Blogless

This one is a little late to the table, but if you somehow missed both the original airing and the news aggregators out there that picked it up, it may yet be news to you.

A few weeks ago, the Republican party released an advertisement promoting their new slogan “the change you deserve”.

Roll the clip:

The logo test would have been instructive but we should also add to that, as commenter Mark Goren suggests, the Google test. A good brand shouldn’t work just as well alongside your competitor’s logo, nor should it link to anything embarrassing or otherwise counter-message online (like a powerful prescription antidepressant).

It’s one thing for taglines to be interchangeable, quite another when they set up an unfortunate and humorous juxtaposition that ends up on “the funny news”.

You get…nothing! Absolutely nothing!

As I mulled over the clip, I realized “the change you deserve” is a dreadful —if not asinine— tagline. It’s the branding equivalent of Fruit Stripe gum. It starts off nice and sweet, sounding pretty good the first time you hear it, but then the more you think about it, the meaning becomes less and less clear until it’s just pure marketing schlock in your ears.

Slogan: You deserve change.
Audience: Surely I do. But change to what exactly?
Slogan: Uh, the change you deserve.
Audience: And that is…?
Slogan: Not the change those other guys are talking about. Different change. You deserve our change.
Audience: From what I can tell, you’re not really offering much change.
Slogan: Exactly, that’s the change you deserve. (*rimshot*)