Tagline vs Slogan [Which one is critical for your brand strategy?]

So, you’re building a brand and its time to come up with that tagline or slogan or catchphrase or motto that people will remember.

But which do I need to help my brand grow?

That’s your slogan, right?

Or is it your tagline?

Is there a difference?

Are they one and the same?

Or are they strategic tools for specific scenarios?

In this article, we’re gonna dissect the two and put them side by side so you won’t need to ask any of the above questions again.

In the world of branding and marketing, there’s no shortage of elements that cross over to the point that it can often be difficult to distinguish between them.

What falls under marketing?

What falls under branding?

And when do you do what?

Branding and marketing rely on each other. You can’t do one without the other.

Between them, they share the same goal.

“To attract and nurture customers to a business, to ultimately grow that business and reputation.”

But branding and marketing have very specific jobs.

Some of those jobs cross over, but for the most part, they’re distinctively different.

When you know what the jobs are and the tasks within each job, you can break down the elements involved to understand when to use what and under what circumstances you use them.


What is a tagline? Well, it’s a:

The memorable formation of a concise set of words, which capture the unique value a brand offers its audience.

The job of the tagline is to help the audience associate the brand with an idea, which in the early stages of the brand is centered on the differentiation strategy.


What is a slogan? A slogan is:

A memorable and catchy phrase, which captures the overarching theme of a marketing campaign.

While the tagline represents only the brand, a slogan may be used to represent the brand or the brands’ products or services.

The job of the slogan is to help the audience to remember key ideas which marketing campaigns focus on.

When you read the definition of each, you can see some very distinct similarities, though it’s the differences that stand out.

The Tagline focuses on the activities of the branding.

Slogans focus on the activities of marketing.


While a brand will only ever have one tagline at any given time, it may have multiple slogans representing different campaigns, products or services.


The brand strategist develops a tagline in the initial stages of the brand strategy in conjunction with the communication strategy.

Initially, the tagline is laser-focused on the positioning strategy and more specifically, the differentiator of the brand (i.e. why is this brand is different from its competitors and why the audience should care?).

The marketing team develops a slogan during the creative stages of a marketing campaign.

Developing a slogan, much like developing a tagline, is a very creative process.

The flexibility of the slogan, however, offers marketers more creative space to push beyond the borders of the differentiator-focused tagline.



Quite often, due to its success and memorability and on the back of a highly successful marketing campaign, the audience adopts a slogan and begins to associate the brand with this slogan before its tagline.


Strategic branding is an art, which uses many strategic tools.

It’s important to know when you’re building a brand, which tools to use and when.

The tagline is a critical tool for establishing an initial position in the market by associating the brand with the difference and value they offer.

The slogan is a useful and flexible tool for testing different approaches and can sometimes open the door to a broader idea based positioning.

Are you building a brand using either of these tools?

We’re you already using them correctly or will you change your approach going forward?

What is your biggest takeaway here?

Let me know in the comments Right Now!

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