Marketing Message

One of the HolyGrail elements of classical marketing. A MarketingMessage is a simple message, targeted to a defined audience, that positions the product in the category and distinguishes it and, hopefully, makes it memorable. The MarketingMessage establishes the context of the promise you're making your potential customer or user. The MarketingMessage may be one of several, but a campaign or positioning program generally can't handle more than a few.

Good MarketingMessages are long remembered and have long useful lives. Bad ones are forgotten or of no particular value. You may craft a MarketingMessage that tells a lie. It may be remembered, but it won't work if the promise can't be kept.

-- First thoughts on Halloween 1999 -- MartyHeyman

Good marketing messages can be measured by their effectiveness. -- StephanBranczyk

A few examples of good marketing messages:

McDonalds is perhaps the canonical example, with their introduction several decades ago (in the 60's?) of "You deserve a break today." It sent a clear message to busy folks that they deserve to stop in at McDonalds for a break and some food.
Pepsi surged ahead from a distant second to Coca-Cola to a neck-and-neck race with the soda giant when it came up with the concept of the Pepsi Generation, particularly, "The choice of the new generation."
When announcing the upcoming AppleMacintosh, Apple used the tagline, "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984."
Geico, the auto insurance company, has been using a variation on the simple but effective slogan, "A 15 minute phone call could save you 15% or more on car insurance."
The new Hyundai Santa Fe, "Prepare to want one." --This one nearly worked on me.
Philips has been using a song in its advertisements promoting its new technologies, which starts, "You've got to admit it's getting better, it's getting better all the time."
Ronseal, a UK company that produce paints and varnishes, had an amazingly effective advertising campaign with the slogan "Ronseal does exactly what it says on the tin". Their products names tell you what the product is to be used for. See DoesWhatItSaysOnTheTin
(please add, especially short and sweet ones)

On the Philips jingle

The song never actually influenced my purchasing decisions. However, on multiple occasions it did motivate me enough to walk across a frozen campus on late Saturday evenings to 'get a few more hours in' on whatever EE project I was working on at the time.