It struck me the other day, as I paged through a magazine and stumbled on a Tagheuer ad, that Tagheuer has no discernible tagline. Soon after, I was researching Davenport, Iowa, ad agencies and came across one called Tag Communications, with, yes, no tagline.

This is what passes for work with me at times.

Okay, here’s your topic: Say something interesting comparing or contrasting the following two taglines:

John Deere  Nothing Runs Like A Deere.

Trane It’s hard to stop a Trane.

You have ten minutes. Ready? Begin.

Taglines don’t just disappear. No one forgets to include a tagline. When the tagline is missing from an ad or a website, it is the result of a conscious decision, probably by many people, involving much discussion. I wrote an AdWeek column a couple years back about this trend toward dropping the tagline, and, (naturally), how foolish I thought this was.

I haven’t done the research to prove this, but it seems like the trend is continuing, if not accelerating. The industry-wide epiphany I predicted in my AdWeek column, the one in which taglines, and language in general, will be re-discovered, and will rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes, won’t occur for another five or ten years. First, the industry has to get this stupid impulse out of its system, and this takes time. All those brands who simply follow well-established trends haven’t yet jumped on the band wagon. They will need to see more of the brands they try to copy or emulate dropping their taglines before the wannabees will have the “courage” to follow suit.

Meanwhile, the Harris Bank brand, whose very smart, distinctive, useful campaign was anchored with the tagline, We Can Help, got swallowed up by Canadian banking giant BMO (pronounced, not B-M-O, as you might expect, but, rather, “beamo”, reminiscent of an anti=flatulance pill, or some scary clown with giant pockets overflowing with cash).

In the process of swallowing, apparently BMO thought it best to drop the tagline (curious, since, on the closely connected BMO Financial Group website, sits their tagline, Making Money Make Sense.)

Did they decide that for a bank to promise to be helpful was ill-advised, perhaps straining credibility? Whatever the reasoning, when I watch a BMO Harris commercial, I’m now left at the end with NO IDEA what they’re about, what they stand for or do well. I’m left with not the slightest hint why I might want to bank with them rather than the bank down the street. Just the image of that creepy clown.

Today I noticed a big ad for TD Ameritrade in USA Today, with tagline conspicuously absent. So, I’m left to wonder, why, again, you guys rather than Etrade? Or Chuck? Is it all that white space in your ad?

Pay attention and you’ll spot more and more big brands abandoning their taglines. The net result of this trend? More brand confusion then we already had, and that was plenty. This is simply a very visible symptom of the continuing devaluation of language in general in advertising. Being articulate, precise, and expressing a brand personality, other than visually, is SUCH a bother. It’s apparently SO much more fun (for the creatives) to play with pictures and games and apps and endless social media exercises, none of which communicates a brand’s differessence as quickly and clearly as a half dozen well chosen words.

Meanwhile, I’ll be here in the corner spinning handy little taglines for those brands that see the value of applying rational thought and the emotional power of language to their marketing and advertising.

You may have noticed that I spend a lot of time eyeballing trucks. The side of a truck is a mobile billboard, very well suited for a tagline. IF the tagline is any good, of course. So I pay attention to trucks.

Last week I took note of a couple of trucks carrying taglines that did similar work. The first was a Raymond Forklifts truck. The tagline is:

Raymond  Above. And Beyond.

Not knock your socks off brilliant, but at least the line connects what they do with how they do it, alluding to both the product and the service philosophy. That is a lot more good work than most taglines do.

The other truck was for a “construction maintenance company” named Ascential. Their tagline is:

Ascential  Elevate Your Expectations.

What struck me was that, in the case of Raymond, the tagline was about the benefit of dealing with them or their products. No connection to the brand name. Whereas, with Ascential, the line is doing much the same work, but the line springs from the brand name, providing a one-two branding punch. So, even though the tagline itself is nothing special, the way that it reinforces and expands on the brand name, elevates the tagline.

The point isn’t that these are great taglines. They aren’t. The point is that both companies at least tried to think beyond a simple descriptor, or a completely vacuous line—one with a little more success than the other.

The way the Patriots refused to win at the end made me suspect the fix was in. Other than that, The game had its moments, I suppose.

The commercials did not. It was yet another humiliationfest for American advertising. I call them humoroids—faux funny commercials that are structured and present themselves as if they were funny, but without the actual element of humor that would be necessary to make them funny. Beating old ideas to death using other old ideas as blunt instruments of death, trying to squeeze something funny out of ridiculous situations with dogs, babies, babes, chimps and Star Wars denizens. Last year, I came away from the Superbowl grateful for the one genuinely good commercial that ran. I refer, of course, to the Star Wars kid VW commercial. This year, they had to wreck that idea by reprising it in a phenomenally awkward, disjointed and stunningly unfunny followup spot.

And don’t get me started on Bugweiser, Pudweiser, Sudsweiser, Slugweiser, Smugweiser, Dudweiser, whatever you call it.

I am sooo verrrry weary of this sad annual parade of flaccid, insipid, obscenely expensive spots, proclaimed to be the best the industry can do by USA Today and Matt Lauer. The best thing about this very moment is that we as far away from the next mess as we can be in a year.

I’ve commented on the taglines of two railway companies in the past. Of course, who can remember what they were? One was good, one wasn’t. Now I’m seeing a third railway company joining the fray. Norfolk Southern Railway has a new campaign, with a pretty commercial, and a pretty spiffy tagline:

One line. Infinite Possibilities.

What’s nice about the line is that it actually expresses an IDEA, and with just a touch of cleverness. And “infinite possibilities” is a reasonably inspirational, energetic, optimistic phrase to hitch your wagon to.

Since I don’t know much about the commercial rail business, I can only assume that railroads have competition from trucking companies, at least, thus perhaps justifying idea of advertising in the first place.

I just noticed a commercial for Maker’s Mark. I didn’t actually process any of the commercial, since it was half over when I flipped to the station it ran on. But the tagline reached right through the screen and slapped me upside the head. I may be exaggerating. But I did like it.

Here it is: Maker’s Mark. It Is What It Isn’t.

I bet that line makes sense once you know the story they’re telling about their whiskey or bourbon or whatever. Of course, if their story doesn’t make the line make sense, then I reserve the right to a 180.

Other than giving a hint about the brand’s differessence, it has two other admirable qualities. The line stops you long enough to try to process it. And, it’s a nice middle finger to the impossibly irritating tautological cliche, “It is what it is.”

The book is called The Idea Writers. Ms. Iezzi, last time I checked, is still the editor of Creativity. She has been observing and analyzing the business for many years. And she had conversations with many of the most renowned copywriters around in the writing of this book.

The audience, presumably, is advertising people, especially advertising writers. But there is much in this book for anyone interested in the advertising business, or even simply in the nature of communication in this digitally inundated culture.Ms. Iezzi is both very sharp and very thorough in her examination of the changing nature of persuasive communications, and how the role of the copywriter has changed profoundly over the past couple of decades.

I don’t recommend books lightly. The last book that I gave such an unqualified rave to was Luke Sullivan’s Hey Whipple, Squeeze This, which has become a classic in a very short time. Finallly, here’s a book worthy of taking that next space on the shelf of must-read advertising books, right next to Mr. Sullivan’s.

Nice to be back after the holiday break. Hope you survived intact.

As those of you who follow this blog already know, I consider one-word “taglines” to be worthless and inexcusably lazy. You can’t express a differentiating thought about your brand with just one word.

I’ve also spent time railing about the overuse of the word “matters” in taglines. “Such And Such Matters” has been an overused heading, headline and tagline for articles, newsletters and ad campaigns for decades. Playing on the two meanings of “matters” stopped being clever somewhere in the middle of the last century.

I thought Northwest Memorial Hospital had taken that tagcrime to its final absurdity with their tagline “Everything Matters.” With the utterance of that line, the meaning of “matters” is entirely obliterated.

Now, however, Capella University has pioneered new ground by managing to commit two cardinal sins with one word.  Their new tagline is, if you can believe it:

Capella University. Matter.

I can only assume that this is intended to be an exhortation to prospective students to attend Cappela (if “attend” is the right verb when speaking of online universities), because, in doing so, you will become a person who matters to others, to the world, a person who will make a difference. Something along those lines.

Or there is the less likely interpretation, that Capella wants to celebrate everything physical in the universe[s]. Or, maybe not celebrate, but simply recognize the existence or the reality of the physical realm?

I’m amazed that they didn’t go for the trifecta and stick an exclamation point after the word.

To me, the most damning aspect of this tagline is what it implies about all those who don’t enjoy the special status of Cappela students. Doesn’t that tagline confer on the rest of us the status of not mattering?

It’s true, they aren’t saying, explicitly, “Attending Capella is the only way to matter.” But there is still a clear implication that they are targeting whichever group of people doesn’t currently matter. Apparently, being a human doesn’t, in and of itself, count for anything.

In all fairness, I must acknowledge that Capella, together with many other institutions of higher learning, have taught me something. I’ve learned that the bulk of colleges and universities, just like the bulk of businesses, have a lot to learn about taglines.

When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best

This is the iconic tagline for Hallmark Cards, one that stayed alive for 50 years, give or take. On their own website they acknowledge that this line was (is?)  more than a slogan, it was/is a “business commitment.” Hallmark founder, J.C. Hall, had this to say about the power of that line. “I somehow feel that without the slogan our products would not have been as good.”

While the line may still be considered their slogan in some sense, recently they have been punctuating their TV commercials with a new tagline. Just as their legacy slogan is a timeless classic, this new tagline should go down in tagline history as one of the worst of all time. Here it is:

Hallmark. Life is a Special Occasion.

This line fails on many levels. First, it is yet one more in an endless parade of “Life is . . .” taglines cluttering up the tagscape. Hallmark should be ashamed based on this alone.

Now, consider the meaning of the line. Life is a special occasion. Really? Special occasions are only special in relation to occasions that are everyday, mundane, humdrum, unremarkable. So, if life is a special occasion, what would that be in contrast to? Death, I guess. And, compared to death, it could be that life is a special occasion. But we have no way of knowing, last time I checked.

Over and above its denotative meaning, there’s the problem of the emotional impact that this line doesn’t carry. The sentiment doesn’t resonate, it isn’t moving or touching or poignant, as so much of their advertising has been over the years. With this line, they have abandoned all that emotional legacy. Proclaiming that life is a special occasion pushes the bogus button big time. It’s a bunch of baloney. It’s one thing to celebrate how great life can be, and this sentiment can be evocatively expressed in many, many ways. But, by choosing to articulate it in terms of “special occasion” Hallmark emotionally sabotages or undercuts the sentiment it’s going for. They’ve gone and stomped on their own brand.

By getting greedy and claiming specialness for all of life, Hallmark manages to obliterate the specialness of every special occasion that they used to celebrate. You know, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, Mother’s and Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day and so on. Now, according to Hallmark, every day, every event, every occasion is a special occasion. Rather than doing the work that they’ve done in the past, creating special occasions worthy of having greeting cards to acknowledge them, they’ve gone lazy, declaring anything and everything in life to be special. This way, they can make greeting cards for any and every occasion they can think of, shotgun style, and see what flies and what dies. Lazy lazy lazy.

If any company should be able to lay claim to having a definitive understanding of what “special occasion” means, you’d think it would be Hallmark. That is what makes this tagline travesty so stunning.