Agency's Christmas Present to Friends and Fans: Custom Slogans in Two Hours or Less

This holiday, McCann Helsinki is seeking to make copywriters and creatives everywhere hate them with the fire of a thousand slightly burnt gingerbread men. They're offering free, tailor-made slogans in a two-hour turnaround time with their Lean Mean Slogan Machine, backed by a photo of a shirtless guy in a cowboy hat (Liquid Plumr, your ideas are leaking—PUN!). Visit the site, type in your business name, and within two hours you'll have your own slogan. Some taglines from their gallery: • Mayer/McCann Erickson: "But ma! Mayer came in last! Why can he always sit in the front?" • Google: "Don't just doodle." • Anitotes: "For anyone without a bag." • FP7/CAI: "Kind of like AC/DC, only advertising." • Leo Burnett: "Porn to be wild." • Starbucks: "Covering up mermaid boobs does not make us a sellout." OK, so maybe the slogans aren't billboard worthy, but it's a fun idea nonetheless. Jyrki Poutanen, one of the creative directors at McCann Helsinki, spoke with AdFreak about the campaign: What's the story behind the Lean Mean Slogan Machine? We wanted to give our clients, affiliates and fans something for Christmas. Something that we think we're good at and that they'd hopefully enjoy. Something that would show excessive commitment to plain silliness. And it does, you know—we've been responding to the requests almost 24/7. Especially when the requests started pouring in from your continent; your day is our night. During the first 48 hours we had written about 300 slogans. And there's only three of us writing. Do you have hate mail coming in? As a copywriter, I'm working on my draft to you now. Not yet. You'll be the first then. Sure, mail it in, we'll stamp it with a fitting slogan, and you'll have your hate mail back in two hours. :) Shouldn't you guys look for new jobs if it only takes you two hours to write a slogan? We've always been good, or at least enjoying, verbal acrobatics. So yes, there may be a better future for us in professional athletics—gymnastics, that is. And if you're referring to the slogan machine mocking the copy profession, luckily there's so much more to our work nowadays than just taglines. And naturally the really, really great ones, the ones to live with us for decades, take a bit more than two hours to create. But I'm also a big believer in spontaneous stupidness that just might become some greater universal stupidness just because it wasn't so analyzed, chopped to pieces through and through. What's your favorite slogan ever? Hmmm. Tough one. I remember really liking Honda's "The Power of Dreams" when it first came out. Having said that, it really doesn't portray my typical favorite slogan. I usually like them 40 percent rebellious, 40 percent stupid and 30 percent clever. Yeah, I know, the math's not right, but I may have proven a point there? But I can't think of any of that sort right at the moment. So maybe my favorites really aren't that good, then. Oh, there was this slogan once for PeakPerformance (I think) ... "Boredom Comes to Those Who Wait," which really stuck to my mind. Santa needs a new slogan. Any ideas? A rebel with a claus.

AdFreak

Agency's Christmas Present to Friends and Fans: Custom Slogans in Two Hours or Less

McCann copy elves hard at work

Roo Powell

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Roo Powell