Are Medical Company Taglines Becoming Redundant?

Are Medical Company Taglines Becoming Redundant?

Some claim that taglines are becoming obsolete.

I read a post by Nicola Ziady a few days ago titled, “Hospital Taglines – Are they Dead?”. In the article, Nicola referenced an Adweek article that claimed that taglines are not as frequently used or as important as they were in the past.

“There’s certainly evidence that taglines have diminished in importance. Many of the most admired brands—Starbucks, Whole Foods, Lululemon, Nordstrom—don’t have them. Some brands whose taglines helped propel them to greatness no longer use them. Apple hasn’t used “Think different” for years.”

The articles continued to state that “in today’s media, the most common advertising real estate is a small mobile phone screen, and much of a brand’s verbal messaging is constrained by a 140-character limit or six seconds of video. A tagline would dominate communication in these formats and crowd out the brand logo or the ad-specific message.”

Nicola continued to list taglines used in hospital examples. You can find the alphabetical list on Junto .

I thought that it would be fun to see what is happening in world of taglines for medical devices companies and pharma companies. Perhaps you can use such a list as reference and for inspiration.

Medical Devices Companies and Pharma Companies Taglines

We used the top 40 medical device company list from MDDI and the top 40 pharma companies as listed in Pharma Board Room. For most, we found taglines through a simple internet search using Google Image Search (inserting [company name] AND logo in the search box). We used the MBA Skool brand guide in cases where we couldn’t find the tagline via the simple Google search, above. Note that a few of the main medical device companies are not pure medical device players; their taglines were not medically oriented. There were a few cases where we couldn’t find a tagline for one of the companies. In these cases, we wrote NA. Feel free to let us know if we have missed anything!

Our findings: From this small sample, it turns out that taglines are not regularly used by medical companies on the web.

Taglines for the top 40 Medical Device Companies

1. Johnson & Johnson – NA (each business using using its own)
2. Siemens AG – Global Network of Innovation
3. General Electric Co. – Imagination at Work
4. Medtronic Inc. – When Life Depends on Medical Technology
5. Baxter International Inc. – Making a meaningful difference in patients’ lives
6. Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGAA – THE HEALTH CARE GROUP
7. Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV – Sense and Simplicity
8. Covidien plc – Positive Results for Life
9. Novartis AG – Caring and Curing
10. Cardinal Health Inc. – Making a Difference
11. Stryker Corp. – A Global Leader in Medical Technology
12. Becton, Dickinson and Co. – Helping all people live healthy lives
13. Boston Scientific Corp. – Advancing science for life
14. Essilor International SA – Seeing the world better
15. Allergan Inc. – Our pursuit. Life’s Potential.
16. St. Jude Medical Inc. – MORE CONTROL. LESS RISK.
17. 3M Co. – Innovative Technology for a changing world.
18. Zimmer Holdings Inc. – Personal Fit. Renewed Life.
19. Terumo Corp. – Contributing to Society through Healthcare
20. Smith & Nephew plc  – NA
21. Olympus Corp. – Your Vision, Our Future
22. Getinge AB – NA
23. Toshiba Corp. – Leading Innovation
24. Bayer AG – Science For A Better Life
25. CareFusion Corp. – NA
26. Abbott Laboratories – A Promise for Life
27. CR Bard Inc. – Advancing the Delivery of Health Care
28. DENTSPLY International Inc. – For better dentistry
29. Varian Medical Systems Inc. – A partner for life
30. Hologic Inc. – Extraordinarily powerful care
31. Intuitive Surgical Inc. – Taking surgical precision beyond the limits of the human hand
32. Paul Hartmann AG – helps healing.
33. Dragerwerk AG & Co. KGa – Technology for Life.
34. Hoya Corp.  – NA
35. Danaher Corp.  – Driving innovation across the nation
36. BioMérieux SA – NA
37. Coloplast A/S – NA
38. Edwards Lifesciences – NA
39. MIRACA Holdings Inc. – NA
40. Sonova Holdings – Hear the World

Taglines for the Top 40 Pharma Companies

1. Johnson & Johnson – Family of Companies
2. Pfizer – Working Together for a Healthier World
3. Novartis – Caring and Curing
4. Sanofi – Contributing with pride and passion, beyond expectations
5. Merck & Co – Be well
6. GlaxoSmithKline – Do more, feel better, live longer
7. Abbott Laboratories – A Promise for Life
8. Roche – We innovate healthcare
9. Bayer – Science For A Better Life
10. AstraZeneca – Life Inspiring Ideas
11. Eli Lilly – Answers That Matter
12. Teva – Live your life
13. Boehringer Ingelheim – Value through Innovation
14. Bristol-Myers Squibb – Together we can prevail.
15. Amgen – NA
16. Takeda – Transformation into a New Takeda
17. Merck KGaA – Living Innovation
18. Baxter International Inc. – Making a meaningful difference in patients’ lives
19. Astellas – Leading Light for Life
20. Daiichi Sankyo – Passion for Innovation. Compassion for Patients
21. Gilead Sciences – Advancing Therapeutics. Improving Lives.
22. Novo Nordisk – Changing diabetes
23. Otsuka – Otsuka-people creating new products for better health worldwide
24. Mylan – Seeing is Believing
25. Eisai – human health care
26. Actavis – think smart medicine
27. Allergan – Our pursuit. Life’s potential.
28. Biogen Idec -NA
29. Celgene – Committed to improving the lives of patients worldwide
30. Servier – Life through Discovery
31. Shire – To be as brave as the people we help.
32. Forest – Guided by principles, powered by people
33. UCB view – Inspired by patients. Driven by science.
34. CSL – Biotherapies for Life
35. Menarini – Health without Borders
36. Mitsubishi Tanabe – For the ones closest to you, and everyone around the world.
37. Hospira – Advancing Wellness
38. Kyowa Hakko Kirin – NA
39. Valeant – Multinational specialty pharmaceutical company
40. Dainippon Sumitomo – Healthy bodies, healthy lives

Do you still need a tagline for your medical company?

There doesn’t seem to be a straight answer here, yet it seems that the medical companies appearing on the lists don’t typically use taglines in their websites. If you are not working at one of the top 40 medical device or pharma companies named above that has an established brand name, you are probably a medtech entrepreneur or working in one of the thousands of small or midsized medtech firms that hopes to be large one day. If this is the case, a tagline could be used as a differentiator from the competition, and as a way to stand out. A tagline will help to immediately peg your product’s attributes and benefits.

So I say: Go for it, and create your own tagline!