SloganLenz › The Lens

Nine Slogan Formulas That Keep Working

July 1, 20262 min readwriting

Patterns that show up again and again in taglines that stick — what each one does, when it fits, and the way each one fails.

Formulas are not a substitute for having something to say. They are scaffolding: a way to get twenty options onto the page quickly so you have something to choose between. Use them to generate, then throw the scaffolding away.

Each of these has a failure mode, and the failure mode is usually just the formula applied to a premise it does not fit.

The subtraction

Name the thing you removed. Works when the pain is the process rather than the outcome — people buying their way out of an experience they dislike.

Fails when: the removal is not actually the selling point, and you end up defining yourself by an absence.

The reversal

Take the category's assumption and invert it. Strong when your business genuinely does the opposite of the norm; embarrassing when it does not, because the line writes a cheque the product cannot cash.

The narrow audience

Say exactly who it is for, and let the exclusion do the work. Nothing signals fit faster than a person recognising themselves. The cost is real — you are turning people away — which is why it works.

The literal-with-a-twist

Describe what you do plainly, then bend the last word. It keeps the clarity of a descriptive line while giving the reader the small gap that makes a line repeatable.

The permission

Tell the customer something is allowed. Effective in categories heavy with guilt or obligation — food, rest, spending, saying no. Fails when there was no guilt to relieve in the first place.

The unit of measure

Anchor to a number or a concrete quantity. Specific numbers read as true in a way that adjectives do not — "three minutes" outperforms "fast" almost every time.

The imperative

Just tell them to do it. Direct, energetic, and by now extremely familiar, which is both why it works and why it rarely surprises anyone. Best when the verb itself is unusual.

The insider phrase

Use language only your customers would recognise. It reads as noise to everyone else, which is the point. The risk is drifting into jargon that even insiders find effortful.

The plain declarative

No device at all. Say the true thing in the fewest words. Underrated, and often the correct answer when the offer itself is unusual enough to carry the line — a strange business does not need a strange tagline.

How to actually use these

Run your premise through all nine. Most will produce something unusable, and that is expected — the aim is nine attempts from nine different angles, not nine finalists. Then drop the formulas entirely and pick on merit, because a line's provenance stops mattering the moment it is on the door.