Creative brainstorming: writing a slogan that works

by Maureen O Rorke
Maureen O Rorke owns Maureen O Rorke Public Relations in San Francisco, which specializes in advertising and public relations on recycling and other environmental and civic issues. Her agency coined the word Precycle, which won the 1990 National Recycling Coalition Source Reduction Award. s In any kind of advertising campaign, the goal is to influente behavior. Cereal companies write slogans that will entice consumers to reach for their product on the shelf, magazines write headlines to get readers to send in their subscription card, and charities use ads that motivate potential contributors to mail in donations. Before you even Star-t thinking about slogans, you need to know specifically how you want to change behavior, which means you must be very clear about your goals. Use the steps below to write a oneto two-paragraph statement outlining your concept and goals. 1. What do you have to offer? Identify the service you want to promote. List all the advantages and disadvantages of this service. 2. Who are you trying to reach? List the potential users and some of their attitudes and characteristics. If you want to reach groups that seem reluctant to participate, find personalized reasons for them to Star-t. For example, groups uninterested in the environment might be highly concerned about their children behavior. Instead of asking s them to recycle, your concept strategy might be to ask them to teach their childrn how, which will get results by promoting their interests. 3. What exactly do you want to happen? Identify the specific action you want to inspire and think it through for your target group. For example, if you want working adults to use a drop-off recycling center, figure out the most convenient time for them and create your campaign around it. For example, you might come up with an after work dropoff happy hour. Your final slogan should be generated from these objectives. Now that you have clearly defined your situation, begin the creative process. 4. Write a list of all the words that accurately name the task identified in your original concept. 5. Write down all the adiectives that en thusiastically and accrately describe the task. Don? worry about being silly Great ideas can start offbeat. Use i thesaurus to expand your list ant ideas. 6. Put your words into phrases and sentences that combine positive descriptions with specific suggestions. Take a fresh look at common terms. Some of the best ideas are twist on everyday things: Garbage . . . Ungarbage. Garbage cans . . . Garbage can ts. 7. Spend enough time on the above steps so that you have severa1 ideas that you think most cleverly apply to and solve your problem as originally defined. Along the way you probably come up ll with some great slogan ideas, but if the slogan doesn match your specific goals t - don use it. Keep working until your t slogan works. Testing for effectiveness Test the effectiveness of your slogan by applying these standards: n Clarity. Is your message clear and unambiguous? Restate the slogan to yourself to make sure you saying ; re what you mean to say. Could the message be misconstrued or found offensive? n Substance. Is your slogan justified by your original concept? Make sure the essence of your slogan is linked with your goals, and the specific action you want to inspire. m Persuasion. Not only do you want to tell the world how great your service or program is, you want them to do something about it. Using your list of the advantages of your concept, be sure your campaign gives people a good, concrete reason to do what you want them to do. n Beware of these pitfalls: b Solving your own problems rather than your target group s problems. For example, the land-

The first step in creating an effective slogan is to outline the concept and goal of your advertising campaign.

42 Resource Recycling

December

1990

fil1 crisis is everyone problem. s but from a practica1 standpoint, it more yours than theirs. s Rather than repeatedly honing in on the landfill crisis, giving directions on how to get to the recycling center may solve a target group problem that will help resolve the landfill issue. Your problems should be handled through press releases, not advertising. Conflicting messages. Be sure the implied meaning of your slogan doesn t undercut the explicit message. Deceptive phrases. The sacrifice of reason for rhyme. If you invented a rhyme, great ve - but remember to check for substance and clarity. Negativity. Negative messages depress action instead of motivate change. Unjustified asset-tions. Be careful not to assert that it fun or s easy to recycle or conserve without hacking up these assertions with facts. Love at first sight. If your slogan doesn work by these standards, t let it go. Remember your objective, and try again. Chances are you come up with a headll line that really works.

Case study The following is an example of a campaign we did for San Franciscos Household Hazardous Waste program that we ve outlined step by step. The numbers correspond to the creative brainstorming steps described above. The campaign goal was to make sure residents knew not to discard toxic waste in their garbage cans. 1. What did we have to offer? San Francisco had a Household Hazardous Waste Collection Facility that was free to all residents of the City. The facility s inconvenient location was a disadvantage. 2. Who were we trying to reach? This was a broad-based approach aimed at all residents. Most residents were concerned about environmental issues and interested in information on the subject. The public was relatively unaware that some everyday household products were creating dangerous disposal problems. The disadvantage of this subject was ts unpleasantness. Toxic waste in the household is a disturbing subject that people would rather ignore. Some people might see these words in an ad and skip the rest of the information. Others might resist the changes n daily routine that proper waste disposal habits require. 3. What did we want to happen? Three

4.

5.

6.

7.

things: one, awareness that toxic products didn belong in household gart bage; two, awareness that San Francisco had a safe place for residents to dispose of toxics; and three, a consumer switch to non-toxic alternatives. List of words describing the task: safe, safer, know, be aware, don throw t away, distinguish, know the difference, make a difference, separate, good garbage. Adjectives to describe awareness of household hazardous waste: smart, cautious, in the know, clued in, good garbage, bad garbage, less hazardous household, responsible citizen, garbage do and garbage don trim s ts, toxic tossouts. Some combinations of words: Know safe garbage!, know the difference between bad garbagqand good garbage, making a difference by doing it different, be garbage smart, garbage safety lessons. After much brainstorming, we transformed Garbage do and garbage s don% to Garbage cans, Garbage can ts. The added play on words changed a common idea into a catchy headline.

It was a long process of sorting through ideas until Garbage cans, Garbage can ts carne along. The following guidelines for accepting or rejecting ideas

Resource

Recycling

December

43 1990

i vill help you work until you strike a great )ne. esting our case study slogans or effectiveness I Clarity. Making a difference by doing it different is rejected because of its lack of clarity. A person reading only the headline would have no idea what s it advertised. Garbage do and don is routine and uninspired and ts won get much attention. t I Garbage cans, garbage can says ts exactly what we want people to know and refers to garbage cans, but doesn t mention toxics. Our illustration solved that problem (see page 43). I Substance. Our concept/task was to make people aware that toxics don t belong in their garbage can. Our chosen slogan makes that point. B Persuasion. We felt our slogan made a bold statement but in a friendly and memorable manner, reducing some of the unpleasantness o$,the heavy subject. Our illustration used upbeat colors for the cans and gray tones for the can ts. Garbage do and ts is less s don friendly and seems more imposing and regulatory - and therefore less persuasive. Be garbage smart requires additional information to get the point across. I Pitfalls. A deceptive phrase might be, Town in toxic turmoil, which is an extreme exaggeration and makes the problem seem insurmountable. Soon all our groundwater may be contaminated! would lend no credibility to a campaign if it isn true. t n To throw away causes great dismay rhymes, but it educates no one about toxic waste. Trim Toxic Tossouts is not clear enough. n A negative headline for our campaign: You may be poisoning the environment and not even know it. People don? respond positively to a negative statement, particularly if they don t know how to deal with the problem it describes. w Make all our lives better - dispose sensibly is too broad an assertion. No one is going to believe such claims. Consider your slogan your creation be proud of it and have fun with it! Garbage cans and can got a great rets sponse, both for its originality and its message. When your slogan succeeds, let us know, we love to hear about other d clever, effective campaigns. RR

44

Resource Recycling

Decemtmr

1990