Today, I mourn the loss of another great tag line replaced by some generic words no one will remember.
The trashed tag is Quaker Oats and Goodby's "Go humans go." I loved it because it was a CPG client being different and having a point of view. It wasn't your typical sign-off in the category. And it gave the ancient Quaker Man a little cool factor, if you ask me.
image credit: http://marvelmoore.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/quaker.jpg
Look at him. He knows something you don't know.
Now, picture that same billboard with the new tag line, "Love life." I just don't get the same fuzzy feeling from the Quaker Man anymore. I don't need him to tell me to love life; I've got Oprah and self-help books and my mom to do that, not to mention 84,000 other brands shouting positivity at me right now. How is that line ownable?
I always wonder why clients do these random things that they do. We'll never know the whole story. But it does bring up a bigger question--can tag lines survive for more than a few months anymore? Or do clients know something I don't know?
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