what your daily priorities should be. If you are “Coverage you Can Count On” or “Local 12,” it is a lot less clear.
If your station has a vague slogan line, then create an in-house statement that clearly defines the major point of action on branding priorities.
For example: “We fight for the little guy. We report on government waste, corrupt businesses and scammers. We show our audience how to save money, protect their families and stay safe.”
–Graeme Newell, President, 602communications.com, is a broadcast and cable marketing consultant who specializes in relationship branding using core emotional drivers. He guarantees that his teasing seminar will immediately increase your news ratings or his workshop is free. Find out more here.
