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by Steve Cony
Nearly every camp has a logo, yet many do not complete their identity
by adding a complementary theme line. While some call these slogans or
tag lines, the words “theme line” seem to impart a more specialized
and more important role — and a theme line is indeed a vital part
of your camp’s image.
Among the many reasons for having a theme line, one seems most compelling:
Many of the people who need to form a connection with your camp’s
identity may not be visually oriented. These folks can look at the most
exquisitely developed graphics and yet fail to respond positively. A verbally-oriented
person needs words in order to relate to a product or service. Your theme
line is a succinct collection of these needed words.
In addition, a theme line gives people a short-form, easily memorized
explanation of what makes your camp different and thus desirable. In a
market where we all admit that word of mouth is a critical factor, a theme
line is more likely to find its way into parent-to-parent conversations
than a long mission statement.
A meaningful theme line begins with your Unique Selling Proposition
(USP) — the single most important factor that distinguishes what
you do for children and how you do it. Translation of the USP into a few
well-chosen words is the next step.
It is hard to achieve everything with a few brief words, but you should
try to develop a theme line that embodies as many as possible of the following
attributes:
- brief
- memorable
- original
- wearable
- includes the key benefit of the camp
- reflects the camp’s personality
The list includes “wearable.” Remember that your logo —
and, hopefully, theme line — are front and center on shirts and
caps, and often on pants and sweatshirts and more. When worn often, these
clothing items become like walking billboards for your camp. For this
to happen, though, your campers have to want to wear the logo and the
theme line. A camp that prints “Walking through beds of pine needles
for the sake of becoming a better human being” is unlikely to get
the same exposure-through-wearability as does the camp that prints “The
fun’s in the forest.”
There are many ways to structure a theme line that creates impact:
- Promise an end benefit. To suggest a valuable and lasting
benefit, a resident camp states, “You’ll talk about it all
year long.” A day camp that has the continuity of senior and junior
divisions and then a travel program promises, “One fun year after
another fun year after another.”
- Use repetition for memorability. One camp proclaims, “Great
Stuff. Great Staff. Great Summers.” Another states, “More
to Do. More to Be.”
- Relate the theme line directly to the camp name. New Jersey’s
Ivy League Day Camp uses the line “Big League Fun.” For
their travel program, targeted to older children, the line becomes “Bigger
League Fun.”
- Use a two-phase delivery, with a twist. A Christian camp adopted
the theme line, “The Spirit of Adventure. The Adventure of Spirit.”
- Relate the continuity of your various offerings. One owner
uses, “Discover the Spirit” for the day camp; “Discover
the Adventure” for the resident camp; and “Discover the
Planet” for the travel camp.
- Use the theme line as a kind of invitation. A camp that features
resplendent facilities communicates two different meanings with “We’ve
made a place for you.” A camp for both mainstream campers and
campers with special needs communicates achievement by inviting the
reader to “Look what I did!”
Here are a few pitfalls that you should try to avoid:
- Boasting through the use of superlatives If a camp were to
proclaim itself, “The best summer experience a child can have,”
the reader is entitled to respond by demanding, “Prove it!”
While the goal of good promotion does allow the advertiser to boast
about the product or service — that boasting must be fortified
with reasons in order for the reader to believe the claim.
- Blandness or sameness Too many camps use their theme lines
to make statements that are much too similar to others. This is like
the tendency for many camps to describe their staff as “mature,
caring, and professional” — in those exact and overworked
words. If the goal of a theme line is to distinguish the product or
service, then blending quietly into the competitive marketplace is not
the correct strategy.
- Stateliness Camp is fun and therefore cool and those attributes
should be reflected in the spirit of the theme line. Remember Volkswagen
of America, Inc.’s “Think small” and Nike’s
“Just do it” and 7 UP®’s “The UNCOLA”
and The Economist’s “For top laps.” Looking specifically
at that last one, if a journal about finance can have some fun within
its theme line, so can summer camps.
There are some situations in which a theme line is unnecessary —
and two come to mind. The cleaning product Janitor in a Drum® needed
no further explanation than its product name combined with innovative
green industrial drum-shaped packaging. The Sears Die Hard® battery
clearly explains its benefit without going further. A camp name, however,
usually does not perform as its own Unique Selling Proposition —
especially when that name is based on a Native American word.
If you still have any doubt about the lasting value of a theme line,
just take this quick quiz. What do you think of when you see the following
words?
- Avis®
- Maxwell House Coffee
- Morton Salt™
- Allstate®
- State Farm Insurance®
You probably recall all of these brands’ theme lines, and may
even be singing the State Farm Insurance® jingle to yourself as you
continue to read this.
A reasonable response might be that comparisons such as these are unfair
here, as camps have nowhere near the budgets to expose their logos, theme
lines, and messages in the marketplace as do these richly supported consumer
products and services. Perhaps that is all the more reason for camps to
establish clear identities. If we have limited opportunity to own a share
of our consumers’ minds, we must work hard to grab and hold onto
that share.
Originally published in the 2003 September/October
issue of Camping Magazine. |
