Collection
Slogans That Stuck
Lines that outlived their campaigns and entered everyday language — the tagline as the most durable asset a brand can own.
2020s
2010s
2000s
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2009Compare the Meerkat ("Simples")
Aleksandr Orlov, a self-important Russian meerkat in a smoking jacket, complains to camera that car-insurance shoppers keep turning up at his…
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2007Pinkie ("Speeding. No One Thinks Big of You.")
Young men show off behind the wheel, and everyone they hope to impress, from young women by the road to an elderly woman and the mates riding with…
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2006Bienvenido a la república independiente de tu casa
A child's voice reads out the constitution of a home over shaky family camcorder footage: every republic needs an anthem and a flag, the inhabitants…
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2006The Most Interesting Man in the World
Beer advertising's rulebook said young, party, bikinis; Dos Equis cast a silver-bearded man in his sixties and made him a legend: "He once had an…
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2003What Happens Here, Stays Here
The most successful destination slogan ever written — and a masterclass in selling an emotional truth instead of attractions.
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2002Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola
Bollywood star Aamir Khan, in a run of regional disguises from a Punjabi farmer who chills bottles in his well to a Bengali professor, insists that…
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2000Mano (¿Te gusta conducir?)
Filmed from inside the car, the spot never shows a BMW.
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2000Not Happy, Jan!
A businesswoman discovers that her employee, Jan, has forgotten to book the company's advertisement in the new Yellow Pages, so the business will…
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2000The Rant ("I Am Canadian")
A polite young man in a flannel shirt steps up to a cinema microphone and, building from a bashful murmur to a roar over "Land of Hope and Glory",…
1990s
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1999Surfer
A beer's pour time turned into myth.
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1997Think Different ("The Crazy Ones")
A manifesto in place of a product.
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1997Priceless
A financial company admitting money isn't everything — and building the longest-running campaign formula in modern advertising on the admission.
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1994Yebo Gogo (Windmills)
A white yuppie and his girlfriend stop at a roadside stall where an older Black man sells wire windmills.
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1993Aaron Burr (got milk?)
The campaign that sold a product through its absence.
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1992Orange Man ("You Know When You've Been Tango'd")
The anti-ad that out-punched Coca-Cola's budgets.
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1991Não é assim uma Brastemp
In a series of mock-confessional films, ordinary people settled in armchairs describe an appliance from another brand with embarrassed hesitation:…
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1991Uh-Huh (You Got the Right One, Baby)
Ray Charles sits at a grand piano with a big band behind him, while three backing singers in black minidresses and wigs answer each line with a…
1980s
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1989Girlfriend ("If You Drink, Then Drive, You're a Bloody Idiot")
A young woman, injured in a crash caused by her drunk boyfriend, is rushed through a hospital emergency department while a trauma team works on her.
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1989Hamara Bajaj
Ordinary Indians go about their day with their Bajaj scooters, polishing them, checking their hair in the mirror, haggling over fish; a woman rides…
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1989Supermarkt ("Tina, wat kosten die Kondome?")
A shy young man (Ingolf Lück) tries to buy condoms without anyone noticing, until the supermarket cashier (Hella von Sinnen) wrecks his discretion…
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1988Just Do It (launch spot, "Walt Stack")
Three words that outgrew sport.
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1987O Primeiro Sutiã (My First Bra)
Ninety seconds, no sales pitch: 11-year-old Patrícia Lucchesi lives through a girl's first bra, including the moment she first sees herself in it,…
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1986Don't Mess with Texas
An anti-litter campaign that never uses the word litter.
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1985Even Apeldoorn bellen
Something goes absurdly wrong, and the fix arrives in three words: "Even Apeldoorn bellen," just call Apeldoorn, the town where insurer Centraal…
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1985Vince and Larry, the Crash Test Dummies ("You Could Learn a Lot from a Dummy")
Two talking crash test dummies, the cynical veteran Vince and his eager young partner Larry, who take every collision so that viewers don't have to.
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1984Come and Say G'day (Shrimp on the Barbie)
Paul Hogan, a television star at home but unknown in the United States, speaks straight to Americans: they look like they need a "fair dinkum"…
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1984Lalitaji
In a busy market a housewife in a crisp white sari haggles with a vegetable seller over a few rupees.
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1984Fluffy Bun ("Where's the Beef?")
Three elderly women inspect an absurdly fluffy competitor's bun until 81-year-old Clara Peller barks the question that ate American culture:…
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1983Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk
The Ad Council and the U.S.
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Reassuringly expensive.Stella Artois1982
Reassuringly Expensive
Most brands hide a premium price; Stella Artois made it the selling point.
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1981Fast Paced World ("Fast Talker")
A frantic executive, played by John Moschitta, fires through a working day without drawing breath: hiring a candidate in seconds, putting Pete in…
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1981Slip! Slop! Slap! (Sid the Seagull)
A cartoon seagull in board shorts, T-shirt and hat dances across the screen singing three verbs that became a national reflex: slip on a shirt, slop…
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1981Be All You Can Be
The line that rebuilt an institution's self-image.
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1980Take a Bite Out of Crime ("McGruff the Crime Dog")
A world-weary cartoon bloodhound in a trench coat, modelled partly on the TV detective Columbo, who first appeared on American television in…
1970s
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1976Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos and Holden Cars
A quick-cut montage of beaches, yachting, cricket, Aussie Rules, koalas, kangaroos, meat pies and the flag, intercut with Kingswoods, Toranas and…
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1974Refreshes the Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach
A pseudo-scientific absurdity that ran for three decades.
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1974Tastes Great, Less Filling
The campaign that created the light-beer category.
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Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii (Kentucky for Christmas)KFC Japan1974
Kentucky for Christmas
A fast-food chain that wrote itself into another country's holiday.
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1971Hilltop ("I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke")
The template for the brand anthem: no product demo, no claims — just a song, a hillside outside Rome, and young people from around the world holding…
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1971Because I'm Worth It
Four words, written in fury, that changed who beauty advertising talks to.
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1971You Deserve a Break Today
The jingle that turned fast food into permission.
1960s
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Avis is only No. 2 in rent a cars. So we try harder.Avis1963
We Try Harder ("Avis is only No. 2")
The founding document of underdog positioning.
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You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's.Levy's (Henry S. Levy & Sons)1961
You Don't Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy's
A Brooklyn bakery wanted New Yorkers of every background to buy its rye, so Doyle Dane Bernbach put them on the subway walls.
1950s
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1959You're Never Alone with a Strand (The Lonely Man)
A lone man in a trench coat, hat pushed back Sinatra-style, lights a cigarette on a rain-soaked London street at night while a mournful theme plays:…
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1959Think Small
The ad that started advertising's creative revolution.
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1957Does She... or Doesn't She?
A double entendre that destigmatized an entire product category.
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1956Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking (torture tests)
For two decades from 1956, former NBC anchorman John Cameron Swayze put Timex watches through televised ordeals: strapped to a cliff diver, attacked…
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Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro Country.Marlboro (Philip Morris)1955
The Marlboro Man
The most consequential repositioning in advertising history — studied today as both masterwork and warning.
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1953The Hamm's Bear
A clumsy, good-natured cartoon bear tumbles off a rolling log, plays hockey, fishes and fumbles his way around the North Woods while a tom-tom beat…
1940s
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I dreamed I went shopping in my Maidenform braMaidenform1949
I Dreamed I Went Shopping in My Maidenform Bra
A woman stands in a shop, impeccably dressed except that above the waist she wears only her bra: "I dreamed I went shopping in my Maidenform bra."…
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A diamond is forever.De Beers1947
A Diamond Is Forever
Four words that invented a social custom.
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1944Smokey Bear ("Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires")
The longest-running public service advertising campaign in United States history — more than 80 years and counting.
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1943Use It Up – Wear It Out – Make It Do!
The American home front's thrift ethic in one domestic scene.
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1943We Can Do It!
One of the most famous images of the Second World War began as a staff notice.
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1942Is Your Journey Really Necessary?
Britain's wartime railways were needed for troops and supplies, and coal and petrol were needed for the war effort, so the public had to be…
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1942Loose Lips Might Sink Ships
"Loose lips might sink ships" belonged to the security-of-information campaign that the War Advertising Council, forerunner of today's Ad Council,…
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1941Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases
In October 1941 the Ministry of Health opened an autumn campaign against colds and flu built on one rhyming line: "Coughs and sneezes spread…
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Careless talk costs livesMinistry of Information (UK)1940
Careless Talk Costs Lives
When the Ministry of Information set out to stop wartime gossip, the Punch cartoonist Cyril Kenneth Bird, who signed himself Fougasse, convinced…
1930s
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1939Dig for Victory
Before the Second World War Britain imported around 55 million tons of food a year, and German U-boats went straight for the merchant ships carrying…
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1939Keep Calm and Carry On
One of Britain's best-known posters was barely seen in the war it was made for.
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Dubo, Dubon, DubonnetDubonnet1932
Dubo, Dubon, Dubonnet
A poster that behaves like a strip of film.
1920s
1910s
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1919The Instrument of the Immortals
Steinway found advertising distasteful and did little of it, until a young N.W.
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1917I Want You for U.S. Army
Uncle Sam's stare and outstretched finger first appeared on the cover of Leslie's Weekly in July 1916, above the question "What Are You Doing for…
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1916On les aura! (Second National Defence Loan)
France paid for much of the First World War by borrowing from its citizens, and this poster sold the second National Defence Loan, launched in…
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1915Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?
A British recruitment poster that sells enlistment by staging a moment from the future.
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1914Lord Kitchener Wants You ("Your Country Needs You")
The pointing finger every recruitment ad since has borrowed.
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1911A Skin You Love to Touch
Until 1911, soap ads mostly showed soap.
1880s
About Slogans That Stuck
Famous advertising slogans that outlived their campaigns: lines like "Just Do It", "Think Different" and "Where's the Beef?" that people still repeat without thinking about the brand that paid for them.
A great slogan is short, rhythmic and specific to its brand, and it says something the competition can't. Each entry explains where the line came from, who wrote it where that is documented, and why it lasted.