Slogans of Self-Promotion: A Content-Analysis of Sales Agent Advertisements

Abstract

Mathur and Mathur (1995) defined a slogan as a phrase developed for its recall potential. Alternatively, Keller (1998) identified slogans as short phrases designed to communicate descriptive or persuasive information about a brand. Fletcher (1994) has suggested that the term “slogan” has gone out of fashion and that there has been a trend away from the term slogan within the advertising community. Although the label attached to this promotional device may be disputed, the importance of slogans to a firm–s brand and or corporate identity building efforts is not. For example, Keller (1998) described slogans as “powerful branding devices,” and pointed to their prevalence in advertising, various forms of sales promotion as well as product packaging. Although prominent in corporate branding efforts, researchers (e.g., Gronhaug 1987; Molian 1993) have pointed out that ad slogans remain relatively unresearched, with academic research of slogans primarily limited to advertising recall (Mathur and Mathur 1995). Despite the lack of research on slogans, there appears to be no confusion over their purpose – to capture the attention of prospects and emphasize the key selling points of a product or service provider in such a way that they are encouraged to consider that product or service offering (Gronhaug 1987).