Anatomy of a slogan.

In my quest to find local greatness, Fred from Tires and Wheels is making some noise. It’s some of his early work, a bit unfocused, but hinting at things to come. It’s here you can see the humble beginnings of a slogan take shape, even if it has nothing to do with anything. “We’ll do the damn thing” could be for a contractor as much as as anyone. But I like Fred. He’s Bob, but scrappier. He looks like he would knock Bob the hell out. In times like these, you need a slogan you can trust, and Fred’s the man.

This is part of the problem with awkward slogans in local spots though: When business takes off and the company becomes a regional player, the slogan remains. They become part of the “brand” experience. Annoying, but endearing too. When Bob walked away from “Come on down!” the ads lacked something. This is Private Joker’s duality of local advertising. People remember tacky, but often times an agency tries to evolve tacky into almost tasteful.

However, people still perceive your product as cheap inexpensive because that’s what you conditioned them to do. Better that Bob tone down* the delivery of his “money shot” phrase. Change your crappy logo, fine. But a catch phrase people recognize delivered by a scrappy owner? Gold baby, gold!

*Do I have any info on a correlation between a decline in sales and when the different spots ran? Absolutely not. You’ll have to ask Bob. I suspect though that the crowd who’s only willing to spend $399 on a 12-piece living room set doesn’t really care what the ad says.