Just saw a new commercial for Oral B. The new tagline is:

Life Opens Up When You Do.

I confess I didn’t really process the content of the commercial up to when the tagline showed up, so that might explain why I’m puzzled. But I doubt it. All I could figure out is that maybe they’re saying, when you brush with Oral B, it protects you from bad breath (one of the ostensible benefits of Oral B), and so your social world “opens up” because you’re not driving people away with stinky breath. Could that be it?

So, kudos for an intriguing, arresting tagline. Points off, however, for bafflingness.

The degree of skepticism, cynicism, mistrust and often loathing, that banks enjoy is fairly unique, comparable only, perhaps, to insurance companies. Oh, and ad agencies, too, I suppose.

To the extent that banks truly understand in how little regard they are held, it makes committing to a tagline a big challenge. To a hostile audience, a tagline can become just a setup line for some expression of hostility on the part of customers.

Chase What Matters.

“Yeah, right, like your bottom line for instance?” “It sounds like greed in sheep’s clothing.” “Chase what matters to whom, you evil leeches?”

Citi Never Sleeps. “Yeah, because they’re at it 24/7, cooking up new ways to screw us.”

With this in mind, I’d like to consider two Bank taglines that have caught my attention recently. I may have mentioned one of them in an earlier post, but I really don’t feel like digging into the archives, so if there’s some redundancy here, cut me some slack. Maybe what I have to say bears repeating, yes?

Fifth Third Bank’s tagline is  The Curious Bank.

At first, I wasn’t taken with this line. Ever since they came up with their current brand name, I’ve been curious how such an unpronounceable name could ever have made it through the decision-making process. So that’s what I thought of first when I initially saw this tagline. “Hmm, yes, curious, indeed, that a bank could be so stupid as to choose this unpronounceable name. To speak nothing of the fact that “third” and “fifth” are generally the places that losers come in, trailing those who came in first and second.”

However, as happens with many good taglines, the full meaning of the line is only revealed over time as the advertising campaign plays out. Now that I’ve had time to experience some of that campaign, I like the sentiment the tagline expresses. It feels more open and less arrogant that most banks feel. Of course, they face the same problem that every bank faces. If your tagline feels sort of customer-friendly, it immediately, automatically strains credibility. Because anyone familiar with the business model upon which banks are built knows that their regular old retail customers are, from a purely business perspective, the enemy. And those who aren’t familiar with the bank business model will still know that such a customer-friendly tagline is almost certainly a lie, because we’ve all experienced first hand how dismissive, unforgiving, and inhuman banks are in their treatment of even their most loyal, longstanding customers. Of course there are outliers, people who don’t have this loathing for banks. My sister, for instances, loves her bank. Of course, she also loves the federal government, so go figure.

At the risk of making this discussion of The Curious Bank all about me, I must inject this: The tagline reminds of me of a tagline I tried like crazy to sell to Pearle Vision Centers way back when they were a thriving enterprise. My good friend and hero, the late Scott Ferraiolo, had written their iconic tagline, Nobody Cares For Eyes More Than Pearle, and I had made it my mission to supplant that tagline with one of my own. The line I advocated for was Nosey Eyecare. Basically the same thought as The Curious Bank, the idea being that the more we know about you, the better we can serve you. Ironically, the client squinted at, and ultimately couldn’t see, the brilliance of this line.

The other bank that got my attention is Ally Bank. Their tagline is

No Nonsense. Just People Sense.

This is an even more audacious, hard-to-buy line than even Fifth Third’s. No nonsense? Really? At a BANK? And people sense on top of it?
Get outta here. Who you kiddin’?

What I like about these lines is that, in theory, they both give their respective banks something to live up to and be held accountable for. If either of these banks could actually fulfill on their promise, wow, that would be unprecedented in banking history.

Aside from the small matter of not being credible, I like what they’re trying to convey. It’s a step in the right direction. And in both cases, the campaigns these lines anchor seem to be providing some reason to believe the tagline, or at least to consider suspending belief for a little while, until it becomes apparent that it’s all a big lie, as usual.

Before I launch this diatribe, I’d like to apologize for almost a month of silence. But not really. In fact, I’m very pleased about this lapse, because of the reason for it. It’s because I’ve been so busy lately writing taglines for various clients. Yay for me.

Hopefully, this problem will continue to interfere with my blogging stuff.

I’m not an Angie’s List fan. My experience with this service has been very bad. Three different times I chose to go with a company that was very positively reviewed by Angie’s List, and in every case the service I got was terrible. Not mediocre or less than satisfactory. Terrible.

For the sake of this post, let’s assume my experience was an anomaly. Assuming that, let’s talk about the tagline. In case you’ve forgotten it, (which would be understandable), their tagline is (yawn):

Angie’s List  Reviews You Can Trust.

This line commits what I consider a cardinal sin, not just for taglines, but for advertising in general. It’s about that word, “trust”. My recommendation is that this word NEVER be invoked in an advertising context. Trust is not something you can tell someone to do or have and then expect them to do it. Trust is only earned. It doesn’t come about any other way, least of all as a result of the company telling you to trust it.

So, obviously, I hate this tagline for that reason alone. But there’s another reason, having to do with timidity or spinelessness or something similar, of the line. As it happens, Angie’s List has a headline on their website, (or at least on the website as portrayed in one of their commercials), that makes a very similar point to that of their tagline. But is SO MUCH better. It should be their tagline. The line is . . .

Ridiculously Reliable Reviews.

First, this line invokes “reliability” rather than “trust.” Much better. Reliable is much easier to substantiate credibly. I’m not automatically suspect at the mention of “reliable” the way I am with “trust.”

Just as important, the word “ridiculously” renders the line so dang human. Suddenly, Angie’s List isn’t some sterile, faceless sort of corporate brand, but rather, a kind of funny, likable brand pal. How could they have failed to realize the superiority of this as a tagline?

I’ll tell you how. They’re chicken. They had the courage to use it on the website, but they just didn’t quite have the guts to commit, to be real with the tagline itself. This is the Law of Centropy in action. Advertising may start out at the edges (you remember “edgy” advertising) but there are powerful, foolish forces at work within the process, and the industry, that pull ideas toward the center, trimming edges and rounding off angles.

Angie, Angie, Angie. What a squandered opportunity.