5 ms·
Ask HN: OK to use the word "bullshit" in our company tagline?
We're doing a homepage redesign and part of that is exploring a new tagline. In a meeting, one of us randomly threw out that one of our value propositions is "no bullshit" when finding a credit card processor. Somehow it stuck, and we all like "no bullshit" in our tagline... but we're unsure how the market perceives this.
Do you guys know if this turns some people off? We are a B2B site - FeeFighters.com … many of our customers are online businesses, but we also have a number of small businesses - dentists, restaurants, etc. We're contemplating changing our tagline to "Compare credit card processors. They compete. You win. No bullshit."
Is the general population offended by the word "bullshit" or has that gone by the wayside?
- pitdesi 15y agoLinks Current site: http://feefighters.com http://feefighters.com Wireframe options: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3446069/homepage-pick-winner-keep-honest.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3446069/homepage-pick-winner-keep-ho... http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3446069/homepage-they-compete-you-win-no-bullshit-1.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3446069/homepage-they-compete-you-wi...
- tobylane 15y agoBetter a two-sentence tag line than three-sentence.
- maxdemarzi 15y agoTry a few alternatives: no joke no kidding no bullcrap no hogwash no nonsense hassle free painless hooray!
- shii 15y agoRisky, but I think in the end it'd be a positive that'd attract me to your product if I ran a small business (which I do). But your tag of 'no bullshit' might not be feasible for an entirely other reason: Gandhi.net seems to have trademarked the phrase and uses it as part of their tagline as well: http://en.gandi.net/no-bullshit http://en.gandi.net/no-bullshit I can't find any outside references for the trademark registration however.
- cph1 15y ago"Gandhi.net seems to have..." It's http://gandi.net http://gandi.net (without the H). "I can't find any outside references for the trademark registration however." Search for "no bullshit" here: http://www.tmview.europa.eu/tmview/welcome.html http://www.tmview.europa.eu/tmview/welcome.html
- shii 15y agoAh, thank you. I was searching through US companies for some reason - silly considering Gandi is a French company... It seems that they have trademarked the tag officially as well[1][2]. [1]:http://www.tmview.europa.eu/tmview/details.html?id=008458168&itemIndex=4&totalResults=4&page=0&pageSize=15&officeCode=EM http://www.tmview.europa.eu/tmview/details.html?id=008458168... [2]:http://www.tmview.europa.eu/tmview/details.html?id=3667252&itemIndex=2&totalResults=4&page=0&pageSize=15&officeCode=FR http://www.tmview.europa.eu/tmview/details.html?id=3667252&#...
- msredmond 15y agoOne problem is that some filters automatically block people from going to pages based on the words on that page. Using bullsh*t may help mitigate that.
- jranck 15y agoIt depends, does the risk of offending potential users outweigh the gain? Or do you think you'll get more users with a more radical marketing approach? If you guys like it that much I would A/B test it and see what works.
- michaeldhopkins 15y agoHow about BS?
- matdwyer 15y agoI'd go with BS
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- thaumaturgy 15y agoYou could maybe have a lot of fun with this, without actually triggering fallout from the easily-offended crowd. e.g., "No bulls hit!", with a drawing of a surprised or relieved bull. Or, "No bulls sit!", with a drawing of a crowd of standing bovine...
- epoxyhockey 15y agoYou know the old saying.. If you have to ask, you probably shouldn't. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Seven_dirty_words https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Seven_dirty_w...
- instakill 15y agoI had the same issue so I went with buffalo chips. Same meaning, less offensive.
- willheim 15y agoWhen you resort to callous language you demonstrate a lack of creativity. There's an energy drink company up here in Canada with some rather terrible ads but one thing I do like is their tagline: "No Caffeine. No Caffeine Crash. No Bull" That works on two levels. 1) Obviously they're hitting on what you're hitting (No BS) and 2) A dig at the leading energy drink Red Bull. I think a better idea for you would be to aim for a positive message (not a negative). - They Compete. You Win. Right On! (cute) - Better. Cheaper. Win-Win! (more accurate) - They Compete. You Decide. (play on Fox News and puts power in consumer's hand which is what they want) Or what if your third part of the tagline rotated so that each time the screen refreshed it changed to another awesome final point? That would grab attention.
- dandrews 15y agoI chided the folks at Gandi for their "no bullshit" tagline, thinking it uncultured at best. They sent me a thoughtful response, saying that they'd weighed the possibility that it would be considered crude, but that it was a clear description of their corporate mission.
- ggchappell 15y agoAn issue you might want to think about, which is not related to the particular choice of words: When you say something along the lines of "we're not lying", in my mind you are implicitly reminding me "this is a situation in which we might reasonably be expected to lie". Thus, an attempt to inspire confidence may in fact be subtly undermining it. Okay, so lying might not be the issue, but something negative is the issue. Do be careful that the message you want to send, might not be the same one that is received.