Things said on the way out.

A friend I worked with at an agency years ago went to the client side and excelled there for many years, leaving only recently to advance for another enterprise. On her way out, she left an informative and often amusing little memo with what I thought were valuable insights, including:

• the importance of a sense of humor, even in the midst of serious business
• the observation that many things can be accomplished faster than email or voicemail if one is willing to walk down the hall and sit in someone’s office for a few minutes
• the fact that the elevator is often the fount of all knowledge.

But the one my eyes rested on longest was this: Associates get tired of taglines and creative executions waaay before consumers do.

This is a restatement of the “If it ain’t broke” maxim in a marketing context, but I think the phenomenon of fixing the unbroken is especially pervasive in the marketing departments of large corporations.

It takes time for an idea (ad taglines or slogans are ideas, after all) to take hold, to become accepted, familiar and maybe even believed. Though I have no research to prove it, it seems to me that we as consumers see a tagline or slogan first as the expression of the brand — what the brand thinks of itself. Over time, we have an experience with the actual product or service and measure it against the idea expressed in the slogan. We talk to people, and if their experiences aren’t universally contradictory to the idea, we slowly accept the idea as part of the brand, and eventually, we might even believe it at some level. Anything repeated often enough — a lie, a claim, an opinion –  gains credibility with repetition in the absence of overwhelming conflicting evidence. And I think all this is largely on an unconscious level.

But those in corporate marketing departments see a slogan or tagline every day. The live, eat and breathe their brand, and it’s only natural that they mistakenly feel, against any logic, that consumers are paying as much attention to it as they are. Add to that the political motivations in large marketing organizations to make a mark with a new campaign, and a slogan’s vulnerability goes up.

Though it’s a shame my friend worked for this company for a decade and still felt the need to communicate this truism, I hope those remaining there keep it in the backs of their minds. Playing musical taglines and slogans can be a tiring, expensive and unproductive adventure.

I’d love to see a whole book of exit interviews, things said on the way out. That could be pretty entertaining.