Key messages of advertising slogans in the maritime industry

Advertising slogans, as part of broader marketing tools, concepts and campaigns, have a subtle task to highlight the quality and distinctive features of the companies or their products in a competitive market. They are short, memorable phrases used to draw attention and drive to action. The slogans presented in this paper are a representative selection of a corpus gathered from maritime magazines and corporate web sites over the years. This study discusses and categorises the key messages that slogans convey in advertisements of manufacturers and service providers in the maritime industry, including shipping companies, ports, engineering, yachting, training of seafarers, insurance, and other sectors. As these messages use specific language to communicate with human psyche and needs, their categorisation relies on a simple psychological tool – Maslow’s need hierarchy – and the linguistic analysis that includes qualitative, descriptive and comparative methods. Predictably, most of the messages appeal to the second stage of Maslow’s typology – safety – a fundamental need, especially in maritime industries. What is surprising is the frequency of slogans aiming at higher need states, as well the incidence of messages shifting between the hierarchy levels. The results of this study are useful for understanding the purpose, personality and behaviour of ad slogans in the competitive world of maritime industry.