You need a great product or service to be successful, but you also need people to know what you stand for and to remember you when the time comes to buy. Iconic brands are often bigger than just the thing they sell because they represent a feeling and a promise made to customers. Often, that feeling can be captured and conveyed in just a few words with a tagline.
A carefully crafted tagline can creep into your customers’ consciousness, inspiring them to stick around and solidifying your brand identity. Learn more about what a great tagline is, how to go about writing your own, and see how Shopify merchants developed theirs.
What is a tagline?
A tagline is a short, memorable statement about your brand, but it’s more than just a catchy phrase. It speaks to your company’s purpose, your brand’s core values, and, if written well, creates the kind of emotional appeal that leads to brand loyalty.
You’ll often find taglines on product packaging, woven into advertising and marketing campaigns, featured on websites, and used on social media. By consistently putting a tagline out into the world, you build brand recognition and help it stick.
One of the most iconic and catchy tagline examples includes Nike’s “Just do it.” It embodies Nike’s brand ethos and inspires its customers to not just buy their shoes and clothing, but wear them as they achieve athletic goals. Successful taglines like “Just do it” have the power to stand the test of time and shape culture along the way.
Tagline vs. slogan: What’s the difference?
A slogan is typically campaign-specific, used to promote product features, a specific message, or support a seasonal marketing strategy. It’s designed to grab attention and may change depending on the context. For example, Allstate’s “Get Allstate, and be better protected from mayhem, like me” is a slogan tied to its well-known humorous Mayhem campaign. It speaks specifically to how Allstate insurance helps customers when things go wrong.
A tagline, on the other hand, is often shorter and communicates what the brand stands for, not just what it sells. Taglines, unlike slogans, are meant to stand the test of time and rarely change. Allstate’s tagline, for example, “You’re in good hands,” reflects the brand’s promise of protection and trust and is used at the end of all of its TV commercials, whether it’s the Mayhem campaign or something else.
Does your brand need a tagline?
With so many advertising channels, products, and brands vying for our attention, it’s valid to question whether three or four words can cut through the noise. However, one survey found that nearly 50% of consumers say a company’s slogan is important in their purchasing decision. On top of that, Kantar found that brand recognition increases when digital ads use a slogan that has been used before with the brand name.
In short, developing a brand tagline or campaign-specific slogan can help clarify what you stand for, boost brand recognition, and stick with your target audience.
How to write a brand tagline
- Understand your audience
- Define your brand
- Develop your brand voice
- Think about your advertising creative
- Experiment with words
- Balance creativity and clarity
- Keep it brief
- Give it a call to action
Creating the perfect tagline requires both art and strategy in the branding process. Here’s how to develop a memorable phrase that communicates your brand’s essence and connects emotionally:
1. Understand your audience
Before you can say something meaningful, you need to know your target audience. Start by studying your existing customers: their age, location, preferences, and behaviors. Surveys and interviews can reveal why they chose your brand and what they care about, which can help you refine the “why” behind any of your messaging, including your tagline.
2. Define your brand
Once you understand who you’re talking to, it’s time to define what you stand for. This is where your value proposition comes in: why you exist and what problem you solve. Are you selling protein bars that actually taste good? That’s a value: taste and health in one. Define your promise in a way that centers your customer’s experience, not just your product’s features.
3. Develop your brand voice
Your audience and purpose inform how you speak. Brand voice is your public identity and how your brand expresses emotion, perspective, and attitude. Try describing your voice in contrasting pairs to hone in on a tone that feels true and helps forge emotional connections with your audience, like:
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Kind, not cheesy
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Helpful, not prescriptive
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Casual, not overly serious
This can help you develop headlines, a brand manifesto, and creative ideas that help shape your tagline.
4. Think about your advertising creative
If you’ve already developed a campaign or sketched out ideas, you don’t have to start from scratch. Use the themes or emotional through lines in your existing creatives to inspire your tagline. Think about what you want your audience to feel or do when they see your ad. Sometimes, the tagline is already hiding in your headlines or copy. You just need to uncover it.
5. Experiment with words
The great thing about advertising and branding is that it doesn’t always have to follow the rules of grammar. Play around with the rules to see if you can capture the feeling you want more effectively. Some of the most iconic taglines and slogans break the rules in all the right ways. Apple’s famous “Think different” flips grammar to reflect their ethos of innovation and inspiring creativity. When you’re experimenting, start with evoking a feeling. You can always revise for clarity later.
6. Balance creativity and clarity
A clever line falls flat if it’s confusing. Aim for clarity without sacrificing imagination. That usually means trimming extra words and tightening the message. If you’re advertising fitness classes that deliver results, “Workouts that work” says more or less the same thing as “Workouts that work for everyone.” It’s just punchier and more memorable. Focus on the sharpest, simplest truth while cutting out the fluff.
7. Keep it brief
Taglines should be compact enough to remember and repeat. Research from the book Building Distinctive Brand Assets found that the average number of words in a headline is four. The goal is to use as few words as you can to say as much as possible. Brevity also makes your tagline more versatile across formats, from social posts to packaging to digital ads.
8. Give it a call to action
Some of the most effective taglines prompt the customer to take action. “Just do it” isn’t just a phrase; it’s a motivational push. When your tagline doubles as a rallying cry, it gives your audience something to live by, not just remember.
Examples of brand taglines
- Eighth Generation: “Inspired Natives, Not Native-Inspired”
- Goldie Swimwear: “Statement Swim for Statement Girls”
- Chomps: “All stick without the ick”
See how these Shopify merchants created successful taglines that combine clarity, emotion, and identity in simple words that define their brands:
Eighth Generation: “Inspired Natives, not Native-inspired”
Eighth Generation, a Native-owned lifestyle brand, uses “Inspired by Natives, Not Native Inspired” to not only describe their products but also to address the issue that non-Native companies appropriate Native designs without giving them credit. The line works well because it’s clear, pointed, and rooted in brand values.
Eighth Generation’s tagline appears not only in brand messaging and social media content, but also shows up in product descriptions, where it reinforces the brand authenticity in each piece.
Goldie Swimwear: “Statement swim for statement girls”
Sisters Rima and Eddy Vaidila founded swimwear company Goldie Swimwear to answer a problem they kept running into: finding swimwear that matched their personal style. Their solution was to launch Goldie Swimwear and its tagline, “Statement swim for statement girls.”
The line speaks to the unique aesthetic of the brand, but also helps shape everything they do in the business. “I think that really encompasses our aesthetic and the designs and the colors that we choose and the prints that we use and create,” Rima says.
You can see this punchy and short phrase used across their social platforms.
Chomps: “All stick without the ick”
While founders Peter Maldonado and Rashid Ali originally launched Chomps to reinvent the meat stick for health-conscious gym-goers, deeper research revealed something surprising. “We learned for the first time that our customers were about 70% female,” says Peter. That revelation led to brighter branding and friendlier messaging with the tagline, “All stick without the ick.”
The refreshed tagline aligns with the product’s core benefit, clean ingredients, without sounding overly scientific or self-serious. It’s a great example of how experimenting with tone and rethinking assumptions can result in a memorable tagline that feels accessible and fun. Plus, Chomps uses its tagline on its packaging, so it’s reinforced every time you eat one.
What is a tagline FAQ
What’s an example of a tagline?
A tagline is a short, memorable phrase that captures a brand’s identity in just a few words, like Nike’s “Just do it,” or Chomps’ “All stick without the ick.” These lines are emotionally resonant and used consistently across branding touchpoints.
What is a tagline vs. a slogan?
A tagline expresses a brand’s long-term identity and values, while a slogan is typically campaign-specific and used to promote a particular product or message. Taglines are consistent across platforms; slogans are more likely to change.
What is the purpose of a tagline?
The purpose of a tagline is to distill a brand’s essence into a few impactful words that build recognition, evoke emotion, and guide brand messaging. A strong tagline helps customers instantly understand what your brand stands for.
