Hasta La Ideas

We asked you to nominate your favourite slogans as resarch for an upcoming issue. Almost 200 of you responded: here, in no particular order, are some of the frontrunners so far

Ronseal: Does exactly what it says on the tin
Liz Whiston and Dave Shelton, HHCL, 1993

Cited by no less an authority than Dave Trott as his favourite UK slogan, HHCL’s straight-talking classic is the early favourite for our number one spot. As @copybeard said “It’s passed into our language in a way no other slogan has. It’s still used by people up and down the country every day. It’s on TV shows and radio, and even on the news.”

Nike: Just do it
Dan Wieden, Wieden + Kennedy, 1988

A classic, encompassing the entire philosophy of a company in three words

Audi: Vorsprung Durch Technik
John Hegarty, BBH, 1984

Supposedly spotted by John Hegarty on a vist to one of Audi’s factories, the slogan overcame initial scepticism to become part of the language (even if most people didn’t know what it meant)

Peperami: It’s a bit of an animal
Jason Gormley, Steve McKenzie, Lowe Howard Spink, 1993

Its non-specific nature cheekily underlining that fact that Peperami wasn’t exactly gourmet food

Tesco: Every little helps
Lowe Howard Spink, 1993

This film from the IPA explains its contribution to Tesco as a business but Nick Asbury of Asbury & Asbury, gave a brilliant alternative view in the comments of our original post:

“For me, the best strapline ever is also arguably the most evil: Tesco’s ‘Every little helps’.

It’s clever because it’s rooted in folk wisdom – a saying that has been passed down through generations. Exactly the kind of thing your grandma used to say. So it carries the everyday authority of a proverb.

It’s tonally appropriate – conversational and impossible to misunderstand (unlike John Lewis’s mind-bending ‘Never knowingly undersold’).

It’s strategically spot-on, because it taps into the customer’s mindset, and also works as a brilliant internal motivator. It’s about the tiny things that add up to a big difference – the penny cheaper on the baked beans, or the penny off the price you get from a supplier. Multiply tiny differences by something as big as Tesco and you have world domination.

And that’s the evil bit. The line is a classic example of verbal misdirection. ‘Little’ ought to be the last word you associate with Tesco. You should think of them as a multinational giant crushing everything in its path. But instead they plant that word in your head, with all the folksy charm it implies.

I don’t like it, but I admire it very much.”

Cailfornia Milk Processing Board: Got Milk?
Goodby Silverstein, 1993

An American classic

Avis: We try harder
Paula Green, Doyle Dane Bernbach, 1963

Still many people’s all-time fave

This is just a small selection of readers’ favourites so far. Thanks to everyone who responded to the original post. Our next step will be to canvas the opinion of some of the leading lights in copywriting before coming up with our final 20, to be published in the January 2012 issue of CR.

You may remember, we did something similar for logos in April this year.

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