5 steps + 11 key points to write a brand slogan!

90% of our knowledge of a brand comes from its slogan!

Is it a bit exaggerated? Let's do a simple test and review the following classic cases:

If you are afraid of getting angry, drink Wanglaoji.
Five minutes of charging, two hours of talk time.
I won’t accept any gifts this year, and if I do, I’ll accept Melatonin.
If you want to know the best excavator school, go to Lanxiang in Shandong, China.

Okay, now please close your eyes, activate your brain, and think back:

Putting aside the information in the slogan, what do you still know about Wanglaoji, OPPO, Melatonin, and Lanxiang Technical School?

Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that 90% of consumers’ knowledge of a brand comes from its slogan.

If you have temporarily recognized the effectiveness of brand slogans, let’s continue our discussion.

01

Through the previous small test, we have a general understanding of the power of brand slogans in the marketing process.

However, in business operations, compared with product content, strategic positioning, name packaging..., brand slogans are often overlooked because they are too simple.

Because at the end of the day, a brand slogan is just a sentence.

Therefore, many small and medium-sized enterprises currently have many problems with their brand slogans, and they do not achieve the desired effects at all.

For example, the slogans that have flooded the streets are: XX technology, enjoy life; XX technology, ultimate life; XX technology, smart life; XX technology, make life full of fun; XX products, make life better.

The choice of words and sentences seems exquisite and profound, but consumers are confused and bewildered after reading it.

So, how can we come up with an energetic and powerful brand slogan?

The essence of a brand slogan is marketing advertising, the purpose of which is to promote the brand or increase sales.

We will try to use the method of marketing copywriting to restore every detail of the brand slogan from the perspective of consumers.

The process from consumers being exposed to a brand slogan to taking action can be roughly divided into the following four steps:

Receive information → understand/remember → take action → spread.

Switching to the enterprise perspective, the corresponding operation links are:

Attract attention → arouse interest → enhance trust → stimulate action → spread.

Next, we will refine and refine the key components of the brand slogan from each operational link.

First, let’s look at the thought-guided structure of the article.

02
Attract attention

The characteristics of the traditional information age are that people actively seek content and the amount of content is less than the demand, so there is a saying that "good wine needs no bush".

In the era of mobile Internet, the explosion of information has turned into information actively finding people.

In today's world of scarce attention, every user is very busy. If you don't get the user's attention, everything you do will be meaningless.

At the same time, users’ leisure time has been divided into countless fragments by super apps (WeChat, Taobao, Douyin, Honor of Kings...).

Therefore, the brand slogan should not only attract consumers' attention, but also be completed in the shortest time possible.

So, what are the key points of a brand slogan that meets the requirements?

1) Be brief

In order to ensure that users can understand the brand slogan the moment they come into contact with it, the brand slogan must be simple and have few words in terms of text structure.

In order to show the status of their company, some bosses always like to use some "cultured" Chinese characters, such as: 齉龘龘靐齉齾爩……

You don’t even recognize the characters, and you still expect consumers to remember your brand slogan?

Every time I come across Benben Noodles or Xibei Youmiancun , I dare not introduce them to my friends, for fear that I might have pronounced them wrong.

In addition, brand slogans are mostly transmitted through hearing, so the words used must be precise and unambiguous.

For example: There are seven monkeys on the tree and one monkey under the tree. How many monkeys are there? Seven wolves, are there seven wolves, or is he riding on a wolf?

The shorter the slogan is, the easier it is for users to remember it and the easier it is to spread among people.

For example: "If you are afraid of getting a sore throat, drink Wanglaoji", most users can remember it within 1 second.

David Ogilvy's masterpiece: "When this new 'Rolls-Royce' goes at 60 miles per hour, the loudest noise comes from the electric clock." If users want to remember it accurately, it will obviously cost them a lot.

In summary, if you can use simplified characters, don't use traditional characters; if you can use common characters, don't use uncommon characters; if you can use accurate characters, don't use homophonic characters; if you can use 8 characters to make it clear, don't use 10 characters...

2) Feeling

We are faced with massive amounts of information every day, but there is a hippocampus in our brain that helps us automatically filter out most of it.

Ultimately, only a small amount of information actually captures our attention.

So, which information will be filtered out and which information can be filtered out?

Research has found that content that touches us more deeply is more likely to stand out, such as content that is closely related to us, familiar to us, and has a strong contrast...

The same is true for brand slogans, such as:

"If you don't want to get angry, drink Wanglaoji", you will immediately think of the familiar scenes of having dinner with friends on weekends, such as hot pot and food stalls;
"I won't accept any gifts this year, but if I do, I'll accept Melatonin." This immediately reminds me of the scene of giving gifts during the Spring Festival every year.
"Charge for five minutes and talk for two hours" immediately reminds people of the trouble of charging their mobile phones every day, and it also subverts the perception of conventional charging speed.

03
Stimulate interest

Assuming that the brand slogan has successfully attracted the consumer's attention, we now need to consider how to maintain this attention.

Simply put, make consumers interested in the brand slogan.

Generally speaking, there are two points to note: one is that it should be interesting; the other is that it should be valuable.

1) Interesting

Even if the information conveyed in the brand slogan is valuable, if it simply states the facts directly and the copy is boring and bland, consumers may not buy it.

Because the content is too ordinary and bland, consumers will become accustomed to it and numb to it after seeing it too many times, and it will not arouse their interest, let alone lead to its dissemination.

for example:

Xiangpiaopiao Milk Tea: If you just directly state the fact "high sales volume" or "100,000 cups sold", it is definitely not as easy to arouse users' interest as "the cups could be connected together to circle the earth three times."
Nongfu Spring: If we just state the fact directly, "Our products get water from nature," it would definitely not be as easy to arouse users' interest as "We don't produce water, we are just nature's porters."
OPPO mobile phone: If you just state the fact "we charge quickly", it is definitely not as easy to arouse users' interest as "charge for five minutes and talk for two hours".

You can try to make the copy more vivid and imaginative, such as: analogies, metaphors, detailed descriptions, etc.

For example: When Steve Jobs introduced the iPod, if he simply said "smaller in size, larger in capacity", consumers would not be very interested, because all similar new products would advertise themselves in this way.

But Jobs used a vivid analogy: "Putting 1,000 songs in your pocket", and consumers immediately became interested.

2) Valuability

In order to make their brand slogans more beautiful, creative and poetic, many companies often overlook something more core: value.

The author believes that the most standard brand slogan should contain the following three parts of information:

Who are you?
What can you offer?
What are your advantages?

Of course, it does not mean that everything must be covered, but it must give users a clear and specific impression after watching/listening to it.

In advertisements of real estate, technology companies, and governments, we often see brand slogans like: Enjoy life, ultimate experience; Innovative technology, smart life; Innovative design, imagine the future...

Now think of yourself as a consumer, read it a few more times, and then think about what your brain actually understands? What definite perceptions have been generated about the brand? Is it empty?

This is also the most common mistake made by most copywriting beginners. The words may seem fancy, but they are extremely empty and have no effect at all.

Let's take a few common examples:

"Guazi used cars, no middlemen make a profit from the price difference", "Meituan takeout, everything is delivered quickly", "Good air conditioners, made by Gree"...

Does each one clearly convey the value proposition of the company/brand? Selling used cars is more profitable; food delivery is fast; air conditioning is of good quality.

Consumers can also form a definite impression of the brand in an instant.

04
Enhance trust

As we mentioned earlier, the brand slogan must convey a clear value point to consumers.

1) Difference

But in the actual process, another problem arises:

A company's brand slogan often becomes the brand slogan of the industry.

For example: Everyone is very familiar with the slogan “Diamonds are forever”, but does anyone still remember which company’s brand slogan this is? (The answer is De Beers)

Because this sentence is applicable to any jewelry brand, Chow Tai Fook can be used, Chow Tai Seng can be used...

It seems like they are advertising their own brand, but in fact they are advertising for the entire industry. The slogans commonly used in the industry have very little value for a single brand.

Therefore, the brand slogan should be different from that of its peers and have its own unique and competitive value proposition (core competitiveness) so that peers cannot imitate and follow suit in the short term.

For example, OPPO’s “five minutes of charging, two hours of talk time” emphasized fast charging performance in the environment at the time, which immediately reflected the difference between itself and other mobile phones such as Xiaomi and Huawei.

At the same time, because fast charging is OPPO's core technology and other mobile phone manufacturers cannot follow up in the short term, the market has accepted OPPO's dominant position in the fast charging field.

Now when it comes to fast charging speed, OPPO is always the first thing that comes to mind.

For details on how to create differentiation in brand slogans, please refer to the "USP Theory". (Unique Selling Proposition)

2) There is supporting evidence

Nowadays, advertisements are full of exaggerations. Everyone is the "number one", everyone is the "best", and everyone can "circle the earth several times"...

The author believes that a good brand slogan should be supported by evidence when promoting its unique value/advantages.

Competition in the drinking water industry has always been fierce. All pure water brand advertisements will claim that their water is the purest, such as: XX water is the purest; XX water has no impurities; XX water has passed authoritative testing.

But in the eyes of consumers, these words always sound like the manufacturers bragging about themselves. There is a lack of trust, and there is no way to tell which water is better.

Robust was the first to launch the brand slogan "Robus Pure Water, 27 Levels of Purification".

When consumers heard that the water had gone through 27 levels of purification, they would think that since there were so many purification steps, then Robust must be pure. This also helped Robust to rank second in the country in terms of market share that year.

In fact, almost all purified water at that time went through dozens of purification processes, but it was only Robust that made it known.

Therefore, when a brand slogan emphasizes its own advantages, it must not neglect to provide supporting evidence to make consumers more convinced.

Blindly boasting will only make you look like Wang Po selling melons, even if your product is really good.

05
Stimulus Action

The ultimate goal of a brand slogan is to guide consumers to consume and improve their decision-making efficiency.

Let them think of our products/services immediately when they think of XXX.

1) Appeal

Therefore, the brand slogan must be appealing, inspiring, and guiding, so that users will immediately have the urge to take action after reading/listening to it.

In the future, when you encounter a similar scenario and an option naturally pops up in your mind, you should choose it.

for example:

“Which school is the best for learning excavators? Lanxiang is in Shandong, China.” When you mention learning excavators, is Lanxiang the first answer that comes to your mind?
"I won't accept any gifts this year, and if I do, I'll accept Melatonin." When it comes to giving gifts during the Spring Festival, do you immediately think of Melatonin?
“If you don’t want to get a sore throat, drink Wanglaoji” and “If you feel tired and sleepy, drink Red Bull” have become standard drinks when eating hot pot or feeling tired?

2) Direct

In addition, since the brand slogan has few words, it must be expressed directly and roughly. Never write it in a euphemistic and implicit way for the sake of literary and artistic expression.

After all, the essence of a brand slogan is a marketing advertisement to guide consumers to consume, rather than a work of art for consumers to appreciate.

For example: The brand slogan of a travel agency is "The world is so big, don't you want to go and see it?"

The copywriting is indeed very literary, but its marketing effect is limited and it does not provide direct guidance to consumers. Suppose I really want to see the world, then what?

It is far less effective than the six words "If you want to travel, find Tuniu".

Other classic examples include: "If you are afraid of getting a sore throat, drink Wanglaoji", "If you feel sleepy or tired, drink Red Bull", "If you have onychomycosis, use nail polish immediately"... all of which directly give consumers the only option.

06
Spread

In addition to stimulating and guiding user consumption, brand slogans also play an important role in becoming a vehicle for brand communication and promotion.

How can we make brand slogans more easily spread in the process of interpersonal communication?

1) Colloquialism

In interpersonal communication, the most convenient way to spread widely is definitely "speaking" and "listening", so a good brand slogan must be colloquial.

The aforementioned: enjoy life, ultimate experience; innovative technology, smart life; innovative design, imagine the future...are automatically excluded.

Think about it: What words in life are most likely to spread?

Jokes, jingles, proverbs, famous sayings...

For example: "Bird mobile phone, the fighter jet among mobile phones", "There must be a road before the car reaches the mountain, and there must be a Toyota car on the road", "Meituan takeaway, everything is delivered quickly", "I love Beijing, 50 kilometers south of Tiananmen"...

The author also proposed some ideas, such as: pay attention to rhyme, parallelism, and use and modify famous quotes...

2) With brand name

As we mentioned earlier, the brand slogan must not become the slogan of the entire industry.

If everyone is spreading a brand slogan but forgets who the original brand/company is, such as: "Diamonds are forever", this is the tragedy of the brand.

For example: OPPO used "20 million front and back cameras, clearer photos", VIVO used "20 million front and back cameras, illuminating your beauty", and Xiaomi used "20 million front and back cameras, more beautiful photos of people".

If you don’t pay close attention to the mobile phone industry and only look at brand slogans, can you quickly tell which company’s products are whose?

On the other hand, if the brand slogan does not include the brand name, the company will need to spend extra energy to bind the slogan to the brand, incurring greater costs.

3) Long-term

A brand slogan is long-term and lasting, and the longer it is disseminated, the higher its accumulated value.

Once the brand slogan is determined, we must persevere and fully mobilize advantageous resources to strengthen it, so that consumers can clearly feel the brand differentiation and consolidate the brand's dominant position in a certain field.

As part of brand assets, brand slogans should not be changed unless there are major changes in the company.

If it is replaced easily, it will not only waste the image assets accumulated by the brand over the years, but will also affect the brand's perception in the minds of consumers.

Of course, this requires that when designing a super slogan, we must consider short-, medium- and long-term considerations, just as Hua & Hua said, "it will be useful for 100 years."

Like the cases we listed in the previous article, which one has not been passed down for many years and has not changed.

Let me share a special case, Red Bull China, whose brand slogans at different times were:

In the early days, “the car needs gas, and I need Red Bull”;
In the middle stage, “drink Red Bull when you feel sleepy or tired”;
Currently "you have more energy than you can imagine."

In 2013, Red Bull replaced its long-standing slogan “Drink Red Bull when you’re tired and sleepy” with “Your energy is beyond your imagination”.

From now on, it is obvious that consumers have a deeper memory of "Drink Red Bull when you are sleepy and tired".

This behavior not only wastes the brand assets that Red Bull has accumulated over the years, but also provides competitors with a good opportunity to take advantage of the situation.

Now, many people would say “Drink Dongpeng Special Drink when you feel sleepy or tired”, which has made Dongpeng Special Drink the leader of domestic functional beverages in a short period of time.

Summarize

Finally, let’s make a brief summary. This article imitates the writing method of marketing copywriting and reconstructs the 5 steps and 11 key points of the brand slogan.

It doesn’t mean that every brand slogan must meet so many points at the same time. The purpose of this article is only to provide you with some design ideas.

Here’s a little easter egg for everyone to think about. On my way to work this morning, I saw the brand slogan “Make driving fun” on the work clothes of the “eDaijia” staff.

Out of curiosity, I searched Baidu for this company and found that its past brand slogans were: