We’ll see if I actually manage to make this a weekly occurrence, but after hearing this absurd tagline on the radio this morning I just had to share. Are you ready? Are you sure? Okay.
OmniAmerican Bank is Pioneering forward.
Note the lack of a capital “F.” That’s straight from their website.
How is this awful? Let me count the ways:
- The tagline includes the name of the company. Apparently in hopes of forcing people to remember the name – hey, you can’t remember the tagline without the name of the bank! Good call.
- Wow, you’re moving forward? I was hoping for a more sixth-century acting banking institution.
- Pioneering is not a verb. It’s an adjective. The bank can be pioneering, but it cannot commence with pioneering; e.g., “Hey, Bob, let’s go out pioneering at the Kit Kat Klub later.” The only form of “pioneer” that is a verb is “pioneered,” and it’s transitive. Look it up.
- Did you see #3?
I blame this on Kinko’s. Years ago, while many of you were still tickling your non-TMX Elmos, Kinko’s ran a campaign that turned “office” into a verb. That tagline: The new way to office.
Ten years later, we end up here. Alone and weepy.
Later,
Fox
Cripes man. If “text” can be a verb and “repurpose” can be a verb, why not pioneering?
Not that I’m defending this tagline. I think all taglines are a crutch. An explanation – or reinterpretation or downright reschmendling – of the strategy in some uber-obvious way to make the board members ease back in their easy chairs and say “I approved that message”.
Taglines are for CMO’s wives, who look at Burger King commercials with a vacant expression, unable to even murmur “I don’t get it.” Taglines are for people who aren’t the target.
Taglines are the safety net bad account people use to repurpose words from the ‘creative’ brief.