Personal Brand Taglines

I was researching for a UCLA Extension Marketing Master Class I’m giving in Istanbul in October on Global Branding and International Expansion and came across a subject I thought would be of interest to Personal Brand Blog readers:  the brand tagline.

For the class, I’ll be looking at taglines for cities, counties, and countries.  But it got me thinking about taglines for personal branding.

The “Lost Art” of the tagline

A tagline is one of the most cost effective ways to express the value of a brand.  The advertisers of the past knew the art of the tagline and spent time, money, and research in developing a short and easy way to communicate a brand message.  Here’s a few taglines,  many of which have endured, some fallen by the wayside:

  • You’re in good hands with Allstate. Allstate Insurance
  • Reach out and touch someone. AT&T
  • Cotton. The fabric of our lives. Cotton Incorporated
  • Quality is job one. Ford
  • Fair and balanced. Fox News
  • They’re g-r-r-r-eat! Kellog’s Frosted Flakes
  • Melts in your mouth, not in your hands. M&Ms
  • M’m, m’m, m’m, m’m, m’m…toasty! Quiznos
  • Eat fresh. Subway
  • Takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Timex
  • Only you can prevent forest fires. U.S. Forest Service
  • Can you hear me now?…Good! Verizon Wireless
  • Where’s the beef? Wendy’s

Twitter profile as your tagline

Your profile statement on Twitter is a perfect opportunity to extend your brand value. As you build followers, you have an audience that you are communicating with.

One of the values of social media is “find and be found”.  I encourage you to be fairly straightforward with your profile statement and describe either you personally or what you do.  Don’t squander this valuable opportunity with cryptic or “too-cute” message.

A successful tagline should amplify your marketing message:

  • Who you are
  • What makes you special
  • Why the world should care

Author:

Beverly Macy is the Managing Partner of Y&M Partners and teaches a social media class at the UCLA Extension.  She also co-hosts Gravity Summit events and provides personal branding coaching.

Picture of Beverly Macy

Beverly Macy

Beverly is an instructor at the UCLA Business and Management Extension Program. She is one of the few educators who has a class offered by a university on Social Media Marketing. She’s also the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Y&M Partners and before that she spent 14 years at Xerox Corporation in a series of increasingly demanding sales and marketing management positions where she was awarded eight consecutive President’s Club honors. Macy began her career at Wang Laboratories in software development.

TRENDING AROUND THE WEB

The friend you haven’t texted in too long would probably be gladder to hear from you than you expect — part of it is the shock of seeing your name

The friend you haven’t texted in too long would probably be gladder to hear from you than you expect — part of it is the shock of seeing your name

The Vessel

The brain predicts the end of a sentence before it arrives, the same trick language models use to write

The brain predicts the end of a sentence before it arrives, the same trick language models use to write

Global English Editing

A 1988 study had one group of people write about their most traumatic experience for 20 minutes a day, four days in a row, while another group spent the same four days writing about something completely ordinary, and when researchers measured their immune response afterward, the group who wrote about the hard thing came out with a measurably stronger one

A 1988 study had one group of people write about their most traumatic experience for 20 minutes a day, four days in a row, while another group spent the same four days writing about something completely ordinary, and when researchers measured their immune response afterward, the group who wrote about the hard thing came out with a measurably stronger one

The Blog Herald

We can describe exactly who we used to be. We still don’t have the words for who we are now.

We can describe exactly who we used to be. We still don’t have the words for who we are now.

The Vessel

People about to give a speech consistently believe their own nervousness is far more visible to the room than it actually is, a specific mismatch researchers gave its own name decades ago and the pattern keeps showing up

People about to give a speech consistently believe their own nervousness is far more visible to the room than it actually is, a specific mismatch researchers gave its own name decades ago and the pattern keeps showing up

The Blog Herald

Writers who try to sound like everyone online eventually learn the same lesson: the voice that works for everybody works for no one

Writers who try to sound like everyone online eventually learn the same lesson: the voice that works for everybody works for no one

Global English Editing