Recent News and Updates

Six words – is that enough? Yep.

posted by McKenna @ August 18th, 2008

Sum up your life in six words. That’s what hundreds of SMITH storytelling magazine readers did in 2006, and some of those insightful phrases were recently turned into a book.

Think it’s easy to boil down the essence of a one’s experiences into a few pithy words? It’s not. Just ask any company trying to develop a killer tagline. And if you think six words is short, consider some of the most successful taglines:

Just do it.

Got milk?

Drivers wanted.

Makes six words look like War & Peace.

A perfect tagline’s beauty lies in its simplicity and brevity. But developing something short and sweet can turn sour pretty fast. For something so simple, the process can require a significant amount of time and effort.

Here at Avicom, we’ve written a few taglines in our day. One thing we’ve learned is that it takes the perfect union of research, strategy and creativity to develop a phrase worthy of becoming a tagline. When short and sweet meets strategically sound, we know we’ve found a winner.

In honor of the six-word biography, here are six things to remember when developing a tagline:

1. Determine the key message you want potential customers to remember.
2. Use a common language your audience will understand.
3. Be honest – say something about your company that’s undeniably true.
4. Use words that evoke a positive feeling about your brand.
5. Keep it simple.
6. Be original.

---