This question was posted today on one of the LinkedIn discussion groups that I follow:

“Coke is it”, “Just do it”, “We try harder” – In today’s day and age of Web 2.0 and non-traditional marketing strategies, can today’s marketing messages be as simple as in the past?

This was my response:

I think a slogan or tag line is purposely simple, and today’s marketing landscape certainly doesn’t minimize that requirement. In fact, a pretty convincing argument could be made that today’s marketing environment requires you to break through even more noise than before, and brevity is certainly one tactic to employ when breaking through.

Marketing messages are far more than tag lines, however. None of the marketers whose tag lines you quoted in your question have simplified their key messages, differentiation, and brand attributes down to a single tag line or logo. Those are creative assets that tie together a series of marketing messages and tactics over time.

I think marketing messages continue to be as detailed as they need to be in order to convey the unique selling proposition, and the tactics employed to communicate those messages to the target market will deliver those messages in whatever format, length, and impact each medium requires and allows. Twitter posts, blog posts, video interstitials, text ads, banner ads, TV and radio spots, outdoor, direct mail and email–all of these tactics continue to deliver marketing messages and encourage the audience to take action in their own ways.