60 Famous Slogans in Advertising History & How To Create Your Own

When you think of a fun and catchy slogan, what phrases come to mind? Are they short and punchy? Are they deeply emotional? Do they come with a tune that gets stuck in your head?

As the largest career community for women, Fairygodboss has a mission to help women achieve their career goals. In many professional contexts, having a slogan or ‘tagline’ about yourself can be an important communication and career branding tactic. This is especially the case if your professional slogan or tagline is practiced, considered and reflects the way you want to be perceived. Whether it’s your elevator pitch, a short ‘bio’ you want to add to your resume or LinkedIn profile, marketing yourself quickly and concisely can be very useful. 

Slogans can be highly effective for advertisers; the same principles that help them sell products can also work to help sell your professional brand image. Slogans and their accompanying campaigns are some of the best tools anyone can use to connect with their audiences. They give immediate clarity and positioning to a brand or product. The lessons of great slogans apply to professional and personal branding as well. Slogans are a quick and efficient way to grab attention and build awareness. But even though these short phrases look like they’re easy to create, a lot of time and effort has to go into to crafting a perfect slogan, especially if you want it to stick in people’s minds and persuade them to act. 

So what goes into crafting a famous slogan? Let’s examine what makes a slogan work and think about how these lessons can be applied to professional branding.

What Is a Slogan?

First and foremost, what exactly is a slogan? Of course, you’ve seen and heard slogans that stick with you, but you can’t just slap on a catchy jingle or throw a sentence under your name in a resume or the bio section of your LinkedIn profile.

A slogan is a tagline or a phrase, usually only a few words in length, that is highly memorable. Good slogans are punchy, effective, and powerful snippets that advertisers use to promote a product, brand or company. A good professional slogan is something you’d want to include in an elevator pitch.

Slogans also often capture the mission statement of an organization. In the professional branding context, think of a slogan as not just highlighting your major strengths, but as explaining your motivations, personality and drivers.

What Are Some Examples of Famous Slogans?

Even with all these tips and insights, it might seem like a difficult task to jump into the creative process of coming up with a professional slogan or tagline that will succeed. To help kickstart the brainstorming for your professional branding use case, here are 40 famous company or product slogans that have successfully stuck with brands for years.

1. Skittles — “Taste the Rainbow”

2. Red Bull — “Red Bull Gives You Wings”

3. Maybelline – “Maybe She’s Born With it, Maybe it’s Maybelline”

4. Nike – “Just Do It”

5. Walmart – “Save Money, Live Better”

6. EA – “Challenge Everything”

7. Disney – “The Happiest Place on Earth”

8. McDonalds – “I’m Lovin’ It”

9. Apple – “Think Different”

10. Kentucky Fried Chicken — “Finger-Lickin' Good”

11. Kellogg’s Rice Krispies — “Snap! Crackle! Pop!”

12. Maxwell House — “Good to the Last Drop”

13. Burger King — “Have it Your Way”

14. FedEx — “When There Is No Tomorrow”

15. Nikon — “At the Heart of the Image”

16. Adidas — “Impossible Is Nothing”

17. De Beers — “A Diamond Is Forever”

18. Subway — “Eat Fresh”

19. M&M — “Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hands”

20. L’Oreal — “Because You’re Worth It”

21. General Electric — “Imagination at Work”

22. Energizer — “It Keeps Going and Going and Going"

23. Capital One — “What’s in Your Wallet?”

24. Gillette — “The Best a Man Can Get”

25. State Farm — “Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm Is There”

26. Verizon — “Can You Hear Me Now?”

27. Wendy’s — “Where’s the Beef?”

28. Visa — “It’s Everywhere You Want to Be”

29. Motorola — “Hello Moto”

30. Kodak — “Share Moments, Share Life”

31. The U.S. Marine Corps — "Semper Fi"

32. Tesco — "Every Little Helps"

33. Bounty — "The Quicker Picker Upper"

34. Lay's — "Betcha Can't Eat Just One"

35. Audi — "Advancement Through Technology"

36. Dunkin' Donuts — "America Runs on Dunkin'"

37. The New York Times — "All the News That's Fit to Print"

38. General Electric — "Imagination at Work"

39. State Farm — "Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm is There"

40. The U.S. Marine Corps — "The Few. The Proud. The Marines"

41. BMW — "Designed for Driving Pleasure"

42. California Milk Processor Board — "Got Milk?"

43. Meow Mix — "Tastes So Good, Cats Ask for It By Name"

44. De Beers — "A Diamond Is Forever"

45. MasterCard — "There Are Some Things Money Can't Buy, for Everything Else, There's MasterCard"

46. Dollar Shave Club — "Shave Time, Shave Money"

47. Heinz — “Beanz Meanz Heinz”

48. Kelloggs Frosties — “They’re GR-R-R-reat”

49. Dr. Pepper — “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?”

50. Typhoo – “You Only Get an ‘OO’ With Typhoo”

51. HSBC – “The World’s Local Bank”

52. Ronseal — “It Does Exactly What it Says on the Tin”

53. Jaguar — “Grace, Space, Pace”

54. Zurich — “Because Change Happens”

55. Panasonic — “Ideas for Life”

56. Google — “Don’t Be Evil”

57. Superdream — “Normal Sleeps, Super Dreams”

58. 7 Up  — "The Un-cola"

59. Campbell’s Soup — "M’m! M’m! Good!"

60. Greyhound — "Leave the Driving to Us"

What Makes up a Good Slogan for Your Professional Brand?

Looking to come up with your own professional tagline and wondering what some components of a particularly effective slogan are? How does a sound-bite go from average and forgettable to famous and lasting like the above examples?

For starters, you need to develop a point of view of what goal or message you want to convey. You can’t be confused about your mission or strengths; otherwise, you’ll create a tagline that lacks power and purpose. Employers, hiring managers, and recruiters are savvy and busy, and they’ll see right through a dull, vague slogan.

1. Keep it short and sweet.

For a professional tagline to make a statement, it needs to be short. You’re not describing your entire work history and education here; you’re just giving people a taste of what you’re all about. Generally, keeping a slogan under eight words will ensure you’re using all 8 words as effectively as possible.

2. Don’t give it an expiration date.

When it comes to crafting a catchy brand slogan or tagline, you want it to transcend time. Don’t include references to current events or social/political climates. The world is always changing, evolving, and growing. If your slogan is too based on the current environment, it won’t be relatable into the future and it may be out of date the next time technology or your industry changes.

3. Make sure it’s powerful without any added effects.

Slogans run alongside logos, but make sure they don't need any context or boost from other images and phrases. In other words, the most successful famous advertising slogans can stand alone. Your professional slogan or tagline will be a function of just words, so make them count.

4. Don’t get too fancy with your word choice.

When it comes to word choice, keep it simple. You don't need to assume that people are not intelligent, but trying to throw in big, fancy words to make yourself seem super smart and sophisticated can turn away a whole audience or come off as pretentious. In addition, big words are sometimes not as catchy; when every word you’re using has 3 syllables or more, a tagline can become too longwinded and clunky.

5. Be honest.

While marketers and advertisers want to puff up their products, they shouldn't lie. A slogan shouldn’t dishonestly portray a product or brand. If your professional tagline says you are good at something that you’re not, sooner or later you will lose all credibility.

Creating famous advertising slogans and taglines is a difficult business, and it can be even harder to create a professional tagline or slogan for yourself. But an investment in a good professional tagline can pay off for many years to come. A catchy slogan doesn’t go away, and will help you project a confident and consistent image, which is what any good marketing campaign does.

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This article reflects the views of the author and not necessarily those of Fairygodboss.

Kristina Udice is an SEO analyst, social media professional, content writer and copywriter. Her work has appeared in INSIDER, Elite Daily, Fairygodboss and several other publications.

What is the no. 1 piece of advice you have for how to create a professional slogan or tagline? Share your answer in the comments to help other Fairygodboss members!