Does a brand need a tagline today? Why the line matters more in the AI era

Does a brand need a tagline today?

Yes, a brand needs a tagline today. AI assistants, six-second ads and product thumbnails all reduce a brand to a single line, and the tagline is the one line you get to write yourself.

At IW Agency, we think the tagline went out of fashion for the wrong reason. Brands wrote lines about benefits anyone could claim, so the lines did nothing, and the format took the blame. A good tagline compresses a position into words people can repeat.

The market is turning the same way. In a 2025 opinion piece in Design Week on the return of the tagline, one strategist noted that Shake Shack drew press attention simply by saying it planned to get a tagline. The same piece points out that Nike has turned "Just Do It" into "Why Do It?" for a new generation of athletes.

Conclusion: The tagline didn't fail. Generic taglines did.

What does a tagline actually do for brand recall?

A tagline gives memory something to hold, but only when the words are unusual enough to stick. The most useful recent evidence comes from Hodges, Estes and Warren. They studied how word choice in real brand slogans affects liking and recall (Journal of Consumer Research, 2024).

Two findings matter for anyone briefing a line. Slogans built from less fluent words, the ones that take slightly more effort to process, were remembered better. That held even when people only glimpsed them in short YouTube bumper ads. In free recall, participants remembered the less fluent versions more often (a mean of 0.17) than the fluent ones (0.12).

The second finding is that liking and remembering are separate jobs. When the researchers made slogans more distinctive and concrete, people either liked them more or forgot them less. But a line that became more liked did not automatically become more memorable.

This is why we push back when a line wins because the room liked it. Smooth, agreeable phrasing gets through approval easily, and the research suggests it is also the phrasing people remember least.

Why does a tagline matter more when AI assistants describe your brand?

A tagline matters more because AI assistants describe brands in a sentence or two. We think a line you use consistently is your best chance of shaping that sentence.

At IW, we see the tagline as the shortest version of the brand. An assistant will compress your brand whatever you do. If your site, packaging, press and profiles carry the same words, you give it something precise to work from instead of a generic category description. Our guide to how brands show up in ChatGPT and other AI assistants covers what else shapes that description.

If the line changes with every campaign, assistants pick up competing descriptions. That is why it belongs in your tone of voice for people and AI, where it can stay unchanged for years.

Our Morakniv case starts from a clear stance: in a world increasingly willing to compromise on quality, Morakniv stands for something different. A position that sharp leaves little room for an assistant to describe the brand any other way.

Aren't taglines a relic that nobody remembers?

No. Most taglines are forgettable, though, and colour, shape and logo often do more of the memory work.

Those lines are forgettable because of how they were written. The recall research shows that generic, fluent wording is what fades. A line also works alongside the rest of the identity as one more distinctive brand asset, and the only one that can put the brand's position into words.

The best evidence that lines become assets is what brands are bringing back. Creative Review (2025) reports heritage slogans returning or updated in new campaigns. Its examples include Irn-Bru's "Made in Scotland from Girders", John Lewis's "Never Knowingly Undersold" and The National Lottery's "It Could Be You". Maybelline's "Maybe She's Born With It" is on the list too, and the article says it is 34 years old.

Danny Hunt, a creative director quoted in the article, said research had shown "Made in Scotland from Girders was a huge brand asset". His advice: "you kind of need to park your ego and do what's best for the brand."

Conclusion: A tagline becomes an asset the way all assets do: by staying.

When does a brand not need a tagline?

A brand does not need a tagline when it has no position worth compressing, or when the line would sit at the wrong level of the portfolio. A line written before the strategy exists produces the generic claims that gave taglines a bad name. If that is where you are, sort out the brand platform first.

Architecture matters too. In our view, the product brands in a house of brands should carry the lines consumers meet. A corporate tagline adds little at the shelf. Where the line sits follows from your brand architecture.

The same goes for a line the brand cannot hold for years. An established brand should look hard at what it already owns before writing anything new. In our Lurpak case, the question was how a brand built on 120 years of craft heritage could evolve and be future ready. Our guide to modernising a heritage brand explains how to decide what to keep.

What does this mean for your brand?

• Write the position before the line. If you cannot state what you stand for in one internal sentence, no tagline will fix it.

• Choose unusual words over smooth ones. Less fluent wording is remembered better, and agreeable phrasing fades.

• Test for recall and brand link, not liking. Ask people what they remember a day later, and which brand it belonged to.

• Hold the line for years. Use it on site, pack, press and profiles, so people and AI assistants meet the same words.

• Audit what you already own. Before briefing something new, check whether an old line still lives in people's memory.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a tagline and a slogan?

A tagline is the lasting line that stays with a brand across years and channels. A slogan belongs to a campaign and changes when the campaign does. In practice the words are often used interchangeably, and a slogan can become a tagline if the brand keeps it.

How is a tagline different from a brand positioning statement?

A brand positioning statement is an internal sentence that defines who the brand is for, what it offers and why it differs. A tagline is the public expression of that position, written for people to remember and repeat, while the statement stays inside the company to guide decisions.

Is a tagline the same as a value proposition?

No. A value proposition describes what the customer gets and why it is better than the alternatives. It usually runs to a few sentences on the website or in sales material. A tagline expresses the position in a few words that people can remember and repeat for years. The value proposition can change when the offer changes, while the tagline should stay.

How do you write a tagline?

Start from the brand's position and the feeling you want to own, then write many options. Prefer concrete, slightly unexpected words over smooth, generic ones. Test the shortlist for recall and for whether people link it to the right brand. Our guide to emotional branding covers how to name that feeling.

How long should a tagline last?

A tagline should last as long as the position it expresses, which means years, not campaigns. The heritage lines being revived today show that a line held long enough can still carry value decades later.

How do you know if your tagline is doing its job?

A tagline does its job when it compresses a real position into words people remember and repeat. Held over time, it becomes the sentence that people and AI assistants use to describe your brand. If you want to test whether your line does that, write to us at hello@iwagency.com.

Sources

• Intel Inside: The Linguistic Properties of Effective Slogans — Journal of Consumer Research (preprint, City Research Online), 2024

• Why brands are re-embracing the power of the tagline — Design Week, 2025

• Why are brands returning to heritage slogans? — Creative Review, 2025