Creating a company slogan: examples and formulas that work

Coming up with a company slogan or tagline often feels like chasing that one perfect sentence. You write down ten variants, scrap them all and wait for a flash of genius that never comes. That’s the wrong approach. A good slogan isn’t a lucky hit, it’s the result of clear thinking plus systematic writing. In this article you get concrete formulas to generate taglines, strong examples to learn from and a test to pull out the best one.

This piece is about the writing work itself: how to move from a blank page to a shortlist of workable slogans. What a slogan should exactly sum up, namely your positioning, we cover briefly. For the full foundation underneath it, you’re better off first reading what a brand strategy involves, because without strategy you write nice sentences with no direction.

Slogan versus tagline: the difference

The words are used interchangeably, but there’s a nuance. A tagline is the fixed sentence you place beside or under your logo and that lasts for years. It sums up in a few words what your brand stands for. A slogan is broader: it can also be a temporary campaign line tied to a specific push that disappears again afterwards.

For your brand, the tagline is the most important one. It has to be durable, because it attaches to your name and your recognisability. A campaign slogan can be sharper and more fleeting, because it only needs to work for a few months. In this article we focus mainly on the tagline, because that decision is the one you carry the longest.

Start with your positioning, not with the sentence

The biggest mistake is to start shuffling words right away. People open a blank document, type “stronger together” and then don’t know whether that’s any good. It also can’t be judged, because there’s no yardstick.

That yardstick is your positioning. Before you write, you lock down three things. What do you do and for whom? How are you different from the rest? And what feeling do you want to evoke? Only once those answers are sharp does a slogan have something to express. A tagline that doesn’t flow from your positioning is decoration. It might sound nice, but it builds nothing.

A handy test up front: if a competitor can copy your slogan word for word without lying, then it says nothing distinctive. “Quality and service” fits everyone, so it works for no one.

Eight formulas to generate slogans

Just as with generating names, it helps to write with patterns instead of waiting for inspiration. Below are eight formulas. Work through them one by one and write three to five variants per formula, without judgement. You’re aiming for quantity first.

1. The promise. Name the concrete result the customer gets. “Delivered before the evening falls.”
2. The verb command. Start with an action your audience wants to take. “Think different.” “Build further.”
3. The contrast. Put two words opposite each other that create tension. “Big in small jobs.”
4. The audience claim. Address your audience directly and claim your place. “The professionals’ choice.”
5. The metaphor. Capture your value in an image. “Your rock in the storm.”
6. The rhyme or rhythm. Use sound to make the sentence stick. Deploy carefully, because forced rhyme feels cheap.
7. The why sentence. Translate your driving force into words. Tie it to your brand purpose so the sentence really rings true.
8. The understatement. Say less than you deliver, that builds trust. “Simply well handled.”

After this round you quickly have twenty to forty directions. That’s exactly the point: you choose later from many, instead of pinning yourself to the first idea.

What strong examples have in common

If you look at slogans that truly stick, you see recurring traits. They’re short, usually two to five words. They’re concrete or else very suggestive, never half-hearted. And they say something that fits that one brand and not the neighbour.

What they mostly share: they make a claim the brand also delivers on. A sports brand that says “just do it” isn’t selling shoes but an attitude, and everything about the brand confirms that attitude. That’s the lesson. Your slogan is a promise, and the rest of your brand has to keep that promise every day. A nice tagline above a disappointing experience backfires, because the gap between word and deed then stands out all the more.

Also watch what good slogans avoid. No jargon, no three messages in one sentence, no words your audience doesn’t use. The simpler the language, the greater the chance the sentence is remembered.

Test your shortlist on four points

After generating comes filtering. Keep those two phases separate, otherwise you shoot down every variant too early. Run your best five candidates through these four tests.

Distinction. Can only your brand say this? If the competitor can claim it too, you scrap the sentence.

Credibility. Do you really deliver on the promise? A slogan you can’t honour undermines your brand instead of strengthening it.

Durability. Does the sentence still hold in three years? A tagline hung on a temporary trend ages fast. Avoid buzzwords that will soon sound dated.

Pronounceability. Does the sentence roll easily off the tongue? Read it out loud. If you stumble, your audience stumbles too. Test your shortlist on a few people outside your team and see which sentence sticks, without explanation.

A slogan that scores on all four is rarely the most spectacular. That’s good news. Distinctive and credible wins in the long run over eye-catching but empty.

Common mistakes

The three pitfalls we see most often. One: wanting to say too much, which makes the sentence long and vague. A slogan sums up, it doesn’t list. Two: falling in love with a pun that you find funny but your audience doesn’t get. Three: choosing the slogan separately from the strategy, purely on feeling. You then get a sentence that might sound nice but adds nothing to your recognisability.

A tagline isn’t a creative exercise in itself, it’s the capstone of your positioning. That’s why it rarely works to simply brainstorm without a foundation. If you want your slogan to truly be anchored to a considered positioning and visual identity, a branding agency helps you get strategy and tagline aligned in one go, so the sentence doesn’t stand alone but sums up your whole brand story.

Get started

Creating a strong slogan is work, not waiting. Start with your positioning, generate with formulas until you have dozens of directions, and only then filter on distinction, credibility, durability and sound. Do that and you’ll pick a tagline that lasts for years and that buyers link to your name.

That same sharp promise also works on specific pages. On a careers page that converts, you persuade with a catchy line at the top just as much talent as customers.

Want to spar about your positioning and tagline, or are you hesitating between a few candidates? Get in touch with us and we’ll gladly think along about a brand story that sticks.