In a bold move that further illustrates Nike’s commitment to brand identity, the company chose Colin Kaepernick as the face for its award winning ad campaign which, incidentally, coincides with the 30th anniversary of the Nike “Just Do It” tagline.

Arguably, “Just Do It” is one of the most successful—not to mention memorable—taglines in the history of advertising. The award-winning ad campaign, which launched in 1988, was the catalyst for Nike’s meteoric rise to becoming one of the world’s top brands. Thirty years later the now legendary line endures, along with the company’s commitment to keeping their brand identity laser focused.

It goes without saying, that every client that engages an ad agency to orchestrate their brand launch (or re-brand launch) dreams of a similar success story. But know this: When searching for the best ad agency to sell your wares, it’s important to remember that advertising is part art, and part science. How consumers react is only partially predictable. Sound market research, strategic thinking and brilliant creative can help. But the thing everyone focuses on first, is the tagline.

If there isn’t an actual secret sauce to replicating Nike’s “Just Do It,” how do you increase the odds that your message will resonate? The tenets below serve as some basic building blocks of an effective tagline. Choose wisely and a few choice words will be ingrained in the consumer’s head today, tomorrow, and for decades to come.

Keep It Simple

A tagline is intended to encapsulate a brand’s personality. It’s definitely not the place to explain your product’s many benefits. When presented with taglines, clients will often say: “I like the line, but it doesn’t tell the complete story of who we are.” That may be true. But that’s not what the tagline is supposed to do. The tagline is simply about evoking an emotional response. Gillette’s tagline “The Best a Man Can Get” doesn’t explain why. It doesn’t explain how a close shave can help you present a well groomed image and therefore appear more trustworthy to others. It’s all about how a guy feels.

Embrace What’s Unique.

A tagline can help set you apart from competitors. What do you offer that’s different? Avis’s “We Try Harder” tagline is a great example of this. The tagline came out of a discussion between DDB creatives and the Avis management team. Asked why anyone ever rents a car from Avis when Hertz was clearly the brand leader they said: "We Try Harder.” This tagline, which prevailed for 50 years (the company went another direction in 2012) positioned Avis to not necessarily compete with Hertz, but embrace its second-place status. It’s a classic example of owning your negative to turn it into a positive.

If it Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

“A Diamond is Forever" has appeared in every single De Beers advertisement since 1948. The tagline drove diamond sales to a record high and made a diamond engagement ring as essential to a bride as her dress, veil, and a multi-tiered cake. In 1999 Ad Age named “Diamonds are Forever” the tagline of the century. And, nearly two decades into the 21st century, there’s no indication that the campaign’s effectiveness is waning.

If you can create a simple line that says something great, keep it. Change your campaign, executions, media, social content, videos, products, promotions, digital marketing, everything, but leave the line unless there’s a good reason to change it.

Cut Your Losses

If you’re working with a brand with established gravitas it’s not always advisable to re-invent the wheel. In 2014, Burger King scrapped its 40-year-old tagline “Have it Your Way” and replaced it with “Be Your Way.” The intent was to promote individuality. However, fans panned the new phrase because it simply made no sense. “Have It Your Way” lets the public know that they can customize their orders. “Be Your Way” just confuses the consumer. Although Burger King put a lot of time and money behind their new tagline, it never caught on. And, in the end, they quietly condensed the line to read “Your Way” which is ultimately a face saving move without any acknowledgment that the change to, “Be Your Way” was a colossal mistake.

Say One thing Well

Apple’s “Think Different,” which ran from 1997 to 2002, says nothing specific about Apple products. Yet, to this day, those two words are synonymous with the Apple Brand. It was a nod to the early adopters—at the time just 5% of consumers used apple products—who were thoughtful enough to embrace to totally different kind of computer, which operated in a totally different way than brand-leader IBM. More than two-thirds of Americans now own at least one apple product. And while Apple users now far outnumber other brands, the cache of being part of something innovative and unconventional lives on.

Trust the Agency

You know more about your company and its product than anyone else. But your ad agency knows more about how to endear consumers to your company and product than anyone else. When you say something like, “I ran the creative by my wife, brother, neighbor, dog catcher, (fill in additional name here) and they didn’t care for it” that’s neither helpful nor constructive. If you hired a lawyer you wouldn’t run his legal arguments by your wife, brother, neighbor, or dog catcher, nor would you seek a consensus opinion on whether your accountant filed the firm’s tax returns properly.

Early in my career, I was working for a guy who was, and still is, one of the most successful creative forces in the advertising industry. We were presenting new taglines to a large sporting goods company. Afterwards the client said: “I like this line, but do you have anything else.?” Without missing a beat, the creative replied, “This isn’t a fucking restaurant, This is your tagline.” Few ad execs could speak to a client so directly without losing the account. But, as I said, this guy is a legend. My point, however, is that the client backed off, ran the campaign and reaped the benefits.

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In the digital age, the growth of traditional advertising, print, tv, radio—has stagnated with one notable exception. Out of home advertising (OOH), a catch-all term for billboards, transit wraps and point of sale signage is actually going gangbusters. According to the research firm, Magna Global, OOH spending grew 4.6% in 2018, a record high. But, of course, not every billboard campaign will yield record results for the brand. So how do you make sure your OOH money is spent wisely? Of course, a well thought out, efficient outdoor buy is crucial. But great placement with a boring, wordy, generic message is worthless. Consider these seven essential tips for an effective OOH campaign.

#1 — Strategy First

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Start with honest, human insights. An outdoor campaign for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, for example, targeted visitors to the city. The assumption is that people use social media to plan their trips, research their destination and ask for recommendations. But research found that 85 percent of vacation itinerary decisions are actually made at the destination. This one statistic was the driving force behind the See Them Both campaign. Rather than compete with some of the more iconic tourist destinations, the museum chose to capitalize on their fame by promoting the museum alongside, Alcatraz, Fisherman’s Wharf, the Golden Gate Bridge and other bucket list faves. Following a three month campaign, museum traffic increased 48 percent while the average ticket sale increased 14 percent. So not just more people visiting the museum, more people spending more money.

# 2 — Put Google to Work

Don’t try to explain everything while someone is driving 60 miles an hour. Compel people to do their own research. Ninety percent of Americans are proficient with the same research tool that got you to this blog post. If they drive pass something intriguing on their commute, they’ll Google it. This approach proved successful for Comedy Central, which in 2018 ran an OOH campaign with messaging that read: #CancelSouthPark. Fans rushed to the internet for confirmation only to discover that it was the creators themselves pushing for the show demise, capitalizing on past viral Twitter campaigns which successfully saved the tv shows, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Lucifer both slated for the chopping block.

#3 — Invest in Multiple Executions

OOH is meant to build brand awareness. And the best way to do that is to stick with one unifying message and then create varied executions that people won’t get sick of. According to the 23 Below Media Group, Multiple OOH executions improve lasting impact by 14 percent thus extending the overall life of the advertising campaign. This was the strategy used to help launch Roku back when awareness of streaming was only at 7 percent. Despite being a superior product, they were having trouble stealing market share from brand leader Apple TV. Before we explained why our small, black box was better than the other small black box, we had to equate Roku with streaming so that when people did decide to jump into the streaming market, Roku would be top of mind. We blanketed communities with out-of-home messaging around the holidays that was funny and simple, but also varied. So it remained entertaining like the TV shows they love. By the time the campaign was over, we had established brand awareness on-par with Apple TV and increased Roku sales by 30 percent.

#4 — Give Them Something to Talk About

People hate boring advertising. They love things that are funny, compelling or worth talking about. And, of course, outdoor advertising needn’t be static. Just recently, for example, Kelly Services needed a digital video execution for the Times Square facing side of New York City’s landmark NASDAQ building. It’s a fabulous location in terms of eyeballs. But because there are 26 windows smattered throughout billboard it’s a design nightmare. Most companies ignore the windows, which then breaks up the type and makes the images look pretty crappy. But Kelly, a temporary staffing agency, incorporated the windows into their creative concept seizing on the adage: “Every time a door closes, a window opens.” In this way, the windows went from distraction to focal point and dovetailed with their overall brand message that no job is permanent. And because we knew the installation would turn heads, we even hired a production team to record people’s reactions when it went live in Time Square, which prolonged the life of the campaign by allowing it to proliferate on social media.

# 5 — Keep it Simple

Less is more. We promise. Per research uncovered by 23 Below Media Group, OOH ads are 23 percent more likely to get noticed when they have fewer design elements. The billboard’s purpose is to build brand awareness. In the case of Metro Mile, for example, we cut right to the chase: Insurance for People Who Don’t Drive Much.” The message, coupled with a playful illustration, is a way to pique curiosity, not close a deal.

# — 6 Pay Attention to Placement

If a board or location is super cheap, there’s a reason. Is it behind a tree? In a bad part of town? Blocked by construction? Also essential: Pay attention to what’s being advertised on adjacent OOH real estate as it can negatively impact your brand. A billboard purchased by Burger King in Louisiana went viral, but for all the wrong reasons. The billboard was created to promote the fast-food giant’s meal deal—two sausage and cheese breakfast sandwiches for three dollars. Nothing provocative about it. However, it was placed alongside a billboard purchased by the American Heart Association (AHA) which read: One in three people will die from heart disease. No further explanation is necessary.

# 7 — Quit asking your agency to make the logo bigger

The logo should be visible, but not so visible it’s the first thing people see. No one gives a crap about your logo without a compelling idea. Give them a reason to WANT to know who is doing the message. If all you had to do was make the logo bigger, we would have done that years ago for all our clients and retired by now. Apple’s “Shot on iPhone campaign” embodies this approach. The company used crowdsourced photos shot with the iPhone to demonstrate the power of the product’s camera. The Apple logo is dropped quietly and tastefully into the lower left hand corner of each billboard.