© 2024 WKNO FM
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Give Me a Good Slogan

Alexandar Iotzov
/
fotolia.com

Vegetarian? Fresh? Not-frozen? What is it that various companies are trying to achieve by adding "-tarian" to the end of their products? Not a good slogan, that's for sure. 

A few years ago, Wendy’s ad guys created the word “meat-atarian.” He claimed it made sense because Wendy’s meat was fresh, not frozen.

Is that what you get out of “meatatarian?” Sounds to me like a veggie-burger. It’s a stretch to get fresh, not frozen, out of “meat-atarian.”

Now there’s “turkey-tarian.” Must mean Butterball turkeys are fresh, not frozen. Right?

Wrong. “Turkey-tarian,” according to the perpetrators, means Butterball has great products for holiday and every day. It’s not surprising that somebody who wrote “holiday and every day” would think the public would know that “turkey-tarian” means great products. 

Good advertising slogans often are effective.

These new crashed words not so much, especially when “tarian” means fresh for one brand and great products for another. This is the ad strategy du jour.

But is Sprint’s “Framily Plan” as effective as Friends and Family Plan? Burger King’s erstwhile local “satisfries” obviously didn’t satisfy.

Hear how some ad guy explained it to the New York Times: “What’s different,” he said, “is the speed and velocity of the cultural uptake of language. Social and digital platforms provide the ability for something to become a widespread cultural phenomenon very quickly.”

Gimme a good slogan anytime.

To reach Mr. Malmo, hear and read more of his commentaries, or to ask him your own marketing question, http://askmalmo.com.

Related Content