Written by Canon Wing

I teach entrepreneurs and organizations the proven action steps to stand out within their market, improve the perceived value of their business, and better connect with their audience through naming, branding, storytelling, and communication platforms.

April 22, 2021

How to Create a GREAT Brand Tagline and Logo

Taglines: An Invitation to A Greater Future

As one of the first three things your ideal individual is going to see when first encountering your brand, a weak tagline is like leaving money on the table. Statistics show that 8 out of 10 people will read a name and a tagline before they decide to delete or dive in, and all the greatest taglines throughout the history of branding are an invitation to a Greater Future. A tagline should telegraph to your ideal individuals, what kind of party your brand is throwing, and make them say “Finally! I found my tribe!” Your Name is the clear and open door, that makes them feel welcome and wanted in the greater future. Your Tagline is the promise of a Greater Future that makes them feel hopeful and inspired to take the next step.

Your tagline is the invitation to The Greater Future your brand has to offer. It sets the tone, the emotional atmosphere of a brand – When it absolutely positively has to be there overnight,  The Quicker Picker Upper, Built Ford Tough, It’s Miller Time, A Diamond is Forever, The Ultimate Driving Machine, Bet you can’t just eat one, Red Bull gives you wings,  It’s everywhere you want to be, What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,  If you can make it there you can make it anywhere. Feeling the vibe of these greater futures? That’s the Tagline Acing the Blink Test.

My favorite example of a tagline that is an invitation to a greater future is Nike. Just do it. Three little words that have inspired Nike’s brand community, not just to get into shape, but to quit unfulfilling jobs, book dream vacations, marry the love of their lives…Just Do It, and get your prize. Whatever “it” is for an individual in the Nike brand community, it means living into a greater future.

LOGOS: A Simple and Emotional Story

A logo is basically a picture that tells a simple story that is consistent with that one key emotion your brand aims to inspire. There are no curve balls thrown when choosing your name tagline and logo. They are chapters in the same story. They evoke the same emotional experience, and they make the same promise of a greater future. Remember, consistency builds trust. In marketing, it is often said that if your brand starts to feel repetitive to you, then you are doing it right! To demonstrate to you the importance of creating consistency in story and emotion when designing your logo, I want to mention Gap. Can you picture the Gap logo in your mind right now? It’s just a navy blue box with the word “Gap’ inside it. Very clean cut and classic. Very GAP.  So for whatever reason, Gap decided to change their logo seemingly overnight, and debuted their new logo with an online marketing campaign. It wasn’t that the new logo was bad, or even that the current logo was so great—but that sudden change, that inconsistency in character, lost so much trust and received so much online backlash, that Gap was forced to pull off one of the quickest turnarounds in branding history. In just six days, they had the original logo restored all around the world. Six days that cost GAP 100M dollars. For sparking fresh ideas for your brand’s logo, I suggest you start by identifying the emotion and the simple story of a greater future being told within the logos of some of your favorite brands. As you become more adept at recognizing the story and the emotion that accounts for why their logo is so effective, you’ll start to have some fresh ideas for creating the perfect logo for your own brand.

Thank you so much for joining me! Keep treating these articles as a masterclass for becoming an Inspiration to Millions with Branding and be sure to follow me on FB and YouTube so you don’t miss a single thing! And as always the way to becoming an Inspiration to Millions starts with our motto: Love What You Do and Love How You Do It.