The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

I think Nike has stopped using “Just Do it” on a lot of their pieces, instead just relying on the logo.
Ironically, it looks like “Just Do It” has run out of legs… :/

not sure i totally agree with you age because the nike tick (or fucking swoosh) is synomous with ‘just do it’ though sometimes the words would be more powerful than just using the logo. what about the viz classic slogans for sausages, ‘remember when you eat an egg you are killing a fluffy chick’ or the egg industries retort of ‘sausages contain cow lips, feet and eyes – eat eggs’, fucking marvellous. rob, can I tell our proposed air saudi arabia slogan or will hell rain down on me?

I’m pushed for time so a huge comment on this is not possible (or even wanted). In general if it’s a memorable brand then a memorable slogan has merit. Problem is, that if it’s for a forgettable brand and it’s going to change when the new marketing director gets in then it’s a tremendous waste of time.

“Move your mind” for Volvo is a recent one that sticks out for me. But that’s a sample size of one.

i always thought the best volvo line was the one in the movie crazy people – boxy but safe. fucking miles better than the shit they ran in australia, reVOLVOlution. what absolute fucking wank. i cant tell you how much i want to kill everyone involved in that crap.

In today’s super clever “let’s have a good long hard think about this over a cup of frothy coffee” adland wank world – slogans have been sent to the “naughty stair” where you can also find canned laughter, dunlop trainers, and electronic devices that have cables.

I love slogans. GIVE ME SLOGANS.

jade, maybe they’re going fot that whole ‘land of milk and honey’ thang, [which no-one who has english as a second language would ever get!-idiots].
having said that, there were so many bad slogans in dubai that it’s been quite nice to not see any slogans for a couple of days. and age, you’ll be pleased to know that nike still manages to use ‘just do it’ in sharjah (a conservative muslim state), which is quite odd really and slightly out of it i think.

however, i much prefer a clever, witty slogan (empasis on the clever and witty bit) than some wanky single word that supposedly encompases the company’s ethos, but just manages to sound like they’ve only recently managed to learn how to use a dictionary – see andy’s comment. kudos andy.

and while you’re resurrection the good times, rob, any chance on some decent new jingles? i’m marvelling at the genius of “there is nothing like a crown, for picking it up and putting it down” for crown forklifts – still in use 20 years after it first came out!

oh shit. sorry bout that rob…. so i guess i’m off the DD list now. well, it was nice knowing you all… 🙂

Hang on.
You took that whilst driving?!

I love Vorsprung Durch Technik because it started in the 80s, and there was still some anti-german feeling left over in UK society from the 40s.

It was brave in that respect, and Audi deserve credit for going with it.

One I loved from the 70s for Murphy was about their smart tvs, it went:

“Smart people dont watch tv, this is what they dont watch it on”

Hurrah!
I love that slogan.

Even though it virtually disappeared for about 10 years, I remembered the Ariston brand solely from that ad.

Hello Tosh, Gotta Toshiba?

I hate “I’m Loving It”.
Its like businesses who have mission statements like “We strive to provide quality”. Yeah? So what? Do your customers expect you to provide shit?

Good slogans encoumpass both the brand and the communication. Adidas’ “Impossible is Nothing” is a good modern example.

“Skegness is shit (Brought to you by the Mablethorpe tourist authority)” If Viz stopped doing comics & started doing ads, they’d make Crispins look like a bunch of sad amateurs (sorry Pete & Colin 🙂

I recall Viz doing a small comic which was something like:

In your overdraft?
Need help?
Need a loan?
Then Fuck Off.

Shatwest Bank.

So accurate…

While thinking about it…I HATE ADIDAS FOR USING THIS SLOGAN!
Goddamn sissies. Yeah, look it works with Nike and we’re in the same business so just let’s find another way to say this “Just do it”. Oh, look Toyota is using “Nothing is impossible”. Let’s just swap it and put “Impossible is nothing” on every fucking ad.
I really loved the +10 campaign but this…I really dislike it. From the core of my heart.

I totally agree with you, Rob, that it’s okay to use this and it’s slightly different to Nike. I just think that they could have done something better, couldn’t they?
But maybe this would be a nice task for APSotW: Develope a slogan for adidas. A slogan that is opposite to Nike.

Well this has caused far more debate than I thought – YAY!!!

I actually like the ADIDAS line even though – as people quite rightly said – it is basically the same as NIKE’s ‘Just Do It’ . To be fair though [and this is not because they pay some of our bills], this hasn’t meant people see ADIDAS as some NIKE clone, infact the brands have distinct personalities, so they’ve handled the situation pretty well.

I too am not a fan of one word ‘slogans’ [despite my FEEL for SONY] however it all comes down to whether the line is part of a core brand idea – a core brand idea developed with real consumer insight and brand truth – rather than some corporate ego bollocks which is appearing far too often for my liking.

As for the Toyota line … I get why they say it [and again, to be fair it was very effective when they were really taking on the US market] but to me, it just smacks of a brand that thinks it is cooler/better than it really is.

I appreciate car makers want to make their products seem exciting to potential/existing consumers [hence the outragous investment in motorsports etc] but if the actual product doesn’t live up to the claims [even if we are just talking interms of car design], it all seems to fall into a big pile of poo.

Personally I think VW’s “Reliability” was genius – it was a real idea, based on a real consumer need/insight, taking a nice viewpoint on what German engineering offers consumers without falling into the BMW/Mercedes trap.

If anything, this would have been a better area for Toyota but hey, how can I take the piss when they are the most powerful car manufacturer in the World – making FORD and GM look amateurs. Mind you, while no one would say ‘no’ to a free Toyota, I wonder how many people would actually ‘aspire’ to having one. To me, that’s the difference between a hugely successful company and a hugely successful brand – as demonstrated in my near constant argument with Coca-Cola for 2 years, ha!

I’m doing APSOTW [or whatever the thing is actually called] and while it won’t be developing a new line for ADIDAS [sorry Seb] I do think that is a good assignment for a later day.

Hate!

You better hope Viz don’t become an agency Billy, or you won’t be able to rip them off in your ads anymore.

Sorry Rob, but I think Adidas is a really sad brand now. Their TV commercials all look like rejected Nike boards. And as for their success, any category where there are only two big brands it’s not really difficult to have some traction, as there’s always people buying the second brand because they don’t want to buy the leader, as opposed to be being desired, as you so rightly defined a great brand.
And apart from all this, the campaign has actually coincided with a slide in marketshare for the brand, in 2000 Adidas had 19.5% of the US market, and in 2006 after the Reebok buyout, their combined share is only 21%
While this whole post was about slogans, I think that if Adidas had a slogan that said something about their heritage it would have possibly made a far more significant impact instead of spulrging money on special effects in TV ads.
I don’t think ‘Impossible is Nothing’ is born out of a core brand idea or any strong consumer insight, which you have rightly described as being the basic ingredients for a memorable and engaging slogan.

normally I would be prepared to get into a scrap of Adidas. But I’m ill and grumpy and tired. Needless to say I don’t own a single Nike product and there are three strips on the shoes I’m wearing.

I BLOODY WELL DO.

FUCK YOU TOO YOU…YOU…PLANNER! [aiming for some Andy support there]

good morning. ooh – nike vs adidas! i like it! way to go on getting everyone fired up again, rob! and the way you set hari to work.. sounds like you’re perfect for that little advertising school you’ll have going here. poor buggers.

no prizes for guessing which side i plonk myself down on, although when all is said and done, both of them ultimately make sportswear. not all that revolutionary (and don’t give me any w+k just do it revolutionary crap, i’ve heard it). even though i’ve got a nike rant waiting in the wings, i do think adidas’ ‘impossible is nothing’ is a waste of time and has only been successfully in repositioning themselves as opposition to nike, rather than a brand with anything to say.
but i am glad adidas originals are still riding the retro thang right ‘cos it means we can all still get some decently designed clothes, rather than stuff used as a vehicle for a logo. am i all over the place? maybe. i haven’t had breakfast yet.

marcus – fuck you.
[not that i really mean it, but thought it might give you something to knaw on for a while.]

FUCK YOU ALL.

Being awake doesn’t count as working – and besides, you probably are only up for a piss!

Love you though … haha!

I do agree that Adidas appears to be split into two seperate brands.

And Marcus, the only grumpy one? Doubtful!

i fucking wish you werent right about me only being up cause i need a piss.
you are a bloody witch you are campbell.

Achtung! Achtung! Marcus Mad! Marcus Mad!

😉

It’s normally about now that Campbell comes in and tells me to calm down.

I think Rob’s mum is ALWAYS ashamed of me.

Marcus … calm down and you can only swear if you put a 🙂 after it. You know the rules – especially with my Mum watching/reading.

Everyone else … I would like to point out that the ADIDAS originals came out of a paper the quite wonderfully brilliant George wrote for them years ago entitled ‘Be True To Yourself’

Hence, even though some of us don’t agree on where the brand is at now, we can all agree George [and as a byproduct, cynic … despite not even working for us when he wrote it] are brilliant.

Thank you.

fuck 🙂 bugger 😉 shitty 🙂 wank 😉 bottoms 🙂

Better?

okay. because you are absofuckingutely the fucking greatest inventor of the goddamn brilliant originals stuff, George, I can say that I deeply love you. honest. just in a way a naked man on the toilette loves to be shot for a crappy thai-porn-magazine. honest.
brilliant work. love that originals.

and by the way: 😀 😉 😯 😳 🙂 (hope that’s enough of them, Rob’s mum.)

Sprite – Obey Your Thirst

Dr Pepper – Whats the Worst That Could Happen

Loreal – Because We Only Know How to Make One Ad Ever..no wait…

Much better Marcus. Thank you.

And to stop George getting a big head [and upset Andy] can I point out that he did NOT invent the originals, he simply indicated to ADIDAS that it would be a great thing for them to do – especially if they were to follow his strategy of getting back to what they were all about rather than continue trying to be a European NIKE.

Finally, the ‘nude man on the shitter’ photo was from a mag in SINGAPORE, not Thailand. Hell, you can see far worse than that just walking down the street of Bangkok so there’s no way I would of brought it to your attention otherwise.

oh Marcus, you know I hate fucking shitfaced-wanking-emoticons. and I am really enjoying to just fucking swear around a lot to use this bloody assfaced and dickheaded little things.
🙂 😮 😀 😯 😛 😉 😆 😳 🙄

and I take back all the adorable things I said about George. though he might has been the Moses who took adidas through the desert to make them invent originals, make them successful again, made them think they could use a new NIKE-ish slogan…well, fuck them 😈 .

oh, just one again: shit…oops…:|

This blog, driven by the comments in this thread, keeps going from strength to strength.

All day I dream about straplines ?

I”m bored…