Do Brands "JUST DO IT"? Studying the Effectiveness of B2C Slogans

Abstract

This study aims to contribute to a more effective creation and management of slogans in the context of branding and advertising, testing which factors might influence the brand slogan recall and recognition. An empirical study was conducted, via a self-administered original questionnaire, applied to a sample of 156 elements, analyzing the recall and recognition rates for twenty-nine slogans, from nine different product categories: retailing, cokes, juices, water, sports, telecoms (mobiles), beer, personal care, and ice-cream. The independent variables used to analyze each slogan recall and recognition were: slogan length, slogan antiqueness, brand industry, slogan language, brand consuming frequency and sympathy towards the brand. A positive relationship was found between the antiqueness of slogans and their spontaneous recall. It was also found that the spontaneous recall of slogans has high variation among brands and shorter slogans have higher recall rates. Other variables (slogan language, brand consuming frequency and sympathy towards the brand) did not show a significant impact on the recall/recognition of slogans.

Keywords: Slogans; Branding; Positioning; AdvertisingPromotion

Introduction

Historically, the origin of slogans relate to the host and battle cries used by the Scottish clans, because the word “slogan” is taken from the Gaelic “slaugh-ghairm” (Bauerly & Tripp, 1997; Aboulian & McBride, 2007; Figueiredo, 2005). Slogans are a rhetorical device (Denton Jr, 1980) and they usually are a brief expression or phrase, constructed and utilized in marketing, to build or reinforce an image or identity (O'guinn et al. 2011).

There are several types of slogans. A slogan might be a single word (e.g. 3M - “Innovation”) or a phrase including or not the object/brand name (e.g. “Intel inside”). Slogans can be used by an organization (e.g. Red Cross - “The greatest tragedy is indifference”), company (e.g. LG “Life’s Good”), brand (e.g. Nike – “Just do it”), product (e.g. Gillette Venus razor - “Reveal the goddess in you”), individual person (e.g. Obama - “Yes We can”), cause (e.g. French revolution - “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”) or idea (e.g. Jedi - “May the force be with you”). The present study focuses on brand slogans, and they can be defined as “short phrases that communicate descriptive or persuasive information about a brand” (Supphellen & Nygaardsvik, 2002, p.386). This type of slogan is the one that assists the brand’s selling proposition (Dowling & Kabanoff, 1996).

Although, it is frequently assumed among companies the role of slogans in marketing, Reece et al. (1994) mention that several research studies on slogans aim to provide insights to the discussion if they are more an ornament or if they are a relevant element of the promotion mix.

Problem Statement

Research Questions

The general research question established in this study was: “which factors most affect the effectiveness of slogans, considering their recall and recognition?”. The results and findings of the present study intend to contribute to a more effective creation and management of slogans, in the context of branding management and advertising.

To evaluate the effectiveness of slogans, the recall and recognition were used as dependent variables, because the prominence of activation of a brand in memory has been linked to brand choice, since it makes the associations about the brand more salient and, consequently, the brand has a higher chance to be included in the evoked and consideration set (Vieceli & Shaw, 2010). Besides that, Rosengren and Dahlén (2006) mention that recall and recognition are main elements of memorability commonly employed to evaluate brand awareness.

According to Kumar (2000), it is expected that consumers recall less than 25% of the advertising they are exposed to on a day. This led us to test Kumar’s (2000) threshold of 25%, applied to the recall of slogans, as being Ha) Individuals recall less than 25% of slogans.

Since brands exist in a cluttered environment competing with other stimulus for the attention of individuals (Rosengren & Dahlén, 2006), the coherence and repetition of the brand messages are important in creating and establishing the brand positioning. Therefore, they should be managed in a long-term perspective, as well as slogans. According to that, a second hypothesis was stated as Hb) The most senior slogans have higher recall rates than the most recent ones (H0: =0).

From the slogan definition results one of its desirable characteristics – to be short. Besides that, since the cognitive processing capacity is a limited resource, simple-syntax words and shorter words might have a higher correct recall (Bradley & Meeds, 2002). Corder (1986) also identified the importance of shorter slogans in the learning process. Based on those facts, it was established Hc) The shorter slogans have higher recall rates than the more lengthy ones (H0: =0).

According to Katz and Rose (1969), the significant incorrect recall of slogans and advertising in heavily advertised markets can be explained by the industry/product category they belong to. This fact was the basis to formulate Hd) There is no significant difference between the recall of slogans from different industries.

Fuertes-Olivera et al. (2001) and Harris and Attour (2003) mention that, in some cases, the slogans are translated and, in other cases, they are not. Due to that, in the present study it was also tested if He) There is no significant difference between the recall of slogans between the language they are communicated .

Rice and Bennett (1998) refer that individuals are more likely to pay attention and process information related to brands they like. So, the engagement with the brand might be a possible explanation for different levels of slogan recall, considering the tendency of consumers to include important brands as part of their self-concepts (Sprott et al., 2009). This means that brand usage and brand love might influence the slogan recall/recognition. According to these, Hg) and Hi) were formulated as Hg) Brands with higher consuming frequency have higher slogan recall rates and Hi) Brands with higher consumer sympathy have higher slogan recall rates .

Research Methods

To suit the research questions, an empirical quantitative study was implemented, via administration of an original self-administrated questionnaire, applied face-to-face.

The sample constituted of 156 undergraduate business and marketing students, considering a convenience sampling technique.

The dependent variables measured were the recall and recognition rates of twenty one brand slogans, from nine business-to-consumer product categories: retailing, cokes, juices, water, sports, telecoms (mobiles), beer, personal care and ice-cream. In each product category, the leading brands (leader and challengers) were studied, due to their high and recent mass media advertising investments and exposures. A descriptive summary of the twenty one slogans/brands included in the study is presented in table 2 .

Taking in consideration the literature review, the independent variables used were: slogan antiqueness, slogan length, slogan language, product category, brand consuming frequency and sympathy towards the brand.

As noted before, the dependent variables were slogan recall and recognition. These variables were operationalized measuring the spontaneous/non-aided recall of each slogan and the aided/assisted recognition of the slogan. To do so, cues were provided, since they are an effective and common way to measure the salience of a product/brand (Alba & Chattopadhyay, 1986). The cue used to measure the spontaneous/non-aided recall was the name of each brand. To measure the aided recognition, three slogan alternatives were provided for each brand: the actual slogan, an older slogan and a mix of them.

The independent variables were operationalized as:

• slogan antiqueness: after gathering information of the launch date for each slogan, three ordinal categories were established : less than one year; between one year and four years; five years or more (Table 3 );

• slogan length: the number of characters (including spaces) in each slogan was counted, reflecting a quantitative ratio variable (Table 3 );

• slogan language: each slogan was coded into one of three nominal categories – not translated (national), translated with the same meaning of the original slogan or translated with a different meaning from the original slogan (table 2 );

• product category: simple nominal identification of the main product category for each brand;

• brand consuming frequency: simple item ordinal categorization (very frequent consuming/user; moderate consuming/user; less consuming/user), using Diamantopoulos et al. (2012) indications;

• sympathy towards the brand: simple item ordinal categorization (“have sympathy towards the brand”; “the brand is indifferent”; “have antipathy towards the brand”), using Diamantopoulos et al. (2012) indications.

Findings

According to Stewart and Clark (2007), a slogan should be readily associated with the brand it represents, which led us to calculate the spontaneous recall rate and assisted recognition rate for each slogan. The assisted recognition rate was coded in two categories – “correct” or “incorrect slogan”.

The spontaneous recall was analysed coding the open responses in six mutually exclusive categories. The responses with a correct indication of the slogan were divided in (results presented in table 4 ):

• totally correct slogan (the actual slogan for that brand was written);

• partially correct slogan (at least 50% correct words);

On the other hand, some respondents did not indicate any slogan for the brand, but others responded with an incorrect indication of the slogan. Those responses were coded in (results presented in table 5 ):

• incorrect slogan, because it was written the jingle

• incorrect slogan, because it was written an older version of the slogan

• incorrect slogan, due to other factors

The associated results of the spontaneous recall and assisted recognition rates of slogans presented in table 4 and table 5 demonstrate a clear and high variation among the brands studied. In fact, the highest recall/spontaneous rate was 65% and the minimum was 0%. The maximum recognition/assisted rate found was 94% and the minimum was 10%. In table 4 it is clear that the mean of all the spontaneous recall rates was not high (15%) and only two brands had spontaneous recognition rates higher than 50% (“Nike” and “Tmn”). With no surprise, the stimulation of memory provided an aid for correctly identifying slogans - the mean of all the correct assisted recognition rates is higher than the spontaneous recall rates (62% vs 15%). Associated to this results Ha ( individuals recall less than 25% of slogans ) was tested and rejected ( H0: = 0.25 vs H1: <0.25), since the highest value for which it would not be rejected is =0.15 (p=0,240).

A specific case of incorrect indication of slogans was on brand “C” (“Pingo Doce”). In this case (table 5 ), the jingle was indicated several times (32%) instead of the slogan. This is coherent with Yalch’s (1991) finding that music might act as a mnemonic device in communicating advertising slogans.

The testing of Hb led to the finding that there is a positive relation between the antiqueness of a slogan and its spontaneous correct recall. To deduce it, the antiqueness of each slogan was cross-tabulated with its spontaneous recall (using Spearman's . The null hypothesis (no correlation) was rejected, and a positive moderate correlation is significant from =10% (=0.396; p =0.076). So, although there is not a universal case, the older slogans tend to have higher recall rates. In a complementary manner, some of the problems and challenges that a brand might face in repositioning and changing a slogan are illustrated by the fact that some brands (e.g. brands “Continente” and “Adidas”) have higher spontaneous recall rates for the older version of their slogans than for the actual version. It seems admissible that Henderson and Cote (1998) findings on modifying logos might as well be applied to modifying slogans, suggesting that the beginning of the process should start with research on the actual company image or the direction the company is moving.

The studying of Hc led to its rejection, meaning that shorter slogans have higher correct spontaneous recall than the longer ones. The testing was made correlating the number of characters in each slogan with the respective spontaneous recall rate - the Pearson correlation coefficient obtained was R= -0.475. Estimating a linear regression, the R-square obtained was 0,2255. This correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (p=0.03).

The analysis of Hd provided some evidences that there are significant differences between the spontaneous recall of slogans among different groups of product categories. In fact, it is possible to arrange the industries in different groups, considering the homogeneity of the slogan spontaneous recall rates, as presented in table 6 . Although it is possible to arrange the categories in the groups/subsets presented in table 6 , it is not evident what (if any) characteristic do categories in each group share.

The testing of He (“ there is no significant difference between the recall of slogans between the language they are communicated” ) revealed no significant differences between the categorical groups of slogans (“national”, “not translated – english”, “translated - same meaning) ( χ ² (4) =11.23; p=.21). This led us to deduce that the language of slogans did not influence its recall rate.

Testing if ”brands with higher consuming frequency have higher slogan recall rates” ( Hg ); a weak correlation was obtained (R= 0.17; p=0,07). This result means that the consuming frequency does not seem to intensely impact the recall of slogans.

A similar finding is related to the test of ”brands with higher consumer sympathy have higher slogan recall rates” (Hi) . In fact, a weak positive correlation was also obtained (R= 0.14; p=0,06).

Conclusions

Managers should consider the high importance of the long term brand positioning, and consequently of the brand slogan longevity, both as being crucial elements to achieve an easily and effective recalled slogan. This result highlights Law’s (2002) finding for the need of high binding between memory and brand claims in highly advertised markets.

Besides that, it might also be important to consider the potential benefits of creating short slogans, since they might be easily remembered.

Nevertheless, further studies should be conducted to validate the results found. This study has limitations related to the population analyzed, the industries and brands analyzed and the dimensions and variables measured. From that and from the results found, there are implications for academics, pointing further research directions.

One first research direction is to deepen the analysis if the consumer relationship with the brand affects the recalling of its slogan. In this context, it might be important to explore in what extent does the emotional engagement with the brand affects the recall of its slogan. More specifically, the construct and scales of brand love (Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006; Batra et al., 2012) and brand affect (Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2001) are possible tools. The relationship of the consumer with the brand might also be analyzed according to the brand loyalty concept, in the attitudinal and purchase dimensions referred by Chaudhuri and Holbrook (2001).

A second stream of research to be explored is the development of other complementary measures to evaluate the importance of slogans. Since the measures commonly used are categorical and with a unique item (spontaneous and assisted recall of slogans), it would be useful to develop richer measures, such as multi-item scales to evaluate the recall/recognition of slogans.

A final research topic to be investigated is the related to the gathering of Brand Managers perceptions’ about the role of slogans. In this case, assuming that the coherence of the brand positioning is relevant (and consequently its slogan), it is useful to discover possible explanations for frequent changes in slogans. In fact, Mathur and Mathur (1995) mention that the desire to improve the financial performance of the firm is a major factor that motivates managers to change slogans, but this is not cross-checked with the effects on the long-term brand positioning.

The results found need also to be validated and tested in other populations, markets, industries and brands.

Acknowledgements

Authors are grateful and would like to acknowledge the cooperation of the participants in the survey conducted. Authors also acknowledge the collaboration of the colleagues Aníbal Vieira, Graça Penteado and Mário Cravidão, who also contributed to this study with their knowledge.

References

1. Aaker, D. (1991). Managing brand equity. New York. The Free Press.
2. Abdi, S., & Irandoust, A. (2013). The importance of advertising slogans and their proper designing in brand equity. International Journal of Organizational Leadership, 2(2), 62-69.
3. Aboulian, L., & McBride, A. G. (2007). How easy is it to register your slogan?. Journal of Brand Management, 14(4), 359-363.
4. Alba, J. & Chattopadhyay, A. (1986). Salience effects in brand recall. Journal of Marketing Research, 23, 363–369.
5. Anwar, S. T. (2015). Company slogans, morphological issues, and corporate communications. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 20(3), 360-374.
6. Batra, R., Ahuvia, A., Bagozzi, R. (2012). Brand love. Journal of Marketing, 76(2), 1-16.
7. Bauerly, R. J., & Tripp, C. (1997). Developing slogans for marketing of higher education. Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, 8(1), 1-14.
8. Boush, D. (1993). How Advertising Slogans Can Prime Evaluations of Brand Extensions. Psychology & Marketing, 10(1), 67-78.
9. Bradley, D., Meeds, R. (2002). Surface-structure transformations and advertising slogans: the case of moderate syntactic complexity. Psychology and Marketing, 19(7-8), 595-619.
10. Carroll, B., Ahuvia, A. (2006). Some antecedents and outcomes of brand love. Marketing Letters, 17(2), 79-89.
11. Caywood, C.& Gronstedt, A. (2011). When a “selling word” strategy jeopardizes your brand:“the other white meat” as “the other integrated brand strategy. Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications, 38-45.
12. Chaudhuri, A., Holbrook, M. B. (2001). The chain of effects from brand trust and brand affect to brand performance: the role of brand loyalty. The Journal of Marketing, 81-93.
13. Corder, C. (1986). Adimpact: A multi-media advertising effectiveness measurement method. Managerial and Decision Economics, 7(4), 243-247.
14. Dahlén, M., Rosengren, S. (2005). Brands affect slogans affect brands? Competitive interference, brand equity and the brand-slogan link. Journal of Brand Management; 12(3), 151-164.
15. De Chernatony, L., Riley, F. (1998). Defining a Brand: Beyond The Literature With Experts' Interpretations. Journal of Marketing Management, 14(5), 417-443.
16. Denton Jr, R. E. (1980). The rhetorical functions of slogans: Classifications and characteristics. Communication quarterly, 28(2), 10-18.
17. Diamantopoulos, A., Sarstedt, M., Fuchs, C., Wilczynski, P., & Kaiser, S. (2012). Guidelines for choosing between multi-item and single-item scales for construct measurement: a predictive validity perspective. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 40(3), 434-449.
18. Dimofte, C. V., & Yalch, R. F. (2007). Consumer response to polysemous brand slogans. Journal of Consumer Research, 33(4), 515-522.
19. Dowling, G. R., & Kabanoff, B. (1996). Computer-aided content analysis: What do 240 advertising slogans have in common?. Marketing Letters, 7(1), 63-75.
20. Ennis, R., & Zanna, M. P. (1993). Attitudes, advertising, and automobiles: A functional approach. Advances in Consumer Research, 20(1), 662-666.
21. Figueiredo, C. (2005). Redação publicitária. São Paulo. São Paulo.
22. Fransen, M. L., Fennis, B. M., & Pruyn, A. T. H. (2007). “Be All You Can Be”: The Influence of Advertising Slogans on Regulatory focus and Consumer Spending Behavior. Advances in consumer research, 34, 206-207.
23. Fuertes-Olivera, P. A., Velasco-Sacristán, M., Arribas-Baño, A., & Samaniego-Fernández, E. (2001). Persuasion and advertising English: Metadiscourse in slogans and headlines. Journal of Pragmatics, 33(8), 1291-1307.
24. Harris, G., & Attour, S. (2003). The international advertising practices of multinational companies: a content analysis study. European Journal of Marketing, 37(1/2), 154-168.
25. Henderson, P. W., & Cote, J. A. (1998). Guidelines for selecting or modifying logos. The Journal of Marketing, 14-30.
26. Katz, M., Rose, J. (1969), Is your slogan identifiable?. Journal of Advertising Research, 9(1), 21-26.
27. Kohli, C., Leuthesser, L., Suri, R. (2007). Got slogan? Guidelines for creating effective slogans, Business Horizons, 50, 415-422.
28. Leigh, J. H. (1994). The use of figures of speech in print ad headlines. Journal of Advertising, 17-33.
29. Lagerwerf, L. (2002). Deliberate ambiguity in slogans: recognition and appreciation. Document design, 3(3), 244-260.
30. Laran, J., Dalton, A. N., & Andrade, E. B. (2011). The Curious Case of Behavioral Backlash: Why Brands Produce Priming Effects and Slogans Produce Reverse Priming Effects. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(6), 999-1014.
31. Law, S. (2002). Can repeating a brand claim lead to memory confusion? The effects of claim similarity and concurrent repetition. Journal of Marketing Research, 39(3), 366-378.
32. Louro, M., Cunha, P. (2001), Brand Management Paradigms. Journal of Marketing Management, 17(7), 849-875.
33. Mathur, L. K., & Mathur, I. (1995). The effect of advertising slogan changes on the market values of firms. Journal of Advertising Research, 35(1), 59-59.
34. McEnally, M. R., & De Chernatony, L. (1999). The evolving nature of branding: consumer and managerial considerations. Academy of Marketing Science Review, 2(1), 1-16.
35. Miller, D. W. & Toman, M. (2014). An analysis of rhetorical figures and other linguistic devices in corporation brand slogans. Journal of Marketing Communications, 1-20,
36. Miller, D. W., & Toman, M. (2015). An Analysis of the Syntactic Complexity in Service Corporation Brand Slogans. Services Marketing Quarterly, 36(1), 37-50.
37. Molian, D. (1993). I am a doughnut': Lessons for the sloganeer. European Business Journal; 5(2); 40-47.
38. O'guinn, T. C., Allen, C. T., & Semenik, R. J. (2011). Advertising and integrated brand promotion. South-Western Pub.
39. Pham, M. T. & Johar, G. V. (1997), Contingent processes of source identification. Journal of Consumer Research, 24(3), 249–265.
40. Pryor, K., Brodie, R. (1998), How advertising slogans can prime evaluations of brand extensions: further empirical results. The Journal of Product and Brand Management, 7(6), 497-508.
41. Reece, B., Vanden Bergh, B., Li, H. (1994). What makes a slogan memorable and who remembers it. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 16(2), 41–57.
42. Rice, B., & Bennett, R. (1998). The relationship between brand usage and advertising tracking measurements: International findings. Journal of Advertising Research, 38, 58-66.
43. Romaniuk, J., & Sharp, B. (2004). Conceptualizing and measuring brand salience. Marketing Theory, 4(4), 327-342.
44. Rosengren, S., Dahlén, M. (2006), Brand–Slogan Matching in a Cluttered Environment. Journal of Marketing Communications, 12(4), 263-279
45. Sprott, D., Czellar, S., & Spangenberg, E. (2009). The importance of a general measure of brand engagement on market behavior: Development and validation of a scale. Journal of Marketing Research, 46(1), 92-104.
46. Stewart, J. & Clark, M. (2007), The Effect of Syntactic Complexity, Social Comparison, and Relationship Theory on Advertising Slogan. The Business Review, Summer, 7(1), 113-118.
47. Supphellen, M., Nygaardsvik, I. (2002), Testing Country Brand Slogans: Conceptual Development and Empirical Illustration of a Simple Normative Model. Journal of Brand Management, 9(4/5), 385-395.
48. Vakratsas, D., Ambler, T. (1999). How Advertising Works: What Do We Really Know?. Journal of Marketing, 63(1), 26-43.
49. Vieceli, J., Shaw, R. N. (2010). Brand salience for fast-moving consumer goods: an empirically based model. Journal of marketing management, 26(13-14), 1218-1238.
50. Yalch, R. F. (1991). Memory in a jingle jungle: Music as a mnemonic device in communicating advertising slogans. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(2), 268.