I think the fact that people remember "I Like Ike" some 70 years later indicates that it doesn't have to mean-mean a lot, it just has to be memorable. I find "Let's Win This" short and sweet, evocative of a halftime speech by a coach who's rallying the team. Which is very much where we are. The goal here is not to evolve the country, or make it great (once) again, or anything suggestive of a policy. There is one goal: win the election. Nothing else really matters.
I guess we'd mostly know if people complained about it (as I'm about to do about one of your elegant slogans) or didn't care about it enough to talk about it. I remember Hey Hey LBJ all these years later and I was a child, akin to the ultimate low-information voter.
But we also wouldn't know if any given slogan had a negative effect? ("Success has many parents ...")
In any event, different slogans are going to resonate differently with different folks. Possibly excepting 2008's "Hope", haha. Well, and arguably (bleah) MAGA, for obvs quite different reasons.
Yes that was kind of dumb. I need to read your post! Actually now I remember having read your post at the time and the contrast with Trump's "make america great again" stolen from Reagan. Wasn't that the ultimate "perfectly crafted and overly thought out by experts but doesn't work" example vs. the ultimate "dumb but works" example?
The first syllable of “Kamala” rhymes more closely with “mom” than with “gram.” Yes, I’m picky.
Last night I had dinner with a fellow who rhymed her name with “gram.” His wife and I both corrected him that it’s “Comma-la” as she puts it. He said, But it doesn’t start with a “C.” He persisted until I said, “Kamala” is a Sanskrit word that means “lotus” and Kamala is an English word that means POTUS. (Stolen from social media, natch.) He laughed and is not apt to forget.
Thanks for the mention! And thanks for noticing "outwith"! When I was a cub reporter on an English evening newspaper in the 1980s I used it in a story not realising its was just a Scottish thing. The chief sub called me over and said "no such word". We had a small argument. She won, but I was right!
I find myself asking what was the objective of their tagline. If it was to fire the base up and bring in people normally disengaged but predisposed to her, then “Let’s Win This” is just the ticket. I think it reveals a embattled beleagueredness that many on the left must feel (like me). The freedoms we’ve already lost at the hands of the right are very real, and we need to win them back. I love the message that, together, we will.
Agree — the slogan speaks to the already committed. The campaign will need to find a way to address skeptics as well as the huge number of people who have no idea who Harris is.
I had taken "Let's WIN this" as a direct response to concerns that she is "unelectable" (i.e., a kind of subtle "Yes *I* can, haters"), but I'm not suggesting that overcomes the other objections to it as a slogan.
Hm, this leaves my biggest question unanswered (although this is more in the realm of "navigating politics as a woman" than branding) - why'd her team end up on HARRIS FOR PRESIDENT rather than KAMALA FOR PRESIDENT? I think everyone, hater and supporter alike, calls her Kamala in casual conversation.
It strikes me as good strategy: a play for being taken as serious and professional and on equal footing with her opponent, who, after all, doesn't brand himself as “Donald." And “Harris" is more accessible than foreign-sounding “Kamala," which is still hard for many people to pronounce. (Maybe I'll write a new post on this subject!)
Fascinating topic. Let's WIN this seems kind of meh but perfect for this desperate moment and has at least managed to unite the divided Democrats, and maybe some others, no mean feat for 24 hours. I'm shocked that any message has even done that.
On another topic: fascinating about the bg on "the city that knows how." But wasn't the Pan Panama Pacific exposition put up so quickly on shoddy landfill made from the rubble of the 1906 earthquake? And with much dissension from the locals at the time? It also led to horrific destruction in the Marina in 1989 (my building, which succumbed to fire as well as earthquake, included). Regarded another way it looks like huge civic irresponsibility. Good slogan but I wish I didn't know the historical roots.
The problem with "Let's win this" is who the "us" of "let's" must be. It's a slogan to appeal to those who already support Harris, or at least the Democrats, and doesn't address people who are opposed to them or uncommitted. A slogan needs to unify the country, or at least try to, and this one does the opposite.
I think "us" is all so desperate nobody cares. When you see Gen Z suddenly accepting a boomer as okay ... and progressives accepting a former prosecutor ... that to me is the biggest miracle. It's like the Dems needed a kick up the arse and a standard bearer to say "let's stop bickering and wringing our hands and win this" - so the slogan feels fine to me.
Not your point, but is she a Boomer? Born in late 1964, so early Gen X, I think. (Btw I hate those generational labels, in part because they force me to do mental arithmetic and in part because they're just stupid tribalism.)
There's a long Forbes story about this - yes she's technically a boomer although it's also called Generation Jones. And yes the categories are stupid. I could discourse at length on this but won't.
There's so much I want to quote, restack, and share here. It's fascinating to put the Kamala branding in both short and longer terms contexts. It brings home how really really difficult great taglines are. Many fail for being too cute, too obscure, or overworked. This is a "look behind the curtain" into the underbelly of tagline creation, the inevitable trial and error, the crowd sourcing, and the courage to pivot.
Oh, I really like the atypical colours of the Williamson and (former) Harris logos. They very prettily signal a shift away from old boys' club politics.
I think the fact that people remember "I Like Ike" some 70 years later indicates that it doesn't have to mean-mean a lot, it just has to be memorable. I find "Let's Win This" short and sweet, evocative of a halftime speech by a coach who's rallying the team. Which is very much where we are. The goal here is not to evolve the country, or make it great (once) again, or anything suggestive of a policy. There is one goal: win the election. Nothing else really matters.
Yeah, I suppose that's true. But from a pure wordcraft pov it falls short.
But it only matters if it works.
And how will we know which element of the campaign — a speech, a meme, the GOTV effort, an opponent's fumble, a slogan — is the deciding factor?
I guess we'd mostly know if people complained about it (as I'm about to do about one of your elegant slogans) or didn't care about it enough to talk about it. I remember Hey Hey LBJ all these years later and I was a child, akin to the ultimate low-information voter.
But we also wouldn't know if any given slogan had a negative effect? ("Success has many parents ...")
In any event, different slogans are going to resonate differently with different folks. Possibly excepting 2008's "Hope", haha. Well, and arguably (bleah) MAGA, for obvs quite different reasons.
People still talk about how much they hated Hillary Clinton's “I'm with Her" slogan, from 2016. I didn't like it either, and I wrote about it: https://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2016/11/where-hillary-clintons-marketing-went-wrong.html
Yes that was kind of dumb. I need to read your post! Actually now I remember having read your post at the time and the contrast with Trump's "make america great again" stolen from Reagan. Wasn't that the ultimate "perfectly crafted and overly thought out by experts but doesn't work" example vs. the ultimate "dumb but works" example?
Trenchant, as always. I’m keen to discuss this:
The first syllable of “Kamala” rhymes more closely with “mom” than with “gram.” Yes, I’m picky.
Last night I had dinner with a fellow who rhymed her name with “gram.” His wife and I both corrected him that it’s “Comma-la” as she puts it. He said, But it doesn’t start with a “C.” He persisted until I said, “Kamala” is a Sanskrit word that means “lotus” and Kamala is an English word that means POTUS. (Stolen from social media, natch.) He laughed and is not apt to forget.
Haha. I'm working on Monday's newsletter, which will get *even pickier* about the pronunciation of “Kamala.”
Thanks for the mention! And thanks for noticing "outwith"! When I was a cub reporter on an English evening newspaper in the 1980s I used it in a story not realising its was just a Scottish thing. The chief sub called me over and said "no such word". We had a small argument. She won, but I was right!
It's a perfectly cromulent word, and I'm going to look for ways to use it myself.
Cromulent!
I find myself asking what was the objective of their tagline. If it was to fire the base up and bring in people normally disengaged but predisposed to her, then “Let’s Win This” is just the ticket. I think it reveals a embattled beleagueredness that many on the left must feel (like me). The freedoms we’ve already lost at the hands of the right are very real, and we need to win them back. I love the message that, together, we will.
Agree — the slogan speaks to the already committed. The campaign will need to find a way to address skeptics as well as the huge number of people who have no idea who Harris is.
I had taken "Let's WIN this" as a direct response to concerns that she is "unelectable" (i.e., a kind of subtle "Yes *I* can, haters"), but I'm not suggesting that overcomes the other objections to it as a slogan.
Hm, this leaves my biggest question unanswered (although this is more in the realm of "navigating politics as a woman" than branding) - why'd her team end up on HARRIS FOR PRESIDENT rather than KAMALA FOR PRESIDENT? I think everyone, hater and supporter alike, calls her Kamala in casual conversation.
It strikes me as good strategy: a play for being taken as serious and professional and on equal footing with her opponent, who, after all, doesn't brand himself as “Donald." And “Harris" is more accessible than foreign-sounding “Kamala," which is still hard for many people to pronounce. (Maybe I'll write a new post on this subject!)
Fascinating topic. Let's WIN this seems kind of meh but perfect for this desperate moment and has at least managed to unite the divided Democrats, and maybe some others, no mean feat for 24 hours. I'm shocked that any message has even done that.
On another topic: fascinating about the bg on "the city that knows how." But wasn't the Pan Panama Pacific exposition put up so quickly on shoddy landfill made from the rubble of the 1906 earthquake? And with much dissension from the locals at the time? It also led to horrific destruction in the Marina in 1989 (my building, which succumbed to fire as well as earthquake, included). Regarded another way it looks like huge civic irresponsibility. Good slogan but I wish I didn't know the historical roots.
The problem with "Let's win this" is who the "us" of "let's" must be. It's a slogan to appeal to those who already support Harris, or at least the Democrats, and doesn't address people who are opposed to them or uncommitted. A slogan needs to unify the country, or at least try to, and this one does the opposite.
Well, “us" can be inclusive! I can sort of squint past your objection and see “us" as “all of us,” or even “all of U.S.”
I think "us" is all so desperate nobody cares. When you see Gen Z suddenly accepting a boomer as okay ... and progressives accepting a former prosecutor ... that to me is the biggest miracle. It's like the Dems needed a kick up the arse and a standard bearer to say "let's stop bickering and wringing our hands and win this" - so the slogan feels fine to me.
Not your point, but is she a Boomer? Born in late 1964, so early Gen X, I think. (Btw I hate those generational labels, in part because they force me to do mental arithmetic and in part because they're just stupid tribalism.)
There's a long Forbes story about this - yes she's technically a boomer although it's also called Generation Jones. And yes the categories are stupid. I could discourse at length on this but won't.
This was the piece, which irritated me even as it illuminated me. I think you also wrote about Gen. Jones in your Jones post. https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2020/08/18/kamala-harris-boomer-gen-x-or-generation-jones/
Also sometimes called Generation Jones. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones
There's so much I want to quote, restack, and share here. It's fascinating to put the Kamala branding in both short and longer terms contexts. It brings home how really really difficult great taglines are. Many fail for being too cute, too obscure, or overworked. This is a "look behind the curtain" into the underbelly of tagline creation, the inevitable trial and error, the crowd sourcing, and the courage to pivot.
Thanks, Lyn!
Oh, I really like the atypical colours of the Williamson and (former) Harris logos. They very prettily signal a shift away from old boys' club politics.
Agree!