Startup Marketing Slogans: The Parroting Principle
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
In a post-apocalyptic playhouse, where humans are only a memory and decaying corporate centers lie like mausoleums to the AI takeover that never was—our most important human achievement will not perish. No, amidst cities infested with mutated rats looking like a drunken, disheveled version of Mickey Mouse, who drive taxis up Broadway zigging and zagging with one pink ear out the window and one cigar burning out of their Mickey mouth—our mother tongue will persist.
“You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you,” Alex told her.
Those words were his last when he passed away in the night at the age of 31. Those were the words Alex would say every night to Irene Pepperberg before she left the lab.
He had a vocabulary of over 100 words.
But even more incredibly, Pepperberg said Alex seemed to understand what he said.
In our phantasmagorical fantasies, shortcuts are illusory
While rats may populate our phantasmagorical fantasies of post-human existence, it is the Alex’s, the African Grey Parrots of the world, who make preservation of our language an ephemeral possibility.
Now, you may be saying, “Hey Charley…nice story… but what does this have to do with startup marketing?” I ask you to resist the squirrel-like attention span of our 21st century society—and stick with me.
OK?
After all, hard things take time. It doesn’t matter if you’re training a parrot to say the word "fart" or creating marketing messaging—shortcuts—are an illusion peddled by fakirs.
So let's begin our beautiful, arduous journey, starting with the primary principle of this article, Repeatability.
Disclaimer:
At Stupid For Startups, when it comes to marketing education, I prefer drawing from personal experience.
Startup marketing is filled with “easy answer kids.” Mainly generalized case studies about how a startup became a billionaire dollar marketing machine because they changed a color on the packaging.
To avoid being an easy answer kid, you’ll notice many marketing lessons coming from corporate finance brands. Maybe that’s odd? A bit... sure.
But outside of startup marketing consulting, that’s where the crux of my marketing understanding was born. And it's more valuable to you if I speak on marketing rooms I've been in, and industries I've sweated in—rather than writing from a vantage point of 3,000 miles away.
Plus, there’s something to be said about groupthink, breaking out of a silo (startup land), and bringing in an outsider (diversity of thought, creative juxtaposition, call it what you will).
Finally, if it’s possible to make a financial brand in Corporate America interesting, you can make nearly any startup brand compelling. And I truly believe that.
"Repeatability," marketing's most undervalued principle
Should memorable marketing be redefined as "repeatable marketing?"
I think so.
"Repeatability," as defined in the official Stupid For Startups: International Marketing Monolingual Dictionary of Excellence & Sometimes Wizardry “is the probability of a given marketing message to be remembered and parroted back by an audience in their head, or aloud (consciously or unconsciously) after repeat consumption.
Greetings. Affectionate phrases. Memorable sounds. Names. These very simple, very daily occurring language starters made it easy for our parrot, Alex, to remember, then repeat.
A similar approach can be applied to startup marketing messaging. Thus, the moniker for this Stupid For Startups principle, The Proof Is in the Parrot Principle.
Great slogans make their money by repetition. Repetition, by way of a company consistently communicating a slogan into the consumer’s mind. And repetition by way of consumer, who on the receiving end of said slogan, is presented with the decision to take action or do nothing.
However, the overall effectiveness of this messaging exchange between startup brand and startup consumer is determined by a slogan’s Repeatability score.
“Only pay for what you need… Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty.”
If you’re based in America, you’ve seen this famous LiMu Emu campaign from Liberty Mutual. You’re lying if you say you’ve never, A: Recited this advert randomly—or you can’t, B: Recall at least most of this advert word for word.
If you’re not based in the America? You can probably recall a campaign from your home market where this applies.
This is the power of the The Proof Is in the Parrot Principle.
"What" the party punch bowl reveals about a slogan
For easy-to-repeat slogans like Liberty Mutual, there’s principles to follow. But for a deeper understanding, let's go down memory lane—'marketer’s memory lane.’
One of my first “I made it” experiences in marketing came when I worked for an American credit card company based out of McLean, Virginia.
It was particularly exciting because I had remembered their advertisements from when I was a kid.
But that, at heart, embodies what The Proof Is in the Parrot Principle is about.
During the time I spent as a copywriter at this credit card brand, whenever someone would ask me at a party, coffee shop, or run-of-the-mill outing ‘what I did for a living’—as soon as I revealed said company, more often, I could expect that person to recite our slogan back to me with the excitement of having known it.
That slogan was of course, “What’s in your wallet?”
And so, it came to me, that memorable marketing, is in a way, “repeatable marketing.”
After my time with that company had come and gone, in the years following, I had begun work for a direct competitor in the American Northeast. This competitor had invested serious resources in refreshing their brand, including a new slogan.
It was a thoughtful new slogan. If you went into the brand standards book, you could read all about the reasons for what, who, where, and why this new slogan was meaningful.
It was concise, confident, consistent with the brand’s complete communications needs—and especially relevant for where the company desired to go.
But whenever I did that marketing test, when I found myself talking work at a party, coffee shop, or any run-of-the-mill-run-in. Whatever. I’ve never heard anyone repeat back that new slogan.
And… I don’t think I ever will.
Kill groupthink-ers before they kill your marketing—
In the pursuit of great marketing, you must commit an irrevocable act.
Here's suggestions for killing off a groupthink-er:
Do they own a car? Cut their brake pads.
Do they talk about how they're a "big coffee person?" Poison their cup.
Do you have an office or apartment with a rooftop? Invite them up, then give them a shove.
If none work? Talk with their spouse or S.O., get a feel if they're dissatisfied, then coordinate together.
There's no going back.
“It’s not your fault... It’s not your fault... It’s not your fault...” Robin Williams says to Matt Damon, in our own version of Good Will Hunting meets modern marketing.
Is it foolhardy? Narrow minded? Risky, both from a company and individual career perspective to wave the white flag on AI?
Yes.
But it’s presumptuous to believe that startups with bad-to-average marketing are suddenly going to ‘figure it out' by having people think and problem-solve even less about a discipline they're already struggling to understand.
Welcome to the 'clueless leading the clueless.'
However, just as in today's dating culture, where romantic hopefuls come together in different ways than in the era of our mothers and fathers (a subscription dating app behind a screen…yikes)... people still meet for the same fundamental reason: They want to fall in love.
And the principles of falling into love still apply.
Innovation doesn’t change that. Just as the many millions of AI tools and marketing bots won’t change the fundamental principles behind what makes marketing—great.
That summer I was 17, when Charlie Bit My Finger
When I think about what makes marketing great, I think back to that summer I was 17.
I had accepted the 2nd job of my life. My young, insecure, teenage-dream-of-a-life.
I was hired as a day camp counselor. This was a big step up from the prior summer. Which culminated in me serving Jewish kosher hot dogs at the local highway rest stop. What a time that was. What a time that wasn’t. (A paradox that I think adequately sums up those hormonally unhinged years.)
Anyway.
That summer, was the summer of “Charlie Bit My Finger.” The most famous viral moment of Youtube’s early days.
I can’t tell you how many campers had that iconic line burned into their brain the way an egg burns in a country skillet, who would run up to me in complete exhilaration and say…
“OWW, CHARLEY… YOU BIT MY FINGER!”
It was really cute until wasn't.
But the parallels between the summer of “Charlie Bit My Finger” and my experience at that American credit card company in Virginia were abound.
Who's parroting "What" about your product?
In 1799, German geographer, Alexander von Humboldt had reached the deepest depths of the Amazon basin.
There, he stumbled into that strange, unfamiliar territory, that feeling which can best described as “lack”—a lack of human understanding when one cannot speak nor recognize the spoken word.
Yet, Humboldt wasn’t alone in his bewilderment. No human had heard or uttered these words for 42 years. It was the mother tongue of the extinct Altures tribe. The voice? A parrot perched on a branch, a former pet of one of the dead tribesmen.
It's been said that Humboldt recorded 40 of those parroted words. How interesting would it be to know which words survived? Maybe our understanding of what was important to Altures’ culture would have changed dramatically.
Thus, inspiring our last fundamental in The Proof Is in the Parrot Principle:
• Leverage words, phrases, feelings your audience is parroting back about your product or industry.
For example, “Only pay for what you need” from Liberty Mutual most likely came out of an advertising agency with a great research department. But in an early-stage startup, that can come from a conversation between marketing and sales.
How else would one find out that, within the insurance shopping journey, a favorite complaint among shoppers is being charged for policy add-ons they never use. Matter of marketing fact, I voiced this same gripe to my insurance carrier in our last conversation (I almost left for a competitor).
In summary, if your startup marketing can leverage what’s being parroted about your product—you stand to do three things:
Reduce marketing risk by leveraging messaging from the minds/mouths of consumers.
Out-position the competition with more relevant, memorable messaging.
Allow memorable marketing to turn consumers into volunteer marketers (aka, parroting).
To apply repeatability to your own startup marketing messaging, here’s three traits that make Liberty Mutual’s slogan successful:
Memorable: Does your slogan hijack a phrase that consumers are already thinking or saying aloud?
Easy: Does your slogan use everyday words people (actually) say in real conversation?
Relevant: Does your slogan differentiate by challenging the industry status quo?
BONUS: Liberty Mutual
Only pay for what you need
💸
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