Driving to work today I was behind a truck owned by a company called Phoenix Plumbing and Heating. Here's their tagline as it appears on their vehicle:

"If we plumb it, you won't get soaked."

Actually, they went to the trouble of changing the "s" to a "$" just in case anyone missed the point.

Now here's my point: How come huge organizations with tons of smart creative types so often get themselves so wrapped around the axle that their taglines end up making no sense whatsoever? Alternatively, why is it that small business people people often manage to say something meaningful in plain English?

You're thinking, "That's because SOA or SEO or (fill in the blank) is more complicated than plumbing." Maybe. But my theory is that the committee approach in corporate is one major cause of the problem. In big business, dozens decide. In a small business like this one, a person or two decides this over lunch and a beer. Also, a couple of average people think this is about a 1 on the Importance Scale, with 10 being of utmost importance. In corporate, these things rank about an 8, don't they? Lastly, a plumber doesn't really think the business is going to prosper because the tagline is good. But big business often acts as if the tagline is everything.

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