Movie Taglines: Or how to sell your movie in one sentence

¨A tagline is a succinct phrase, situated under or alongside your logo, that communicates a single but powerful brand message designed to resonate strongly with an intended audience.¨ 

And movies have it more difficult. Not only do they have to be memorable, they have to recreate the film´s essence in one line and be another element to persuade the audience to spend that extra 12.50, without the popcorn bucket and that delicious overexpensive Coke.

Adweek recently posted an article about their choice of the Best 66 movie taglines in the last 30 years. Take a trip through geeky movie memory lane and read the whole article here. My three personal favorites were:

 1. For Harry and Lloyd every day is a no brainer - Dumb and Dumber. Match it with Jim Carrey (and his bowl cut, another character in itself really) and Jeff Daniels on a motorcycle and    you´ve got gold. It´s funny, memorable and delivers the essence of the movie. 

2. Her life was in their hands, now her toe is in the mail- The Big Lebowski. It´s such an unusual and awkward line that it completely matches the Coen´s cult movie. It´s also memorable and quite unique, I´m sure you haven´t seen it before in another poster.

3. A romantic comedy, with zombies- Shaun of the Dead. And    that´s just what it is exactly, blunt but true. 

Lets take a look at the movies that are opening this week and their taglines

THOR: Courage is inmortal: They´re trying to keep the solemn look of their posters and the superhero feel to it, but, do they really have to take it that seriously? Not a fan of the tagline this time. It doesn´t bring anything new to the table and is quite forgetable.

SOMETHING BORROWED: It´s a thin line between love and friendship: This same tagline could have been use for the other zillion romantic comedies out there or just every Kate Hudson film.  I think having such a great repertoire of actors and A-listers they decided to give up on selling it, thinking it already sells itself. Fail

THE BEAVER: He´s here to save Walter´s life. It talks about the movie plot, it´s sentimental and it raises the stakes. I think it works, at least better than its counterparts. The poster works very well with it aswell, showing Mel Gibson falling apart but holding a stuffed beaver in one hand. It keeps us wondering and sparks the     audience´s curiosity.

And to end this list with a great guilty pleasure, rejoice with me and read this great tagline form the 90´s: One dream. Four Jamaicans. Twenty below zero. 

You gotta love it. For those who want to remember what I´m talking about here is the trailer: