An article on how to create the perfect tagline has been rattling around in my head, but then I have a deadline to write this one on story telling for brands. So I’m going to try to combine the two by telling you a story on how a company I met recently came up with an amazing tagline. In between, you’ll hopefully get useful advice and tips on selecting the right stories for your brand, and how to structure and write it for best impact.
Content Creation? Yes. Writing Stories? Blink…Blink…What?
Content marketers will swear by the benefits of storytelling in content creation and engagement. But here’s the question you need to ask before wading into these murky waters – am I a story teller? Uh…Right. Moving on. Let’s at least try to give this story the right structure:
A Beginning: Introduce your protagonist, and state the challenge/dragon your hero will stay in this story. Our hero’s name is Blink, and the story is about how Blink came up with a stunning tagline that you just cannot forget.
A bit of backstory before we proceed (cue flashback) – A month or so ago, I rather unwillingly agreed to attend a tech startup event to network. I was planning to collect as many visiting cards as I could and get out of there quickly.
But turns out it’s not so easy to escape from these networking events, especially when you have a large number of very talented and passionate startup founders trying to explain their concepts and technologies to you. So the morning quickly turned into late afternoon listening to fascinating startup concepts and product demonstrations, and that was when I bumped into Blink.
The Middle: How Blink Slayed the Dragon
That’s Blink Watch, a new smartwatch from consumer technology company Witworks. The watch is powered by their own Android-based wearable platform called Marvin OS. It’s a sleek watch which they had on display in their booth, but what caught my attention was the huge brochure on the wall behind the watch, and the tagline it had – About Time.
Blink Watch Content Creation Story
Look at it from any angle, and the tagline seemed just so perfect. It’s a watch – it’s about time. It’s a good-looking watch, and has cutting-edge technology and sci-fi features in a wearable device. About time someone gave Apple and Pebble a run for their money.
Witworks Co-founder and CEO Somnath Meher was there at the event, and I told him that their tagline was perfect. He said a lot of people visiting their booth were praising the tagline too. They gave me a pitch about the device, and I moved on. I met some 25-30 startups that day, and now, a month later, its all mostly a blur of company names, founder names and product names that I can’t connect. But that one tagline was unforgettable, and I vividly remember Blink because of it.
But wait! There’s more to the story. When I asked about the tagline, one of the things Somnath explained to me was how they came up with it, and why they chose ‘About Time.’ He said it was the result of an internal branding exercise, and their thinking was that the tagline should reflect their core values as a company.
Their target audience is people who refuse to accept limitations and are willing to push the boundaries. If they’re told it cannot be done, then they’ll say let’s see if it can be done. If you hit this audience with a tagline like ‘About Time,’ it’s very likely that they’ll connect and identify with Blink as one of their kind.
The End: It’s a Story About Time too
Witworks sums up their vision for Blink very nicely in this blog post – “We believe that a device which helped land and space explorers, revolutionaries, doctors attain crowning achievements, is ready to tell the world the most amazing chapter of its life.”
About time, you think? Oh, and the aforementioned blog post is titled – “I am a Watch, and this is My Story.” It’s a story about the history of the humble watch, narrated by a watch. Another example from Blink on how to use stories in content creation.
Read Also: 4 Types of Blog Phrases that Keep Content Readers Engaged
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