TAGLINES OBSOLETE?

I read an article from BrandWeek today about how taglines are being used less and less www.brandweek.com/bw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003677226. Are taglines going away? I don’t think so. It has to do with being true to your brand. What are you about? If you can comunicate that without a tagline, that’s fine. They pointed to Starbucks as an example of one who doesn’t need a tagline….but what the article does not address is all the other ways that a brand has to communicate its message. Creating distinctiveness is not always done with words. It can be done visually (think about the Target advertising), audibly (anyone can sing intel’s jingle), through a spokesperson (the Maytag repairman), or a creative format (like the Apple guy who apears regularly with the sadly inept PC guy). It’s not that taglines are going away; it’s that they aren’t always the best choice for creating brand consistency and messaging!