Posted By: Suzi Senna

Let’s start off with a little game. See if you can identify and match these taglines to their proper businesses. No cheating by asking the internet! (Answers at the bottom.)

1. Don’t leave home without it. (1975)
2. Just do it. (1988)
3. Melts in your mouth, not in your hands. (1954)
4. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking. (1956)
5. A diamond is forever. (1948)
6. What happens here, stays here. (2002)
7. Have it your way. (1973)
8. The quicker picker-upper. (1991)

A tagline, or a slogan, is a vital and integral marketing tool for any business or company. It is not just words on a letterhead or a website or a postcard. It goes far beyond anything tangible. A tagline should be powerful enough to resonate with your customers and evoke some sort of emotional subconscious response. A good tagline should connect positive feelings with your brand and be memorable. And over time, a great tagline will have a “stickiness” factor, and when heard, seen or read, become interchangeable with your brand. Nike™, for example, no longer has to use it’s name in commercials or products. It’s swoosh logo and tagline “Just do it” more than suffice for brand recognition.

But it’s not that easy to come up with five words or less to sum up your brand, send your message and create an identity. Having a bad tagline can make you seem out of touch with the people you’re most trying to connect with. And the worst that can happen? A poorly conceived tagline can be completely forgettable—which means so can your brand. At Bullpen Marketing, we understand and value the importance of what a tagline means to a company. Whether you’re a new company just starting out or an older one in need of a branding face-lift, we can help. Give us a call and let us help you become unforgettable.

Tagline Answers:

1. American Express
2. Nike
3. M&Ms
4. Timex
5. DeBeers
6. Las Vegas
7. Burger King
8. Bounty

Posted by: Colin Hageney

This Mother’s Day was a special day for several reasons.  My 3-year-old son, Harry and I decided to walk with 2,500+ Houstonians along Buffalo Bayou in the Y-ME Walk to Empower, a 3-mile walk to raise money to fight breast cancer.  Having lost a mother and a mother-in-law to cancer (not to mention Harry losing two grandmothers), I couldn’t think of a better way to start this special Sunday. 

EMS Global’s marketing guru, Trevor Eade, invited us to join their walking team – “The Pipeline Posse”.  Even better, Trevor had Bullpen’s t-shirt experts produce the team shirt – a navy Hanes Beefy Short-Sleeve Contrast Stitch t-shirt with (count ‘em) ten screens total (1 on the front, 4 on the back, 1 on the right sleeve, 4 on the left sleeve).  The 3 shades of pink on the front and left sleeve created an amazing 3-D effect. 

The weather was absolutely perfect and shortly before the start of the race, the MC announced that EMS had won the best overall t-shirt of the 20+ teams!  It made the walk that much sweeter to wear the winning shirt that Bullpen produced up and down the bayou with pride.  The only thing that could have made the day better would have been if we could have joined the Pipeline Posse at their brunch at 1308 Cantina on Montrose, but alas… the 3-year old and his dad were spent.

Y-ME public service announcement

Colin

Here’s the screenprinting layout for the back:

Posted by: Tiffany Yates

So Bullpen got this sample in the mail - and it’s crazy!  It’s actually hanging on my office wall as I type.  One of our manufacturers now makes a frame - yes, just a normal picture frame - that is made out of recycled sunflower hulls!  I kid you not!  It even smells like them! 

The manufacturer calls it “Dakota Burl.”  Apparently that is supposed to be more seductive than “mashed up seeds.” ; )  I like it, though!  The patterning does resemble burled wood.  It’s hanging on my wall due to the sheer novelty. =)   

The same manufacturer has another really cool item - a set of coffeetable coasters made from “biocomposite” - which is nothing more than recycled newspapers! 

They’re elegant and mod - they totally remind me of a San Francisco loft.  

Tiff