Dakota County Library: not just for microfiche any more.

[mrissa]

Our library paid somebody to come up with a slogan, and now they're putting it all over everything: "Dakota County Library: Come to Know." As far as I'm concerned, the only slogan they needed was, "Dakota Country Library: we're the library that's in Dakota County," or possibly if they wanted to get fancy, "Dakota County Library: books you already paid for."

I am already skeptical that there's any value in most kinds of marketing/branding people seem to take for granted. I don't believe it's automatically worthless or automatically morally suspect--the best of advertising brings people to realize that there is something they actually do want or need, possibly at a better price than they had hoped to pay. But really, how will the library benefit from having the slogan, "Come to know"? It's not like it sparks a million ideas about programs and groups they could host at the library. Mostly at my house it prompts snarky remarks about coming to no good. Do they hope that this will make people think, "Oh yes, we must continue to fund the libraries at previous levels or higher, they're where we come to know things!" Or alternately, "Oh yes, we must continue to fund the libraries at previous levels or higher, they have such a nice slogan!"

Can anybody tell me why this is not a stupid waste of time and money?

Comments

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

>>Can anybody tell me why this is not a stupid waste of time and money?<<

Don't look at me for an answer. My hometown once paid something in the neighborhood of $100K for a similar slogan to attract tourists.

[fiddledragon]

I think they do actually get certain amounts and types of funding based on number of bodies through the door - which requires a certain level of marketing lest people forget that the library exists.

And to be fair, the Dakota County Library has been working fairly hard at improving services - they're just not so great at publicizing said services. Ie., there are services to get books in the hands of those who are home bound or can't drive. I'd never have thought to ask - but those are services that if I remember correctly don't come through public funding, and are entirely dependent upon people actually using those services. Ie., those funding sources won't renew them if people don't use them.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure: getting more people through the door is in their interest.

How does this get more people through the door?

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

So that graphic designers have some other text to put on library banners, signs, those free bookmarks, magnets with the branch hours on them or something.

I'm not really kidding. I've designed things where it's like, "Three words? That's all I've got to work with here? How about a subhead?" :D

Not saying it's not inane. In your case I would have rather seen "Dakota County Library: Founded 1863" or something. Or something. This is why I don't do copywriting...

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I'm deeply skeptical of most of advertising; I suspect it of being mostly a scam perpetrated by advertising agencies on their clients.

However, for this to be really true, an awful lot of clients would need to be fairly stupid, or at least irrational. It's possible that that's really the case; but if it isn't, then it means that I can't trust my own reactions to advertising as a guide to how it affects other people. And I do occasionally catch myself thinking of a car as a possible status marker, for example; exactly the sort of thing that branding campaigns are supposed to establish.

I really don't think that the relative expenditures of Coke and Pepsi on promotion will make any difference to my preferences, for example. Nor do Cadillac ads make me at all likely to consider a Cadillac.

It's also possible that advertising "works" on me and I just don't know it; though I'd want to see some evidence. (I'll happily admit that advertising can tell me about things I didn't know existed, whether it's new products, or time-limited promotions. Beyond that, though, I don't think it does much.)

[zalena.livejournal.com]

The libraries in the next county have just 're-branded' themselves by adopting the 'bookstore' model in which books are organized by subject instead of a library classification section. (Examples: 'Cooking' or 'Pets.' To help people find books there are 'concierges' (instead of library techs) and 'wranglers' (instead of pages.) Thank god my civic library has thus far resisted the change.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Well, it certainly has some people talking.

When I worked at the West St. Paul branch in high school I'm pretty sure the slogan was Dakota County Library: The Tables In Front Are Reserved for Smelly Homeless Dudes Who Spend All Day Reading a Single Newspaper.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...no. I can't. It might be one of the top ten worst slogans on record. Come to know is basically meaningless. They could have done so much better.

A place to learn is better. This is where the books live is better. A series of slogans aimed at parents and children--with pictures of special events and activities-- to lure them to the library over the summer would be better.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Right, exactly: I am skeptical that there needs to be a slogan, but if there's going to be, I'm pretty darn sure it shouldn't be this one.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

It kept some people at the marketing firm off the unemployment rolls, and therefore contributed to the overall zombies of Dakota County?

Sorry. Best I could come up with.

[thoughtdancer.livejournal.com]

That has so much potential for sex jokes--between the biblical meaning of "know"ing someone, and the homophone on come, the brain dreads what the hormonally engulfed are making of that phrase.

Let's just say that I like my books to be clean, thank you. And I do mean that quiet literally.

(sarcasm off now)

[pieslut.livejournal.com]

I'm going to go out on a limb (a weak, shaky limb) and admit I kinda like the slogan. Moreover, I think I understand why they chose those specific words. They didn't use "Come to learn", which is more accurate, but which will also make people think about school. Instead they used "Come to know", which is (I think) supposed to be more empowering. They want people to associate the library not with those exact words, but with a feeling.
That's what branding does, or is supposed to do. It evokes a feeling, ideally a good one. It's not going to work for everybody ( and usually doesn't work for me), but I can sometimes tell what they were going for, even if I think it's missed its target.

Slogans

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

Just once, I saw a worse slogan than this one. I found a pencil someplace (or was it a ballpoint pen?) advertising a Chicago suburban restaurant called James Lunch. The slogan was, "When it's eating time it's James for mine." Needless to say, I have made no attempt whatever at contacting that restaurant or swinging through for a quick bite while in or near Chicago.

Nate

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

Nor do Cadillac ads make me at all likely to consider a Cadillac.

Which was actually a common complaint from Cadillac dealers back in the days when I worked in advertising. I always thought that the agency responsible for producing the television spots was concentrating too much on the old people demographic and not enough on the pimp demographic.

[guppiecat]

Coke and Pepsi (and Cadillac) ads aren't supposed to make you buy Coke or Pepsi (or Cadillac). They are supposed to make people who have already bought into the brand more likely to stay with the brand.

Unfortunately, in many of these discussion, external branding, internal branding and marketing are all conflated together as "advertising" when they are each very distinct things. In this particular case, I think that the slogan works as internal branding. As such, it gives the employees something to point to and ask themselves "is what we're doing here consistent with our brand?".

That said, this particular slogan feels like a committee decision, so I would generally agree that it's probably a waste of time and money. I'm just hesitant looking at the (many) failures and decrying an entire industry for it. There's actually a lot to be learned about human psychology and sociology by looking at both the wins and failures in this space.

(To really wobble your brain, try looking at grade school textbooks as vehicles for promoting the internal brand of the United States. Fascinating stuff.)

[greykev.livejournal.com]

In my experience, the majority of the tax-paying public think libraries are a nice idea, but not really needed. An awareness-raising campaign, even one with a stupid slogan, reminds non-readers that the library exists & is available for their use. It creates opportunity for dialog about how libraries are relevant.

[prettymuchpeggy.livejournal.com]

The library classifications are grouped for the most part by subject in both the Dewey and the Library of Congress numbering systems so all they needed to do was put up signs.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

Yes, why present library holdings in a way familiar to most of the book-buying public? Better we force them to learn our secret library code so they can be among the smug few who remember their particular interests by three digit codes. Ooh! we should also have multiple non-fiction collections so they'll need to remember collection codes as well. And of course then we cutter the fiction so that makes no sense to the general public either...

[fiddledragon]

Not exactly sure, but it certainly has us talking about the library!

[lydy.livejournal.com]

When I lived in Iowa, they had a contest for a slogan to broaden the appeal of Iowa, make it seem like it was a place for more than just agriculture. The chose...A Place to Grow. My own favorite submission was "Iowa: the Place Where Suicide is Redundant."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"Iowa: You Make Me Smile" was a recent one, replaced in my family by "Iowa: You Make Me Laugh Derisively." Because we're just that nice.

(Choice of icon with my father in it: entirely coincidental. Of course.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm not seeing the campaign going beyond the library's borders--if you don't already use the library, you're not going to see the slogan.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I would guess that they viewed being associated with the pimp demographic as certain death in the marketplace. Unless they could replace ALL of the old people.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

The "stay with the brand" justification for advertising is marvelous for the ad agencies; because it means they can't be expected to increase your sales or market share, and yet you clearly need to keep spending large sums on advertising. I strongly suspect that ad agencies are full of marvelous salesmen -- all focused on getting their clients to keep advertising.

[brooksmoses]

A noteworthy thing, though, is that the question is "Coke vs. Pepsi", and there is no meaningful third choice. A lot of that is brand promotion through exclusive contracts and the like, but I suspect advertising has at least something to do with keeping it that way.