As a person who has invoked the word “human” very often when explaining an ad concept or tagline or whatever, I’m growing concerned that this word is going the way of “life”, “solution”, “innovation”, and all the other words that get latched onto and milked to death by the adworld.

Cisco. The Human Network.

Chevron. Human Energy.

Animal Planet. Surprisingly Human.

No doubt there are other examples.

Don’t get me wrong. I like these lines. I’m just concerned that if another half dozen of them pop up prominently, “human” will become toast.

I once wrote a piece arguing that we shouldn’t compartmentalize BtoB versus BtoC communications because we need to understand that they are all , at bottom, HtoH communications.

Now I’m rethinking whether I should keep on using that term when I’m advocating the use of . . . er . . . human, language.

What will we do, I wonder, when advertising co-opts every good word? We’ve still got a ways to go until we get to that point. I should be safely dead by then, so it’ll be your problem. Good luck. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving.

I’d love to hear some points of view on whether there is an unwritten, understood statute of limitations on advertising ideas and language. Of course, my orientation is taglines, but the question applies more broadly. Is it okay to re-use an idea, an image, a headline or tagline, after a certain amount of time has passed? After all these years in advertising, I have not been able to settle on a sound stance regarding this question. And that’s saying something, given my inclination to opine on most anything.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. It may sound like a self-aggrandizing example, but hey, it’s my blog.

The MD Anderson Cancer Center has carried the tagline, Making Cancer History, for awhile now. I consider it a worthy play on words, meaning both “making cancer a thing of the past” and “developing history-making cancer treatments.”

Of course, it makes sense that I would consider it worthy, since, back in 1990 or 91, I wrote the same phrase as a headline for two-page newspaper spread ad showcasing The Ohio State University Hospitals’ comprehensive cancer care center.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not claiming to be the first to stumble on this idea. It may well have been used, maybe mutiple times, by other medical facilities prior to this. I have no idea. Just as the folks at MD Anderson, I’m sure, have no idea that their tagline was once a headline for The Ohio State University Hospitals.

But, even if they were aware of its prior use, does that mean this set of words is forever unavailable to others? Or is it reasonable to assume that, after, say a decade, any piece of language like this, a headline or tagline, becomes fair game. Or does it depend on the degree of its notoriety (celebrity?)? Is GE’s We Bring Good Things To Life carved in advertising granite, never to be used again, because of its iconic stature. Certainly, many other brands have latched onto very close variations on that line, switching out some other verb to replace “Bringing . . .”, or replacing “Good Things” with some other noun. Is that okay? Or is there a taint, a plagiaristic stigma, attached to any such tagline that exists today?

I’ve struggled with this topic—the whole question of the boundaries around intellectual property—off and on for decades.  The only thing I’ve been able to conclude is that the answer is not obvious, it’s extremely gray and murky, and reasonable people may never be able to come to a consensus point of view on this topic.

I know you’re out there, a few of you at least, reading this. I’d sure like to hear what you think about this.

Two venerable medical institutions provide an interesting contrast regarding the taglines they’ve chosen.

Advertising for The Cleveland Clinic, a world renowned facility, carries this tagline:

Every life deserves world class care.

Setting aside the question of whether this statement is true, and if so, what good it does to make the statement . . .

could they have found a less inspiring or impressive, more cliche way to say it. Four of the six words are on the list of most overused, devoid-of-emotion healthcare tagline terms—life, care and world class. And that word “deserves” is just chocked full of ethical implications and questions that I won’t even begin to address.

Whatz!?

Now, consider the tagline of an equally impressive place, Mount Sinai:

Another day, another breakthrough.

Right away, I understand that this is one remarkable medical center. The fact that breakthroughs happen there elevates them above most medical centers. But the clear implication that these breakthroughs happen frequently, perhaps routinely, places them in special class of elite institutions. They just expect and assume this level of medicine from themselves, which inclines the rest of us to assume the same.

Without knowing anything else about either of these places, if you’ve got a serious cardiac condition, say, which one are you going to choose?

I’ve run across two taglines within the past week that personify Earth, and both are fairly successful lines.

Old Dominion Freight Line, a trucking company, carries the tagline:

Helping The World Keep Its Promises.

Compare this line with those rail company lines I discussed  a couple posts back:

Union Pacific  Building America.

CSX  How Tomorrow Moves.

Old Dominion seems to grasp the purpose of their tagline, to allude to a higher level benefit for its customers, but with some emotion, some passion, which the word “promises” provides. They could have just said The Reliable Trucking Company, but that would be almost as boring and uninspired as The Chemical Company is for BASF, but I’ve already beat that horse.

And because they talk about the world rather than America, it feels somewhat less worn out. Yes, many brands invoke the world as their territory, but somehow it wears better than playing the jingoistic America card.

The other line I noticed is for EarthJustice, an organization trying to use the courts as a means of stopping dirty coal plants. Their tagline is

Because the earth needs a good lawyer.

I really like this line a lot. It is a more surprising and explicit personification, and this serves the brand very well. By treating the earth as a person, and a vulnerable person clearly in jeopardy, it calls up all kinds of emotions—empathy, protectiveness and so forth—helping us view the earth as a living, breathing “organism” that is under attack. The line does a ton of work in cluing us in about not just what EarthJustice does, but where it stands, what it has to offer,  even alluding to the plight of our planet.

It’s heartening to find, once in  a while, a couple of pretty dang good taglines out there. Clearly, some brands get what the deal is with taglines, and some agencies and their writers are still fighting the good fight.