Would you like a slogan with that?
Posted: February 27, 2009 Filed under: writing | Tags: Advertising, marketing, Slogans 4 Comments »
I have always been bemused by the Rally’s/Checker’s line:
You Gotta Eat
Now there’s a line to choke on. To be fair, the restaurant company’s official slogan is Little place, BIG TASTE. But You Gotta Eat seems to permeate all of their TV commercials. And, to me, it’s like saying, “we all have to eat something whether we want to or not, so it might as well be a cheap puck of protein from our place.”
Hardly mouthwatering.
If they wanted to somehow imply that Checker’s is irresistible, then it seems like they would have just said so: It’s got to be Checker’s or Just gotta eat at Checker’s. Maybe their commercials are designed to target political dissidents on hunger strikes. Come on, Gandhi, you gotta eat, for crying out loud!
The problem is we don’t know what it is supposed to mean. Obviously I think it is a terrible line for a restaurant. And, really, BIG TASTE, is only a little better, even if it is in ALL CAPS. Vomit is a big taste, too, but I don’t want any of it.
I found a nice blog here that takes a fun look at slogans and gives them a thumbs up or a thumbs down based on sound advertising principles. I agree with the guy in just about every case. It’s a great little tutorial in slogan writing. And it reminds us that, even when it fails, advertising can be as entertaining and fun as it can be annoying.
Well if you lived in a socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhood where Checkers are located that might be your motto. You gotta eat and you don’t have much cash.
Ah! That very well might be it, although the “but you might not have much money” part is lost on me. Which begs the question, does a tag line need to be universal? Nope. You might have people scratching their heads, but your real target gets it. Unfortunately, when you target a specific audience through mass media (TV) you run the risk of turn off as many people as you excite. Thanks for your input!
I hope you had nothing to do with the ad campaign of a local coffee producer: “Surprisingly Good!” We always laugh at that one.
WAY COOL wordpress theme/skin!! I like. WordPress rules, of course, except for their customer service when you get mad at them… this is why I took my WordPress code off their server and went indie with GoDaddy. NOT that you even asked me about any of this…
I know its been done, but we should probably come up with a fun list of these “unfortunate” slogans sometime soon.