Copywriting techniques for slogan development

Copywriting is something more than just simple writing of texts. It is an art and an exact science at the same time. First of all you should select main keywords for the future slogan. As soon as you have done this, you may start writing the slogan itself. For this you can use several various techniques: expressive means and stylistic devices.

1. During development of a slogan copywriters often use citations (popular phrases from movies, songs, TV shows) and allusions (generally known expressions from the history or economics). For instance, such quote as “Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads!” (from the movie “Back to the future”) is a citation, and such phrase as “All things are difficult before they are easy” (Thomas Fuller) is an example of allusion.
   Citations and allusions, as well as phraseologisms and aphorisms mentioned below, can remain unchanged or be transformed.
2. An element of incompleteness or vagueness is also often used in slogans. In this case a customer (or a visitor) has an opportunity to invent the ending of the phrase himself.
3. The use of various stylistic devices based on repetition is also often met in well-known slogans. There are several stylistic devices based on the repetition: chiasmus, parallelism, anaphora and epiphora.
4. Reiteration of identical words in slogans for websites strengthens and emphasizes the effect of the slogan. Specialists distinguish ordinary repetition, framing (ring) repetition, catch repetition (anadiplosis) and tautology. The slogan of a famous movie “Pulp Fiction” contains repetition: “Just because you are a character doesn't mean you have character”.
5. Repetition of identical or similar sounds or sound clusters can also be used in slogans, for example: “Romance in romantic Rome!” (the slogan of the movie “Roman Holiday”).
6. Puns are also often used in slogans. They can play up the name of the good or, which is more complicated, its qualities. For example: “Savanna. It's dry. But you can drink it”. The word “dry” may mean “not wet” (if something is dry you cannot drink it) or “not sweet” (when we are talking about wine). Thanks to these two meanings the slogan of the cider Savanna Dry becomes ambiguous. One more example: “It takes time turning wild sloe berries into Gordon's. Sloe gin”. In this slogan two homophones – sloe and slow – are played up.
7. The words which have the same root but opposite meanings are also used during development of slogans (for example, happy – unhappy).
8. Set expressions or phraseologisms are the fount of inspiration for many slogans. For instance, the slogan of a well-known brand Dodge “Grab life by the horns” is a transformed version of the phraseologism “Take the bull by the horns”. Phraseologisms may remain unchanged. For example, one of the slogans of a famous energy drink is “Can you take the heat?”.
9. Aphorisms are also quite often used for the slogans, for example “Cogito ergo sum” (Volkswagen Phaeton) – “I think, therefore I am”.

An important rule of slogan invention is the following: a slogan must not be contradictory or obscure. For example, your website tells about the company that produces a certain good. If your slogan includes specific professional terms only professionals in this area will be able to understand it. The rest of the audience of your visitors will be left in the basket. Therefore if you have to “decode” your slogan for the others it is most likely to have been chosen incorrectly.

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copywriting, slogan, slogan for website, slogan development, slogan creations, techniques for slogans