The ultimate slogan

A company’s Big Idea, or as the common people like to name it – tagline, serves as a connection between a brand and its audiences. It not only gives a character to a brand but also speaks its philosophy to the people.

In our recent blog, we discussed how Imperial Blue coined and retained its classic Big Idea ‘Men Will Be Men’ for more than 17 years. 17 years is a mind-boggling number for any brand.

German automobile maker Bayerische Motoren Werke, popularly known under the abbreviation BMW, has had one of the most remarkable and recognisable brand slogans in the automobile manufacturing sector.

The Big Idea ‘The Ultimate Driving Machine’has been there with the brand for over 40 years now. That is jaw-dropping. The simple, to-the-point and intelligible tagline has served the brand well over the years.

There are agencies and brands that could come up with a dozen better-sounding and chic slogans for a brand, but how timeless would it be. Bob Lutz had hired a small-time agency Ammirati & Puris to do the job; the gamble worked well for the brand.

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Brand slogans are not only a great way to creatively advertise the benefits of a product/service, but are also an experience that the customer can strongly associate with. And if a brand stands by a slogan for a significant period of time, it has won the heart and brain of its potential consumers

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The gamble played by Bob paid off quite handsomely and made the BMW a hit since 1970s. This was a crucial time for an automobile manufacturer to leave a mark; this was the time economy was seeing a boost in North America and every millionaire was looking out for cars in the premium segment.

BMW did just that by claiming itself as ‘The Ultimate Driving Machine’, and of course justifying it with some of the best engine work and comfort settings.

The slogan came out of the brand’s vision to cater to the upper creative class of the society, while reinforcing its confidence in bringing the best of conventional design and engineering in their cars.

Besides describing the core competence of the brand, the slogan also came with a promise of nothing but the best and the superlative.

And one of the biggest reasons the slogan still fits well with the brand is because of the brand’s constant commitment and sheer ability to keep the promise across all its offerings.

Every time someone purchases a BMW, they gift themselves something distinctively special that they will be proud of driving. So every time BMW sells a car, it is actually selling an experience with it.

But is the slogan really timeless? The nine trillion dollar automobile industry is fast heading towards self-driving cars.

With many test runs already going on cars like Volvo, Tesla, and other brands, self-driving is very close to reality.

With self-riding soon being the in-thing, automobile brands will have to face rewriting their slogans, and that is not just for BMW; brands such as Mitsubishi, Fiat, Subaru, Hyundai and many others will not just have to consider rewriting their slogans but also revamp all their existing and marketing collateral. The game is going to be interesting.