COMPANY

Back in August, I wrote about our tagline, “It’s a box… you put stuff in it!” and promised that I’d write about the “creative process” on how we came up with it.  Well, here goes.

It was the first summer that we were in business. We were still working out of my condo on Duval and we had a couple of MBA interns from the UT McCombs School of Business working for us.  They wanted to learn how to sell, and in this case, sell portable storage containers (8×40′, 8×20′).  

One day we decided to go make a couple of field calls to construction sites, and one of the interns, Barclay, was so excited that he went out, bought a hard hat, a new pair of work boots, and Wranglers work pants.  He was quite a sight to see.

Anyway, we went to one of our portable offices at the new Target being built at Parmer & I-35.  Barclay walks in and out walks this rough, tough, huge construction superintendent named Joe.

Barclay says, “So, how do you like our portable storage containers?”

Joe says, “They’re fine.”

Barclay says, “So, how’s our service?”

Joe says, “It’s fine.”

Barclay says, “So, do you have any other feedback for us?”

Joe says, “It’s a box… you put s*** in it, don’t take yourself so seriously!”

Silence, awkward silence, awkward silence. And finally, we all just bust out laughing.

Well, we left there and realized that Joe was onto something.  It was honest, it was simple, and it was how the customers viewed our product - it was the truth.  The tagline was born.  Obviously, we had to clean it up a bit.  And, THANKS BARCLAY!

Just recently, we got a nice compliment from Dr. Laura on the tagline as well. Click here >>  Dr. Laura Clip

A company’s tagline can be one of its most effective marketing tools. Sometimes I believe that people remember our tagline, “It’s a box… you put stuff in it!”, more than they remember our company name.  My buddy, Doug, won’t even say hello to me anymore. He’ll just look at me real goofy and shout out “It’s a box!”.

Being the thinker, or as my wife would say the “over-thinker”, I’ve often times wondered what it is that makes a tag line memorable. Is it because the tag line is funny? Is it because it rings truth? Is it because it resonates with current culturural trends? Is it because it summarizes what you do in a succinct package? Is it a little bit of everything?  I’m sure the guys at GSD&M have the art of tag lines developed into some type of proprietary formula, but we can’t afford to hire them yet.

When we first entered the portable storage industry, we racked our brains trying to come up with something creative for storage containers.  Good luck, right? Try to come up with something creative around big shipping containers. Talk about thinking outside the box.

Our first tagline for Falcon was “Bringing storage solutions to you.”  I can honestly say that it was a huge flop.  We then tried to take on our key competitor “Why go Mini when everything else is bigger in Texas!” The only thing that tagline did was to make our competitor mad.  There was even one networking meeting that I went to where I was so desperate to come up with something memorable that I shrieked like a Falcon. All people remembered, though, was that I was crazy.

So why does “It’s a box… you put stuff in it!” stick? And then the question is how long will it stick? Will it become trite? Will it become stale? And if so, how do we come up with another one? In Part 2, I’ll write about the “creative process” in how we came up with it.