It’s always seemed like good advice. Create a good impression with your web site. Under your site logo, use a handful of memorable, interesting, and concise words that capture the essence of the site.
Easy to do, right?
Not so easy. Sometimes it’s difficult to get a sense of what the site is about as the designer. Sometimes the people commissioning the site aren’t even sure.
Under different circumstances, we might call the person who can handle words so well a poet. Or a marketer. But a web site designer?
Why not? Why shouldn’t a designer be able to write well? Or ask for help if he or she needs it.
But let’s take a step back from the “how” to the “why”? Why do you need a tagline like that?
Some of those issues are explored in a Design Observer post titled The Tyranny of the Tagline.
Just how important is a tagline? How much does it add? How much can the wrong tagline harm a business?
Bill, I really like this topic. Taglines to me are a fundamental piece of business homework. If a company can’t think of a tagline that shows why they’re better than the competition, then perhaps they haven’t really figured out their strategy. Even if they never used the tagline, everyone in the organization should be able to relate to it as a rallying theme for their efforts.
Interestingly most of the space in the article you quote is about the YWCA. It has apparently taken a possible tagline and now uses that as its new name, rather than YWCA, if I read it correctly. It’s almost something I might have suggested.
Comment by Barry Welford — July 8, 2004 @ 3:16 pm
It’s funny how companies come up with names sometimes, isn’t it.
A tagline is tough, but I think that it is essential, too. If a business can’t come up with a tagline, they probably haven’t figured out their business strategy sufficiently.
A good tagline can help create a positive first impression, and I think that’s one of the best things you can do with the front page of your web site. Or even the top part of any of the pages of yor web site.
It can also appear on letterhead, business cards, and promotional material online and off.
So why are some taglines better than others?
Comment by Bill — July 10, 2004 @ 2:34 am
Interesting indeed, especially considering the discussion we had about a tagline for the forums!
In answer to why are some taglines are better than others, I think sometimes its a problem with marketting folk or big managers getting too clever. A tagline needs to be blatently obvious, it should be understood the second its read, no interpretation necessary. The KISS principle would apply very well!
I think that was some of the problem we had with our own thread, in many cases we were trying to come up with something clever and fancy, but you always got people who mis-understood it, or simply didn’t understand it at all, so its effect is lost.
At the moment I have a background on my computer by Opera, I like the browser and it looks quite funky. It’s got the big red O in the center with the tagline “Simply the Best Internet Experience”. In some sense, its a good line, its plainly obvious, I know what its on about and its making a subtle note that Opera is not just a browser.
On the other hand, you could say its a bit arrogant, simply stating its the “best” with no qualification, and I don’t know that it builds the Opera brand particularly. Its not like a Nike “Just do it”.
It also needs to be associative with the brand name. When someone see’s the brand name, or the tagline, it should remind them of the other. If someone said to me “Simply the Best Internet Experience”, it wouldn’t remind me of the Opera brand. I might think of Opera as its my favourite browser, but there wouldn’t be the word association there.
Some of it just takes time and constant repitition though
Comment by Adrian — August 3, 2004 @ 7:58 am