Branding, Blogging & Taglines: What I learned from a 13 year old

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Branding, Blogging & Taglines: What I learned from a 13 year old

Posted by Dale Berkebile on Mon, Sep 13, 2010

Branding that I learned from a 13 year old - image

I was talking to a 13 year old yesterday and found her to be very insightful.

The first thing I realized was that the youth might be the people that pick up on and really connect with the branding we create as a society. Maybe you reach and age and just turn all this stuff off, but kids are sponges and pick up everything.

This young girl, through out our hour long conversation, brought up the topic of brands and taglines all on her own. Now, maybe she does not know what a "brand" or a "tagline" is, but she certainly uses them.

In a conversation about TV she asked, "hey do you guys watch the USA Network?". The group was mostly adults over the age of 30. I'm not sure about the others, but I was thinking that USA was similar to the Cartoon Network or something. Obviously, I am not a big TV guy for the most part.

Then as we all looked a little confused she said, "you know USA, Characters Wanted!" Oh yes, it came back to me with a flash. I knew exactly which channel she was talking about since I remember seeing this tagline and liking it. I do not watch much programming on this channel, but I know the tagline very well.

I was amazed at how well she knew how to clarify the brand by use of the tagline. To her, it was not a promotional tool at all, it was just part of a way to define the channel to help tell what, the USA Network "IS".

Wow! Talk about the power of positioning. It looks like the USA Network hired a solid agency for their (re)branding!

But this also made me think about the age thing. It seems to me that adults are very good at blocking all this data out.

Have old people met their quota of useless data and will their brains hold anymore? Or are they more experienced and know these are tools to sell us and totally block them out?

So, somehow it came up that I write articles for my work. She asked about that because she is creative and found that interesting and when I told her that "yes, I write articles, but they are on our company blog".

"YOU BLOG?" was her next question. She was quite surprised, that anyone that was not in school– blogged. Apparently, she blogs for class and she really likes it, much better than doing reports and papers the old fashion way. She loves that others can comment on her blog.

This is some advice to all you blogging nay-sayers– even a 13 year old gets the importance of ENGAGEMENT.

But none the less, it really struck her as funny that an old person blogs. I am 38, but very young at heart. I was shocked that I have now become "OLD", ha! I do remember being her age and 38 was near death in my mind. Oh, well.

This brought up some other ideas on blogging. Since we promote and recommend blogging to all our clients. I started thinking, maybe this is why it is hard for the 40+ age group to get on board with this blogging stuff I am selling. Isn't that stuff for kids?

Well apparently this is a wide view from both the "OLD" and the "YOUNG". I personally have been messing around with blogs for 3-4 years on and off, but only seriously blogging every week for about the last year and a half. It is part of my weekly habits and second nature by now. So since this seems so everyday to me, I am always surprised to hear other peoples thoughts on blogging.

If you are a young whippersnapper, than "get off the lawn" and start blogging.

If you are a business owner or marketer and complaining about the economy. Well then, turn off the news and start writing about what you do, who you are, and more importantly how you help your customers. This will start to rebuild your business even in the worse recession this country has seen in our lifetime.

Listen to this young girl and become part of the cutting edge or "Young People" by blogging. You will start to build a strong brand through your blog and start to promote your yourself or company through your tagline being used on a repetitive basis just like the USA Network's Characters Wanted.

Here are a few questions for you -
please comment below to share your answers.

Do you blog?
How old are you?
If you blog, how often do you post articles?
Do you have a strong tagline?
Do you use it often?
Do people use it when they are talking to you?

Competition is tough…
get BRANDWISE!

Oh yeah, thanks for the inspiration Payten!

Tags: Brand Building, Blogging, Blogs, Blogosphere, Blog Comments, Taglines

COMMENTS

Do you blog? YES
ow old are you? 32
How often do you blog? 2 TIMES PER WEEK

Do you have a strong tagline? YES, Test Drive Technologies... "Way More Than Kickin' Tires & Takin' Pictures"
Do you use it often? EVERYDAY on emails, website, blogs, Facebook & Twitter
Do people use it when they are talking to you? WORKING TOWARDS THAT

posted @ Monday, September 13, 2010 10:56 AM by Steven Paul - Test Drive Technologies

Glad to hear that you are working towards the customer usage of the tagline. Want a professional tip on taglines? Keep it short and sweet. Honestly, I would recommend dropping the "& takin' pictures" part of your tagline. I would just go with "Way more than Kickin' Tires". Hope this helps and wish you the best. Thanks for commenting Steven!

posted @ Monday, September 13, 2010 11:04 AM by Dale Berkebile

Good article and tie in with real world user. As the young ones grow up their online habits will continue and many will influence their parents so businesses must adapt or die.

Yes
60
At least once per week
No
No
No

posted @ Monday, September 13, 2010 11:11 AM by Chuck Jones

Chuck, thanks for sharing. I'm glad you found this interesting. I especially love the fact that you are an exception to the rule. I love that you are online and effectively using blogging and inbound marketing. You are wise and really at the cutting edge of things both with inbound marketing, but also with your age group. You are very hip and with it. So good for you and keep showing people that this blog stuff isn't just for the young whippersnappers we are able to do it to and quite well.

I would ask, have you ever thought about developing a tagline? One that helps define your company, product or service? It might do you good to consider it. Give me a shout if you are interested in the conversation.

I will tell everyone that it took us probably about 8 years or so before we rebranded and developed the whole get brand wise tagline idea. We ask the question Are you brand wise? and customers respond, no, we need to get brand wise. That is pretty powerful when a customer is saying we want to be brand wise.

This means they actually get what we do and have an interest in using us. It is a powerful mindshift that you can see happening when the customer or prospect uses your brand info in their vocabulary. Ask Hubspot how successful the term "Inbound Marketing" has made them.

posted @ Monday, September 13, 2010 11:29 AM by Dale Berkebile

This post rings true, Dale ... on so many fronts.

As you know, I am still spotty on blogging consistently, but working on it each week. Right now, my goal is 2x a week.
Age: 38

Tagline: Yes - Giving Your Vision A Voice.
Do I use it often? It's on all of my correspondence and marketing collateral.
Do people use it when talking about me? Not really, although many know that's my tagline. I am more defined by my Twitter handle, because it more accurately describes me: BLDRsWriter.

Thanks for this great post, Dale!

posted @ Wednesday, September 15, 2010 8:52 AM by Tess Wittler

Tess,
Thanks for the great comment. I know blogging can be tough, but committing to it is a must, in order to out perform your competitors. As MY tagline states - Competition is TOUGH so get BRANDWISE. What I mean by this is not only hire Brandwise to beat your competition, but also and company that is or wants to beat their competitors need to be brand wise or wise about their brand. This means sometimes doing things others are unable to or unwilling to do. Like blog twice a week. Even for a large firm this can sometimes be a challenge so if you as a smaller company can do it, how long will it be before you start becoming the resource for all things writing for the building industry?

This is a great way to capitalize on others laziness. The repetition thing really works, You know USA, Character's Wanted! Word spoken by a child speak volumes about regular ongoing branding. So I ask this to all reading this. How many times have you reached your target audience? Once? Twice? Or maybe, 104 since you write a blog post twice a week and these prospects or subscribed to your blog. Or maybe 35 times because although this prospect is not a subscriber, over the year, they came back to the valuable resource you have created.

Tess, Giving your Vision a Voice is a powerful statement. This is a pretty good tagline. I am wondering though if there are other ways to use it to make it stick more with your audience. Have you tried using it in communication? Like when you meet a new person or answering the phone? You know something like, "Hi Tess Wittler. The Builder's Writer- Giving your Vision a Voice."

This might help it stick with people. How cool would it be if clients told a prospect, "Hey you need to go talk to Tess, she will give your vision a voice.".

Just some thoughts here. Keep up the good work, Tess and I wish you much more success. Good Luck!

posted @ Wednesday, September 15, 2010 9:14 AM by Dale Berkebile

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