The Advertising Slogan Hall of Fame Announces the Most and Least Successful U.S. Slogans of 2003

The Advertising Hall of Fame and its Sloganalysis diagnostic tool helps to pick the Mosties" and Leasties" of the past years new U.S. campaign slogans and taglines.

London, UK (PRWEB) January 9, 2004 --2003 was a memorable year in slogans, finding some new taglines an unqualified success – with other classic lines left by the wayside in favor of replacements which weren't always improvements. Using his Sloganalysis® slogan diagnostic tool, slogans expert and "Chief SloganMaven" Timothy R. V. Foster – founder of AdSlogans.com and The Advertising Slogan Hall of Fame (Adslogans.com/fame) – announces his picks for the 10 strongest and weakest new slogans to appear in 2003.

The Sloganalysis tool measures any tagline against ten key benchmarks:

1. It's memorable
2. It recalls the brand name
3. It includes a key benefit
4. It differentiates the brand
5. It reflects the brand personality
6. It's believable
7. It's strategic
8. It's competitive
9. It's original
10. It's not in current use by others

Those slogans which emerged with high scores, as most effective, were regarded as 'Mosties', while those which scored low were grouped as least effective, or as 'Leasties'.

THE MOSTIES: Foster's Top Ten 2003 U.S. Lines"

Foster comments that "All of the Top 10 'Mosties' feature excellent benefit statements offering strength, promise and memorability. Some, like Folgers, made their point with a nice pun, while others, like Miller Lite, offer a vital confirmation of action. Good work by all!"

Foster's U.S. 'Mosties' for 2003 (with Sloganalysis % Score)
Brillo Scrub 'n' Toss: Work 'em hard. Work 'em long. Let 'em go. (95%)
Burger King: The fire's ready. (95%)
Citi: Live richly. (95%)   
Dell Computer: Easy as Dell. (100%)
Folgers: It's uncanny. (95%)   
Jaguar: Unleash a Jaguar. (100%)   
Miller Lite: Good call. (95%)   
Oregon: Oregon is for dreamers. (100%)   
Staples: That was easy. (95%)   
Talk America: The phone company. Improved. (95%)

THE LEASTIES: The Ten Weakest-Scoring U.S. Lines (with Sloganalysis % Score)

While the above slogans are strong candidates for Foster's Advertising Slogan Hall of Fame, as always there's another side to the coin. Based on Sloganalysis® scores, below are the results for 2003's least effective taglines – along with Foster's suggestions for improvement, in each case:

Chevrolet: An American revolution. (65%)   
Foster Says: It's not original. The line was previously used by Dodge in 1986. Are they saying a 2004 Chevy is on a par with an '86 Dodge? What about "Revolutionary!" instead?

Chrysler: Drive & love. (75%)
Foster Says What does it mean? See McDonald's (below). Drive to McDonald's in your Chrysler? An improvement might be something like, "Makes you love to drive."

General Electric: Imagination at work. (60%)
Foster Says: A me-too choice, especially following GE's decades-long tagline, "We Bring Good Things to Life." The new slogan just doesn't differentiate the brand. Competitors are already using "Ideas at work" (Black & Decker), "Ingenuity at work" (Ford, ABB, Bank of America), "Innovation at work" (Sony), and "Intelligence at work" (Pitney Bowes), just to name a few. You could juggle any of these lines and brands and not get any different message. I'd suggest that if they're going to build on this new line, they'll have to spend heavily to get a rather innocuous line into unique brain space.

KFC: You gotta KFC what's cookin'! (50%)
Foster Says: What does the verb "to KFC" mean? Should it not mean "to apply proprietary knowledge and skill?" It doesn't in this context. So what is it supposed to mean? I might suggest something like "KFC your meal." It's campaignable: "KFC your lunch," "KFC your dinner," "KFC your picnic," etc., etc.

Las Vegas: What happens here, stays here. (35%)
Foster Says: Seems to imply your money does not get out alive. Is this good for a gambling center? A stronger alternative might be, "It can happen here. Even to you."

McDonald's: I'm lovin' it. (60%)
Foster Says: Probably the weakest and most disappointing new tagline choice of the year. Who's talking here? What does it mean? A much stronger approach would be something like, "Everybody loves McDonald's."

Sears: Good life, great prices. (75%)
Foster Says: What does "good life" mean? It's marketing department talk. A clearer and more straightforward variation might be stronger – something like, "We have what you want, especially great prices."

Subway: So you can feel good about being good, and OK about being bad. (55%)
Foster Says: Too complex. And it sounds like a con. Will not work with people with low attention spans. My suggestion? "Feel good about your food."

Timex: Life is ticking. (75%)
Foster Says: The line seems unfinished, and the meaning could easily be taken as depressing or ominous – Life is ticking away? Life is a bomb? I might suggest something building on the strong brand equity Timex has built for decades – something like, "Timex: Still ticking."

UPS: What can Brown do for you? (75%)
Foster Says: UPS been attempting to rebrand itself simply as 'Brown' for awhile now, and I'm still not sure it's entirely successful. After all, is that the best connotation? What about something more specific and suggestive of strength, as in, "What can the Brown Brigade do for you?" Maybe it should be 'The Brown'.

Timothy R. V. Foster's expertise on the subject of slogans is in high demand from such respected publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times Creative Business, Adweek, and Brandweek, among others. Recent radio interviews with Mr. Foster were staged by BBC Radio Wales, BBC World Service and Doug Whiteman of the Associated Press's national U.S. business program.

ABOUT ADSLOGANS.COM
Reminding companies worldwide that when it comes to slogans, "It Pays to Check," AdSlogans.com is utilized by advertising agencies worldwide to check on prior use of new tagline ideas and to review competitive activity. Concentrated around a unique and comprehensive global slogan database founded by Timothy R. V. Foster in 1991, AdSlogans.com is partnered with Xtreme Information, the world's foremost advertising monitoring service (which reviews 7000 TV commercials and 25,000 press ads each month).

AdSlogans.com's search services are used by every one of the top twenty-five advertising agencies in London, plus (thanks to the Internet) many more from as far afield as Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, UAE and the USA.

ABOUT SLOGANALYSIS®
The new, improved Sloganalysis® diagnostic tool measures any slogan against 10 key benchmarks (now simplified down from 25). The free service lets you 'send your slogan to the shrink' for a quick picture of any line's strengths and weaknesses. It can be found at Adslogans.com/Sloganalysis.
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MORE INFORMATION
For more information on Timothy R. V. Foster or AdSlogans.com, or for intelligent commentary upon the advertising industry in general, please contact 'Chief SloganMaven' Timothy R. V. Foster in the U.K. at 44 (0) 20 8763 2225, or via e-mail at fostair@adslogans.com.

For your convenience, photos and logos are attached. For additional publicity or background materials, meanwhile, please contact publicist Angela Mitchell in the U.S., at (954) 983-5877 or via e-mail at Paramitch@aol.com.