Can Anybody Out There Write A Good Tagline? Hello?

It's a rhetorical question. Please don't respond.

I write about taglines a lot. Meaningless Taglines. Asshole Taglines. Ruthlessly Honest Rewritten Taglines. Nihilist Taglines.

Taglines are pure copywriting. They can be more powerful than any ad, any marketing. They can make a brand (When It Absolutely Positively Has To Be There Overnight). They can change culture (Just Do It).

They can also puzzle me. Upset me. Make me scream FUCK YOU at my various screens. These are those.

HONDA

What does “The Power Of Dreams” have to do with Honda? What does it have to do with automobiles? WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING? It does works as a bad tagline for The Sandman series on Netflix.

Is a Honda so boring to drive that it will make me fall asleep at which point I will then very briefly dream before dying in a fiery head-on crash? Well, that is pretty powerful, in a way.

COORS LIGHT

Having finally abandoned the most dishonest tagline in advertising history (OK, along with No One Out Pizzas The Hut), the world’s most beer-less beer gives me an inane line that makes my fucking head hurt. So: your beer is made to be chilled, to be placed in a refrigerator (or freezer) or in an ice-filled cooler or under a frozen body of water or nevermind.

But of course Coors is cleverly using the “slang” meaning of CHILL, talking to us “cool” people with “cool” language. Chill. Relax. Chillax. But also still brrr—it was “BORN IN THE ROCKIES, never forget that, flatlander.

I don’t have a point here. Neither does Coors.

BUD LIGHT SELTZER HARD SODA

O RLY? (for those of you who’ve never been on the internet, see snowy owl meme below). Looking closely at the packaging, the product is in fact not called hard rock soda.

Well it does look drunk.

ASICS

I own 2 pairs of asics running shoes. I like them though I only run stairs now, no more distance running (knees). I am well aware as I’m running (slowly) up the staircase near my apt (see below) that I am the one moving me. God’s hand is not pushing me. The stairs don’t move.

Despite this knowledge, which everybody who “moves” possesses, ASICS rolled out this tag—”a true and human invitation to move”(true AND human, wow)—using “brand ambassadors” and stupid insulting copy lines. L—”I don’t run to follow but to lead”. R—”I don’t move for beauty norms”.

I like “ME MOVE ME” very slightly better.

S. PELLEGRINO

Enhance. What a highfalutin asshole word. If I was dying from dehydration in the desert, then I guess this overpriced Italian water with bubbles would enhance my fucking moment.

BANK OF AMERICA

Well. I’d like to have the power to fly, to time travel, to read minds, to live forever, to make every three-pointer, to kill certain people by saying their name out loud, to make my penis bigger, to legally steal all of your bank’s money. Do you have a form to fill out?