Public Relations Resources - Your Promotional Tag

“Quality” is an overused term.  Everybody’s product is a quality product, right?  What’s the “quality” secret?  That is a loaded question. If asked to ten people, you will have ten responses and it is possible that none of them is correct.

“Quality” is not how well a product performs in a lab environment before it is ever sold.  It is not its innovative design.   It is not its beta test results.  It is not the PR and advertising.  It is not its presentation in packaging.  It is not the specifications.  It is not the company’s flawless history of successful products.  It is not the best website on the Internet.  It is not the CEO, the janitor or anyone else in between.  It is not the company’s tag.

There are ten definitions of quality of a product, but none of them is definitive.  All contribute, all may have influence, but there is but one definition of quality: what does one consumer think of the product, its features and benefits?  Users define quality after all a company can do to design, build and sell a product.

The same is true of a company’s promotional tag.  If your company is AAA Products and its tag is “the best products you can use,” that may have appeal to some, but just as the definition of quality belongs to the consumer, so does the decision whether or not your product brand is, indeed, the best product they can and ever will use.

At least that tag assumes a consumer has gone beyond the purchasing decision; they are already using your products.   The company is not billed as “the best products you can buy.”  There is a big difference and you have recognized the PR advantage of the assumption.  That is a positive step in the right direction, but it is just a step and there is an entire journey to be had.  And it is just an assumption.  Let’s not go where that means.

You have also made an anachronistic assumption that a consumer will find your company-branded product first because you are listed first in an alphabetic array of choices.

It is time to lose assumptions and recognize what today’s consumers are looking for in a quality product.

If you still want to be AAA Products, then be AAA Products.  Period.  If you are the CEO and your name is Bill, then be Bill.  You could be Billy, Will, William or Late-for-Dinner, but be honest and consistent.

The problem with tags is that everybody seems to use them as if they were part of the company moniker.  Nike, “just do it.”  McDonalds, “I’m lovin’ it.”  Hallmark “When you care enough to send the very best,” one of the oldest currently used tags (from 1944).

Superlatives like “the best…” are too easily said, just like “quality.”  A company ought to think first about being itself and let the consumers decide what’s “best.”  There is no greater praise and no better tag for a product and its producer. For more information, you may visit this site - Public relations resources.