Can You Hear Me Now? Good.

Remember when that phrase dominated advertising? While that Verizon campaign is now retired, it demonstrates an evergreen truth: a great tagline can define a brand for generations.

Today’s companies, from Tesla to TikTok, continue using taglines to supercharge their marketing and create lasting brand associations. In our increasingly digital world, where attention spans are shorter than ever, a memorable tagline is more valuable than ever.

When you read “Just do it” does a certain brand come to mind? Of course it does, and that’s the power of a tagline. Taglines and slogans serve as audible representations of a brand, similar to how logos visually represent brands.

What Is A Tagline?

Definition of a Tagline

A tagline is a short, memorable phrase that captures the essence of a brand’s message and helps identify it. Think of it as the verbal logo of your brand. It’s a crucial element of your marketing strategy, conveying your unique value proposition and setting you apart from competitors. A tagline works hand-in-hand with your brand’s logo and name to create a consistent and recognizable brand identity. For instance, when you hear “Just Do It,” you instantly think of Nike. That’s the power of a well-crafted tagline.

The purpose of a tagline is to create a positive, memorable phrase that sticks in your customer’s head and helps them identify your brand and your marketing message. Bonus points if it’s catchy.

Importance of a Tagline in Business

A tagline is essential for businesses because it creates a lasting impression on customers and sets the tone for your brand’s overall message. A well-crafted tagline can increase brand recognition, drive sales, and establish a unique identity in the market. It communicates your brand’s values, mission, and purpose, helping to build trust and loyalty with customers. For example, BMW’s “The Ultimate Driving Machine” not only highlights the brand’s focus on performance but also resonates with customers who value quality and engineering excellence.

The Psychology Behind Taglines

There’s a psychological phenomenon called the mere-exposure effect, where we develop preferences for things (and brands!) simply because we’re familiar with them. This is why taglines remain powerful in 2024 – they create memorable touchpoints that leverage this psychological principle to build brand affinity. Sports brands, for instance, use emotional messaging in their taglines to inspire belief and determination, resonating deeply with their audiences.

But taglines and slogans can be difficult to come up with and require some creativity. That’s why I created this actionable guide to creating a tagline. In it, I cover what a tagline is, what makes a great tagline, a three-step action plan to create your own tagline, and examples of successful taglines.

5 Tips For Crafting A Catchy Tagline

Before we walk through a step-by-step process to create your tagline, here are a few quick tips to keep in mind:

1. KEEP IT SIMPLE

Most successful slogans are only 3-6 words long and get the point across without much thought. Ideally, your tagline should be six words or fewer (with some exceptions that I’ll share in the examples section at the end).

2. GIVE IT MEANING

Your tagline should reflect authentic brand values. In an era where consumers demand authenticity, empty phrases won’t cut it. For example, “Have it your way” would be a terrible slogan if Burger King didn’t allow customers to customize their orders.

And a tagline shouldn’t be made just because you saw some famous companies have one. If you’re going to invest the mental energy and marketing budget to craft a catchphrase, it should truly bring meaning to your brand. Otherwise, just skip creating one altogether.

3. CLARITY IS KEY

In the age of information overload, ambiguity is your enemy. Your message should be instantly clear. There should be no guessing as to what your tagline means. In addition to being simple, it should clearly state the mission or purpose of your company without any guesswork. If you ask some friends what they think, and they ask questions back, you did it wrong.

4. FOCUS ON THE BENEFITS

Customers care about benefits, not features — and that goes for your tagline as well. Today’s consumers are more discerning than ever. Focus on what your customer gains. It should tell your audience the main benefit of your brand or product without sharing “features.” For example, convenience is a benefit, whereas a removable part for easy cleaning is a feature.

5. TELL A STORY

Storytelling is a huge part of marketing and business. The stronger your story, the easier it is to make more sales. In the era of social media, storytelling is more crucial than ever. Your tagline should be part of a larger narrative. If your slogan tells a story, like some of the examples I share at the end, it can become an integral part of your marketing and brand.

3 Actionable Steps To Create A Great Business Tagline

Actually creating a tagline can be a difficult process, or it can be incredibly easy. It really depends on your creativity and if inspiration happens to strike.

That said, inspiration tends to strike those in motion. And we’ve created an actionable step-by-step plan to get you in motion and help you create a business tagline as easily as possible!

1. BEGIN WITH THE END

This is excellent advice from Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. The idea is to envision where you want yourself (and your business) to be in 5-10 years.

You do this because more than likely you have dreams of growth; your business today isn’t nearly as big or inspiring as you’d one day like it to be. But if you start treating it as if your dreams are already achieved from day one, you have a much better chance of getting there.

So ask yourself: 

Where do I want my business to be in 5-10 years? 

What do I want my business to stand for? Who do I want to help?

What kind of impact am I hoping to make?

For help during this process, click the button below to get my business tagline worksheet where you can write in the answers to these questions as you read this guide!

Get My Business Tagline Worksheet

2. FIGURE OUT WHAT EMOTIONS YOU WANT TO EVOKE

The best marketing taps into people’s emotions; your tagline is no different.

Ask yourself: What do you want people to feel when they think of your business? 

It could be a simple emotion, like happiness or pride. But it can also be something more complex, such as “refreshed”, “confident”, or even “hungry”. Modern consumers seek authentic emotional connections. Consider how you can make your community feel empowered or rooted.

Here’s Plutchik’s emotion wheel of the various types of emotions:

My worksheet includes all 27 human emotions to help you decide what you want your customers to feel. Click the button below to grab it now!

Get My Business Tagline Worksheet 

3. BRAINSTORM MULTIPLE SLOGAN IDEAS

Now that you have a clear vision of your goals, brand values, and the emotions you want your customers to experience, it’s time to craft your tagline!

Say you’re launching a sustainable fashion marketplace. Your vision is to become the leading platform for eco-conscious fashion by 2030. You want customers to feel empowered about their sustainable choices.

Potential taglines might include:

• “Wear the Change”
• “Fashion Forward, Planet First”
• “Style That Sustains”
• “Your Closet, Our Future”.

You get the picture. I crafted these by imagining the emotions I want my customers to experience when they interact with my brand, then applied a bit of creativity to encapsulate that feeling in a concise phrase.

Start by brainstorming at least 10-20 tagline ideas. It’s perfectly fine if some of them aren’t great; this process can be a numbers game. The goal is to exercise your creative muscles, and as you get the ideas flowing, it should become easier to generate more concepts.

What To Do If You Get Stuck

Unless you happen to be a creative genius, you’ll probably get stuck and you might even start getting aggravated. Join the club. We meet every Tuesday.

That’s OK! It’s all part of the creative thinking process.

Here are some tips to help you when you can’t figure out that “perfect” slogan:

TRY OUT SOME POWER WORDS

If you’re getting stuck, chances are you can’t find the right words to convey what you want to about your brand.

If you’re finding it challenging to come up with the right words, try exploring a list of powerful words that evoke emotion to see if any resonate with your brand’s message.

Power words are highly effective in creating a catchy slogan or tagline because they evoke emotions and prompt action. They can transform a bland phrase into something dynamic and memorable. For instance, words like “ignite,” “transform,” or “revolutionize” can add a punch to your message, making it resonate with your audience on a deeper level.

To effectively use power words, start by identifying the core emotion or action you want your audience to associate with your brand. Are you aiming to inspire, motivate, or reassure them? Once you’ve pinpointed this, choose words that align with these goals. Integrating these words into your tagline can create a strong emotional connection, making your brand more relatable and your marketing messaging more compelling.

Experiment with different combinations of power words to see which ones best reflect your brand’s personality and message. Remember, the ultimate goal is to craft a memorable phrase that not only captures attention but also leaves a lasting impression.

LOOK AT OTHER EXAMPLES

Good artists copy. They even steal! If you’re feeling stuck, browse other business’s taglines to get fresh ideas. 

Here is a list of 20 catchy taglines you probably already know:

1. Taco Bell: “Live Más”
2. The U.S. Marine Corps: “The Few. The Proud. The Marines.”
3. Dollar Shave Club: “Shave Time. Shave Money.”
4. MasterCard: “There are some things money can‘t buy. For everything else, there’s MasterCard.”
5. Allstate: “You’re in Good Hands With Allstate”
6. Target: “Expect More. Pay Less.”
7. Nike: “Just Do It”
8. CARFAX: “Show Me the CARFAX”
9. Apple: “Think Different.”
10. L‘Oréal: “Because You’re Worth It”
11. California Milk Processor Board: “Got Milk?”
12. Bounty: “The Quicker Picker Upper”
13. Lay‘s: “Betcha Can’t Eat Just One.”
14. Dunkin’: “America Runs on Dunkin”
15. McDonald‘s: “I’m Lovin’ It”
16. General Electric: “Imagination at Work”
17. State Farm: “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.”
18. Maybelline: “Maybe she‘s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline.”
19. Capital One: “What’s in Your Wallet?”
20. Toyota: “Let’s Go Places”

Did you know all twenty of those? I also have a list of several examples at the end of this guide.

While you’re looking at them, think about why their tagline is what it is. Think about the emotions they’re trying to convey, what their product is, and why it might make sense. This process of reverse-engineering will help you develop your own tagline.

DON’T TRY TO BE PERFECT

Coming up with a tagline is almost as stressful as coming up with a business name or logo. But the cool thing about taglines is that if it’s not working, they’re much easier to change!

Nearly every big brand has changed their tagline at one point or another, either to adapt with a new vision or new trends, or simply because the old one wasn’t working.

As businesses grow and expand, their objectives, target audience, and market conditions often shift; a new tagline can reflect a company’s commitment to innovation, inclusivity, or sustainability. Additionally, a revamped tagline can rejuvenate a brand’s image, making it more appealing to younger demographics or emerging markets.

It’s a strategic move that can breathe new life into a brand’s marketing campaign, making the brand slogan quickly recognizable and ensuring it resonates with current and potential customers. By embracing change and updating their taglines, companies can maintain a competitive advantage, ensuring their message remains relevant in an ever-evolving marketplace.

So relieve some of the pressure on yourself and realize that your slogan doesn’t have to be perfect!

USE SHOPIFY’S FREE SLOGAN GENERATOR

Shopify built a free slogan generator that takes a word or phrase and generates tagline ideas for your brand. Try it out!

While it may instantly not generate the perfect tagline for you, it’s a useful tool for sparking new ideas and helping along your brainstorming process.

5. TAKE A BREAK

When all else fails, walk away!

Part of the creative process is hitting blocks. When you’re stuck on creating a tagline, forcing it rarely works. Your brain needs downtime to process information and make new connections. This is why many creative breakthroughs happen when you’re doing something completely different – walking, exercising, or even just taking a shower.

During these breaks, your brain continues working on the problem subconsciously, a process psychologists call “incubation.” This is why solutions often pop into your head when you’re not actively thinking about them.

6 Examples Of Taglines That Work Incredibly Well

Here’s a mix of slogans, taglines, and catchphrases that have been used by companies big and small to give you some ideas. I’ll also share a bit about them and why they work so well.

1. Taste the Feeling

Coca-Cola has changed their tagline more than a dozen times since 1886. Here are the first 15 changes they made:

• 1986 – Red, White & You (for Coca‑Cola classic)
• 1986 – Catch the Wave (for Coca‑Cola)
• 1987 – When Coca‑Cola is a Part of Your Life, You Can’t Beat the Feeling
• 1988 – You Can’t Beat the Feeling 
• 1989 – Official Soft Drink of Summer
• 1990 – You Can’t Beat the Real Thing
• 1993 – Always Coca‑Cola
• 2000 – Coca‑Cola. Enjoy
• 2001 – Life Tastes Good
• 2003 – Coca‑Cola … Real
• 2005 – Make It Real
• 2006 – The Coke Side of Life
• 2009 – Open Happiness
• 2016 – Taste the Feeling
• 2021 – Real Magic

Their tagline, “Taste The Feeling”, is great because it’s simple, easy to use in advertising, and understandable. 

Many people associate Coca-Cola with a certain feeling of refreshment and relaxation, and a big part of that is Coke’s use of their slogans in their marketing.

Side Note: One of my favorite taglines from Coke is “Things Go Better With Coke,” and I believe this slogan is a big part of their current success. People associate eating food with drinking Coke, likely thanks to that marketing campaign.

2. Power to the Players

GameStop’s tagline “Power to the Players” gained fascinating new significance during the 2021 stock market event.

While it was originally created to emphasize GameStop’s commitment to empowering gamers through their retail services, the phrase took on a powerful double meaning during the unprecedented retail investor movement. This tagline perfectly captures the company’s connection to its community, both it’s players and its investors.

3. Happiness is Homemade

My wife, Kayla, came up with this tagline for her food blog, The Sustainable Harvest.

She wants people to create more healthy home-cooked meals and feel the joy that comes from it. After about a dozen ideas, this is the one she landed on — to show you that it can take time and multiple ideas to decide on the right tagline.

Here are some ideas we wrote in a Google Doc (yes there’s a Joe Dirt reference in there; you gotta have fun while you’re doing it!):

4. We Bring Good Things to Life

General Electric, another massively successful brand, once touted this tagline. It makes sense and it’s very clear — they create good things.

5. World’s Strongest Coffee

This tagline belongs to Death Wish Coffee, the world’s strongest coffee.

Unlike the other brands, Death Wish Coffee sells a single product — coffee. Because of that, they can craft their tagline around that single product and use their marketing and development budget to create the strongest coffee in the world.

6. What happens here, stays here.

This one’s a bit different; it’s the slogan of a city, not a business. Las Vegas became known on this single slogan!

The Benefits of a Great Tagline

A great tagline can have numerous benefits for your business, including:

• Increased Brand Recognition and Awareness: A catchy and memorable tagline makes your brand more recognizable.
• Differentiation from Competitors: It sets you apart in a crowded market.
• Improved Brand Identity and Consistency: It reinforces your brand’s message across all marketing channels.
• Enhanced Customer Engagement and Loyalty: A relatable tagline can foster a deeper connection with your audience.
• Increased Sales and Revenue: A compelling tagline can drive customer action and boost sales.
• Better Communication of Values, Mission, and Purpose: It succinctly conveys what your brand stands for.

Consider the California Milk Processor Board’s “Got Milk?” campaign. This simple yet powerful tagline not only increased milk consumption but also became a cultural phenomenon, demonstrating the immense potential of a great tagline.

Save Money with a Well-Crafted Tagline

A well-crafted tagline can also help businesses save money by reducing the need for costly advertising and marketing campaigns. A memorable and catchy tagline can be used across various marketing channels, including social media, print ads, and television commercials, making it a cost-effective way to promote your brand. For instance, Dollar Shave Club’s “Shave Time. Shave Money” cleverly communicates the brand’s value proposition while being versatile enough to use in various marketing materials. This approach can significantly cut down on marketing expenses while maintaining a strong brand presence.

Increase Brand Recognition

A great tagline can increase brand recognition by making your brand more memorable and recognizable. A catchy and memorable tagline can stick in customers’ minds, making it easier for them to recall your brand and its products or services. This can lead to increased brand loyalty and customer retention, ultimately driving business growth and success.

These taglines are memorable, catchy, and effectively communicate the brand’s message and unique value proposition. They have become synonymous with their respective brands and have helped to establish a strong brand identity in the market.

Evaluation: Testing your New Tagline(s)

Before fully committing to your new tagline, it’s important to test it out.

Start with social media testing, because it offers quick and cost-effective feedback. Launch Instagram and LinkedIn polls featuring your top options, create A/B tests in your offers, paid social campaigns, and monitor how different variations perform in organic posts. Twitter/X polls can provide particularly rapid feedback from your audience. You don’t have to test on all platforms, of course.

When to Update Your Tagline

Consider updating your tagline when your:

• Market significantly changes (new competitors, shifting customer needs)
• Business transforms (new markets, pivots, mergers)
• Current tagline feels outdated or culturally tone-deaf
• Performance indicators drop (brand recognition, engagement, social mentions)

Making the Transition

Implement your new tagline gradually. Start using it alongside the existing one, slowly increasing its presence. Inform employees and partners on the change, and create a clear timeline for updating all marketing materials. Prioritize high-visibility touch points first.

Get My Tagline Worksheet

Ready to create a tagline for your business? Click the button below to download my fill-in-the-blank worksheet with questions to guide the creative process:

Get My Business Tagline Worksheet

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