I was recently discussing Lab49’s tagline (”Innovation on Demand”), which I quite like. First, it has a nice, balanced look and it rolls easily off the tongue. Second, it effectively encapsulates two very important aspects of our business; “Innovation” refers to our ability to engage with challenging customer problems and create novel solutions, while “on Demand” speaks to our customers’ ability to “tap in” to our power when they need it, get the job done, and move on to other things.

Other firms, unfortunately, don’t quite have the whole tagline thing down cold. The printer company Brother, for instance, has recently begun an ad campaign under the heading “Plan B“. I think they fail to grasp an essential, unfortunate truth about “Plan B”. Plan B is inherently worse than Plan A. Plan B is the fallback option if you can’t do the preferred choice. In this (the intended) sense, Brother is implicitly naming HP as “Plan A”, which frankly sounds like where I would rather go for my printer. Otherwise, Brother would be Plan A.

Also, “Plan B” is the trade name of Levonorgestrel, the so-called “emergency contraceptive” pill used to prevent pregnancy. Ugh.