If a picture is worth a thousand words, then they’re really important in advertising, wouldn’t you say? But you can’t take pictures with you, can you?

But slogans… A slogan says so much with so little. It’s the brand’s memo to the record, and that’s a big deal, wouldn’t you say?

I also think we can learn a lot from a good slogan. Every brand has a logo, but not every brand has a slogan. Well, here are the Top 5 Brand Slogans (in no particular order) according to me.

Just Do It.

Brand: Nike
Personally, I was never crazy about this one, but it seemed to define the brand for a generation (and maybe longer). But it’s so much more than just a slogan. It’s a mantra and a call-to-action.

The slogan was coined by Dan Weiden, co-founder of Wieden+Kennedy, for a 1988 ad campaign, which debuted on July first that year. Nike trademarked the slogan in 1989, and it was chosen by Advertising Age as one of the top slogans of the 20th century.

Got Milk?

Brand: California Milk Processing Board
What I’ve always love about this slogan is that it’s a question. But it’s also so much more than just a question. It’s a rhetorical question. It’s cute and it’s challenging, and the creative is as simple and wholesome as a glass of milk.

The slogan was originally created for the California Milk Processing Board, and subsequently licensed out to similar organizations throughout the US. It was also credited with greatly increasing milk sales in California, but not nationwide.

It’s toasted.

Brand: Lucky Strike
Okay, so a lot of us has have  that scene from Mad Men where Don Draper comes up with the slogan. But the slogan is actually much older than that. Lucky Strike started using the slogan in 1917 to inform consumers that their tobacco was toasted rather than sun-dried.

Regardless, everything Donald Draper says during his pitch pretty much sums up why this slogan is such a great on: “Everyone else’s tobacco is poisonous. Lucky Strike’s is toasted [...] Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And you know what happiness is? It’s the smell of a new car, it’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard, on the side of the road, that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is OK. You are OK.”

The snack that smiles back…

Brand: Goldfish (Pepperidge Farm)
What I love about this slogan is how it’s tied to a jingle. It gets in your head and burrows into mind share in a harmless and playful kind of way:

“Here’s our jingle for Goldfish/Those baked and not fried Goldfish/The wholesome snack that smiles back until you bite their heads off/Did you know they’re made with real cheese/Even though they look like fishies/The snack that smiles back, Goldfish!” [emphasis my own]

This appeals to the whole family because singing that song is fun for the whole family — and everyone else, for that matter. If you’re a parent, they are a “wholesome snack that smiles back.” And if you’re a kid, you get to “bite their heads off!” I mean, how cool is that?

The slogan has been in use since 2002.

The other white meat.

Brand: National Pork Board
What I really love about this slogan is that, according to the US Dept. of Agriculture, pork is not a white meat. But that doesn’t matter because this slogan challenges us to use our imagination to prove it right.

And that’s what I think is so great about this slogan: it involves the consumer. And in that way, it kinda uses the foot in the door technique.

This slogan’s campaign began in March in 1987. By 1991, US pork sales had increased by 20%.

Any big ones I missed? What are your favorite slogans?

This past weekend was Podcamp Montreal 2009 where I delivered a session called Sex, Trust, & Transparency: What Would Donald Draper Blog?

I set out to explore social media, personal branding, and what bloggers and podcasters could learn from Mad Men protagonist, Donald Draper. The audience was great, contributed so much input, and together, we covered so many different aspects of trust & transparency.

"I sell products, not advertising."

Blogging and podcasting are about self expression, about being able to share your ideas without any barriers. They’re  about community: building community and joining community. So the question was: How would Donald Draper use Social Media to build his personal brand today?

For starters, Donald Draper wouldn’t whore himself. He’d define his brand and target an appropriate audience give them what they wanted.

"Everybody else's tobacco is poisonous. Lucky Strikes’ is toasted."

Then he’d start off with his brand’s story. A story about what gives him a personality that his targeted audience can connect with. He’d define what makes him unique. What makes him special. What makes him relevant to that targeted audience.

And then he’d fill a demand for what his targeted audience wanted. Not his friends. Not his “connections.” But that defined, targeted audience.

Because as a blogger, his audience would be the client, and Donald Draper has a very intuitive grasp what his clients need. And Donald Draper is very good at respecting those needs and paying attention to them. He wouldn’t neglect those needs just to be a social media rockstar.

"I don’t know you at all and this is personal and it’s not up for discussion."

He wouldn’t talk about his personal life or what he likes doing on the weekend. And he definitely wouldn’t gossip. Neither of these would do anything to help him fill the demand of his audience.

And this is why Donald Draper wouldn’t be transparent. Sure, he’d share his thoughts about what his audience is interested in. But those thoughts would be calculated and pre-meditated.

Because when it come to building a community around a brand — personal or otherwise — what you call transparency was invented by guys like me to invoice clients for tweets. ;)

Since Donald Draper’s day, brands have transcended the ad industry and extended into our very identities. The idea of a brand has become so entrenched in society that we don’t even have personalities anymore. We have personal brands.

And just as Dick Whitman recreated himself as Don Draper, personal branding let’s us recreated ourselves. So while Donald Draper might not blog, Dick Whitman most certainly would.

"You are the product. You feeling something. That’s what sells. Not them. Not sex."

So I guess a better question would be: What would Dick Whitman blog? Because let’s face it, as incompatible as Donald Draper’s personality is with the open, transparent culture of social media, he’s just a product.

Donald Draper is the personal brand of Dick Whitman, someone from humble beginnings that wanted to make it big in the big city. And that someone would use any relevant tool available to them, including social media, to create a brand that was relevant to the audience that they wanted to target.

The difference between Marketing, PR, Advertising and Branding

I’ve been thinking about how marketing, advertising, and PR all play distinct roles, and how they come together to complement one another. This is what I’ve come up with so far.

Marketing is about filling a demand by developing a product or service.

Branding is about giving that product or service a life and story of its own (maybe a story about how it fills that demand).

Advertising is about establishing a dialog with customers and prospects by telling that story.

And public relations, well, I guess that’s about teaching that story to the general public.

This is why social media can be very, very scary. It lets people share their version of your story. They can remix it, mash it up, and even add to it by telling the story of their own experience with your brand.

But does that mean you shouldn’t tell your story at all?

I had these thoughts while weighing the image above against something that Al Ries wrote in AdAge:

Advertising is focused externally and attempts to set up a dialog with customers and prospects. Marketing is focused internally and attempts to set up a dialog with top management in order to develop a product or a service “with a story.”

Without a story, no advertising, no matter how brilliant, is going to work.

If you’re not trying to fill some demand, there’s no story to tell (and no real brand). And without those things, you don’t really have anything to advertise. So you have to have a story to tell, even if it might get hijacked, remixed, and mashed-up.

But what do you think?

So here’s a tactic that social media probably can’t do anything about: scent marketing. This is a clip from WatchMojo.com, the company with whcih I got my start as a video blogger.

Something interesting that the interviewee points out is that “most of the research suggests that [scent] doesn’t change your mood; but it can make you spend more money, it can make you linger longer, and it can impact how positively you evaluate products or the store you’re in.” Talk about a sweet (smellling) tactic for FMCGs. In any case, I’ll let the expert do the rest of the talking…