Oxfam is about to launch a campaign to find the hidden copyrighting geniuses among the public. As the Guardian notes here, “Would-be slogan writers go to Oxfam’s site, type four lines of catchy copy to prompt people to give, and wait. The best 14 will be selected and displayed digitally – at eight high-profile sites including Tottenham Court Road and Waterloo Bridge – for a day each. The charity is confident that it will get some great, inspiring copy.”
A novel idea, but will it work? Just how easy is it to write a successful advertising slogan? Here at Swordplay, we’ll be putting our thinking caps on, but meanwhile, here are 10 all-time classic catchphrases.
1. Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.
Given that Electrolux was a Swedish company, did something get lost in translation with this slogan? Or was it deliberately charged with innuendo? Either way, an immaculate copyrighter’s conception.
2. It is. Are you?
Amid fears that the Independent is a contender for the dubious honour of ‘first newspaper to go bust during the credit crunch,’ can it help to turn things around by pulling another superb catchphrase out of the bag? Let’s hope so. (Visual imagery courtesy of Independent Trucks Inc. – no relation.)
3. Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet.
A magnificent example of the genre. The spoofs were pretty good, too. (Image courtesy of Rubared on Flickr.)
4. Only a surfer knows the feeling.
This slogan by surfwear company Billabong brilliantly tapped into surfers’ sense of exclusivity – and made non-surfers want a slice of the action. (With thanks to quickriver on Flickr.)
5. Vorsprung durch technik.
What’s it mean? Who cares? Everyone knows it’s something to do with how good Audi cars are.
6. All the news that’s fit to print.
This one, for the masthead of the New York Times, is an oldie but its quality persists.
7. Have a break – have a Kit Kat.
Unarguable advice. (Image courtesy of C J Hisgrove on Flickr.)
8. Because I’m worth it.
So you had your Kit Kat because you’re worth it? Who do you think you are? Perhaps you should buy a product by L’Oreal and find out. You won’t be alone following the success of this slogan from 2002.
9. Probably the best beer in the world.
Saatchi and Saatchi came up with this slogan for Carlsberg’s UK market in 1973. It began to appear worldwide from the 1980s onwards, and is still going strong. Were the Saatchi brothers given a lifetime supply of Carlsberg for their labours? They should have been. Simple, but brilliant.
10. Go to work on an egg.
In memoriam, Tony Hancock. The comic genius starred in ads financed by the UK Egg Marketing Board which were subsequently banned because they did not promote a varied diet. But the slogan remains timeless, and you can see the original ads here.
For a certain poet, an unspoiled stretch of seaside was like “the holy hush there is in the land on Christmas morning. The roads fairly empty, the sky almost free of aeroplanes and you begin to hear and see and smell once more”.
But who uttered these lines?
(It’s a Monday, and this is your starter for 10 – and yes, we’re fresh to the metropolis, from a coastal sojourn.)
The following words appeared in a Times article in 2003, about the paper’s recently departed Head of Legal, Alastair Brett. They’ve been doing the rounds in the wake of Brett’s sudden exit last week, though without attribution. Who, we wonder, wrote them? Two suspects present themselves – our own occasional scribe, Alex Wade, and Dominic Carman, son of the late, great George (an old mucker of Brett’s). Or was someone else the author? Whatever: the fact remains that Brett was a fearless, tenacious and excellent newspaper lawyer, a man whose commitment to press freedom coursed through every vein in his body. We don’t know the precise reasons for his departure, but he will be missed.
“[He] is known for his impassioned commitment to press freedom – so impassioned that he has been described as “certifiably insane”. Capable of an intimidatory snarl or two, and prepared to be stubborn, Brett is far from mad. He is erudite, charming (so the ladies say), and not known for sitting on the fence. If his sanity has, tongue firmly in cheek, been questioned, one thing not open to doubt is that Brett epitomises the old school Fleet Street lawyer”.
Pictured: Fleet Street - not the same as it used to be.
A curious observation leaps at us from Roy Greenslade’s piece about whether Conrad Black, shortly to roam the high-class hotels of the world again as a free man, will return to the UK and carry out his threat to sue his biographer, Tom Bower, for libel:
I somehow doubt that he would have the appetite, or the funds, to pursue a libel action, but Black marches to the sound of his own drummer, so he might just do that. Even if he did, my money would still be on Bower winning.
Hang on, Roy – what about suing via a no win, no fee deal? Funds or no funds, a CFA would see Conrad through – though maybe he’ll remember what happened to the last press baron who sued Bower. Anyone for Richard Desmond’s curious dalliance with libel?
Pictured: the kind of place in which Conrad Black may be spotted (if not at the Royal Courts of Justice).
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A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.
Πλάτων, Greek philosopher.