Igor

Lost In Translation, But Powerful As Hell: “Don’t Mess With Texas”

Posted on by igor

“Don’t Mess With Texas” may come across as typical Texas bravado, but it was coined in 1985 as the slogan for a statewide anti-littering campaign.

Prior to that, it did not exist.

Via Wikipedia:

“At the time the state of Texas spent about $20 million annually to clean litter from highways. McClure[from ad agency GSD&M] said that “bubbas in pickup trucks” who regularly littered beer cans and other items out of vehicle windows and ordinary Texans who believed that littering was a “God-given right” were targets of the advertising campaign.

“McClure said It occurred to me that the only time I’d heard the word litter was in reference to dogs. Mess seemed like it would resonate better.”

“Don’t Mess with Texas” was embraced by Texans immediately and went viral – because it works on two levels. It works descriptively as an anti-littering message AND as a much bigger idea tapping into the Texas zeitgeist of swagger. The slogan became a rallying cry of state pride.

The campaign is credited with reducing litter in Texas by 72%.

High-powered slogans, taglines & company / product names are easily identifiable: They Always Work On More Than One Level!

“Don’t Mess with Texas” has grown from a scold to litterbugs to the motto of the USS Texas submarine:

“The Principle of Negativity”

Posted on by igor

All the best names are provocations: Virgin, Yahoo, Spanx, Caterpillar, Pandora, Apple, Oracle, Banana Republic, Hotwire, Crossfire, Typo, et al. To qualify as a provocation, a name must contain what most people would call “negative messages” for the goods and services the name represents.

As long as the name maps to one of the positioning points of the brand, consumers never take its meaning literally, and the negative aspects of the name just give it greater depth. The negative becomes an engaging positive.

Nothing is more powerful than taking a word with a strong, specific connotation, grabbing a slice of it, mapping that slice to a portion of your positioning, and therefore redefining it. This naming strategy is without question the most powerful one of all.

Caterpillar is the most effective name in the earth-moving equipment sector precisely because it is not “Bull” or “Elephant” or “Workhorse” or anything else that is linear and obvious. Caterpillars are weak and easily squashed, yet Caterpillar is the most engaging name in its industry. And of course the word “Apple” is the antithesis of high tech, and an “Oracle” is not scientific nor reliable.

Here are some of the strong, specific negative images that were instantly overcome by powerful, provocative names: