7 Greatest Advertising Slogans of All Time

A strong slogan gives customers a simple, straightforward way to remember a key benefit of the brand. It’s a shortcut—using techniques like rhyming, rhythm, alliteration, and repetition to help ensure you don’t forget why a brand is valuable. When slogans really click with customers, they can remain keystones of a brand’s marketing for years or even decades.

On this episode of the Speaking Human marketing podcast, we shared a handful of our favorite brand slogans from over the years (we also played a fun game of “guess the brand by the slogan” you might find pretty entertaining). Here are the slogans that ultimately got mentioned as the best of the best…

Power Rankings: The Seven Best Brand Slogans

These slogans effectively got key brand benefits across and got jammed in our brains in the process:

7. Don’t Leave Home Without It

This slogan from American Express doesn’t ask, it commands you. That creates a sense of both need and urgency—and positions American Express as a provider of security, ensuring you’ll always have a resource on your side no matter what troubles you encounter.

6. Eat Fresh

In just two words, this slogan alludes to “eating” and allures us with the idea of “fresh” food. That’s incredibly appealing. It also helped position the brand as a healthier alternative to fast food.

5. Takes a Lickin’, Keeps on Tickin’

This classic slogan developed by Timex back in the 1950s gets across the key idea of the brand’s highly touted durability. It also uses an effective rhyming scheme to ensure customers easily remember it.

4. Finger Lickin’ Good

This slogan was determined by a recent study to be the most brand recognizable of all famous slogans. It certainly paints a impactful picture of food so tasty you want to lick your fingers when you’re done.

3. The Quicker Picker Upper

There may be no other brand slogan out there that has quite as good a flow as this one from Bounty—which also creates a visual of what the product does (picks ups messes) and why it does it better (it’s faster and easier). The words just roll off the tongue.

2. We Try Harder

This slogan has gone down in marketing history for the impact it had on the brand. In the early 1960s, Avis was the second-place brand in the car rental business looking for a benefit to tout in their marketing. They decided to go with this honest slogan that resonated with customers and became a textbook example of branding done right.

1. Got Milk?

Two words and a question mark that made a massive marketing impact. This slogan from the California Milk Processor Board (who’s mission is essentially just to remind people to drink milk) expertly plays on the sense of panic people feel when they run out of milk. It was cleverly used in ads and became a cultural touchstone.

*Honorable Mentions

Here are a few additional slogans that almost cracked the list…

Raise Your Hand If You’re Sure

A great slogan for a deodorant brand (Sure), saying you can be confident you won’t have a pit stains.

Be All That You Can Be

An aspirational slogan from the U.S. Army. “The Few, The Proud, The Marines” is also a strong one.

Fly the Friendly Skies

While United Airlines hasn’t been super-friendly lately, this slogan with its alliteration is undeniably appealing.