We need fewer slogans and more rallying cries

Artificial intelligence tools are getting lots of play. I read about tools that will write emails, sales collateral, and more. The latest is a slogan generator.

Up until now, I’ve been kind of amused by all the ai applications. In my experimenting, they’ve returned mostly average results. So I haven’t said much. Until the slogan generator.

It hit a nerve.

I think it was a combination of things. First, it was another in a long list of ai applications (robots will take my job). And second, it had stepped into an area that I’ve been known to grumble about — slogans (also known as taglines).

Slogans are the bland middle ground of branding. For too many brands out there, they simply describe what the business does:

KnobCorp
We’re the area’s largest distributor of doorknobs!

Sometimes they attempt to tickle an emotion:

KnobCorp
We care about our customers!

By and large, slogans are lazy branding. They sit there below the logo, dragging down the brand.

We don’t need a slogan generator to help automate more pap.