If you set yourself the task of writing the best endline in advertising history, where would you start? With a big brand, perhaps?

That might then give you the ubiquity necessary for the line to be repeated, remembered and used in everyday speech. Nike’s Just Do It, Apple’s Think Different, and BT’s It’s Good To Talk have all been part of massive campaigns for equally massive companies. So that’s the key, isn’t it?

Well, not exactly. One of the best-known endlines in recent decades is ‘It does exactly what it say on the tin’, for the medium-sized brand Ronseal. David Cameron used it when he was Prime Minister, it was included in the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, and Katie Melua even wrote a song with that title.

But did the writers of that line think it was so brilliant that it would be used in newspaper headlines 30 years on? Nope. Back in 2013 they (Dave Shelton and Liz Whiston of now-defunct HHCL) said, “In 1994, when we came up with the line for Ronseal, we never dreamed how it would enter the language.” So you might not even know when you’ve hit paydirt.

What those lines have in common is the expression of a common truth about life that had yet to find a pithy, memorable set of words to represent it

The next most used advertising line of current times has now evolved beyond its original collection of words. ‘Marmite. You Either Love It Or Hate It’ has simply become ‘Marmite’, as in ‘He’s a bit Marmite’, but we all know what that means: some love him; some hate him. Surely the writers of that one (Andy MacLeod and Richard Flintham, then of BMP DDB) must have known they’d come up with something special. Not really. As MacLeod said, “We certainly didn’t set out to think of a slogan, and in any case I’d say it’s more of a statement of fact.”

Just Do It began as part of a real-life phrase when double-murderer Gary Gilmore faced down his executional firing squad with the words ‘Let’s do it’. Dan Wieden said, “I liked the ‘do it’ part”, then he changed a single word to create an iconic line whose perfection must have been immediately obvious to everyone. Er … not quite. “Creatives in the agency all questioned if we really needed it,” Wieden recalled. “Nike questioned it.”

They may not have leapt off the page straight away, but what those three lines have in common is the expression of a common truth about life that had yet to find a pithy, memorable set of words to represent it. The sentiments of ‘it does exactly what it says it does’, ‘some things are both loved and hated’, and ‘get on with it’ can be applied to many different situations, as can the meanings of Think Different and It’s Good To Talk.

So there’s your key: give your line the ability to be applicable to many common circumstances; that way the public will take your line on for you, breathing new life into it with every subsequent usage.

Give your line the ability to be applicable to many common circumstances; that way the public will take your line on for you

But what about Heineken Refreshes The Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach? Or Beanz Meanz Heinz? Or Vorsprung Durch Technik? Not much opportunity for adding to the popular vernacular there.

The truth is, there is no formula. If there were, many more advernacular lines would exist. But if there isn’t a guaranteed path to success, are there at least some methods that could increase our chances of adding to the lexicon of everyday life?

It might not be your decision, but try to avoid killing off a good line too quickly: Sport England’s This Girl Can could have run for years, but seems to have been quiet since 2020; Nike’s Write The Future lasted for a single execution; ‘Do not underestimate the power of PlayStation’ came and went; and the AA’s ‘The 4th emergency service’ has now become the slightly less interesting ‘Join Today’.

Another thing you could try is to become a writer for a somewhat right-wing populist movement: Make America Great Again, Build Back Better, Brexit Means Brexit, Take Back Control…. They’re all pretty meaningless but they clearly sounded great to a certain audience, and to be fair I can’t think of any good lines that countered their power. A punchy bit of bullshit will always trounce some well-considered silence.

If there isn’t a guaranteed path to success, are there at least some methods that could increase our chances of adding to the lexicon of everyday life?

The final piece of advice might be to seek longevity without an endline. The Economist’s Red And White poster campaign is still thought of as the gold standard of copywriting, but it attained that status without the need of a little punchline. In a way, many of the headlines could have been endlines, rendering a repetition of the central sentiment superfluous. ‘Just Success It’ might not have added much.

You’ll find the same situation with other classics such as VW’s Think Small print campaign, the Levi’s TV ads of the 1980s and 1990s, and the excellent, endline-free body of great work amassed by Ikea.

Alternatively, you could create an endline for a great ad that everyone ignores. Quick quiz: name the endlines that accompanied Old Spice’s The Man Your Man Could Smell Like; the great Land Rover work of the early 2000s; and Bodyform’s Womb Stories. Ten points to any of you who knew they were ‘Smell like a Man, Man’, ‘Go Beyond’ and ‘Live Fearless’.

So there you have it: there is no clear path to endline greatness, which may be why the ones that make it to the public’s hall of fame feel so special.

Based in Los Angeles, Ben Kay is a creative director and copywriter, and advertising columnist for CR; ben-kay.com; Top image: Shutterstock