Advertisers Tempt Consumers With New Slogans Companies Hope To Gain Marketing Edge By Using Snappy New Slogans

Both McDonald’s and Burger King are fighting the fast food wars with the help of new slogans.

The beverage wars are full of them, as Coke, Pepsi and Gatorade all have new ones this year, Diet Coke has two at once and Miller Lite Ice has its third new one of the past year.

Nike is reviving its popular “Just Do It” after downplaying it for more than two years.

And both American Express and Visa reportedly are searching for snappy new slogans.

Many big advertisers - from beverages and burger chains to sneakers and software - are monkeying with slogans as they seek to summarize their messages in ways not too narrow, not too broad, not too pushy, not too mild.

“They never stop tinkering,” said Jack Trout, a marketing consultant. “It’s just an indication that the companies don’t know what they should be. It’s as though nobody ever has the courage to say, ‘Let’s stay with what we have.”’

Coca-Cola, which seemed pleased with “Always Coca-Cola” for the past two years, couldn’t let well enough alone and stretched it to “Always and Only Coca-Cola” this month. The idea is to make the cola seem not only ubiquitous but also unique. And if that’s not enough, in some commercials Coke has added a backup, “Nothing Else Tastes Like Coca-Cola.”

That sounds a lot like Pepsi’s new “Nothing Else Is a Pepsi,” which will be used for both Diet Pepsi and Pepsi. Pepsi ditched its previous slogan - “Be Young. Have Fun. Drink Pepsi” - for being too lifestyle- and youth-focused.

Advertisers ask a lot of slogans. They want them to set the brand apart from the competition, to be memorable, to attach an emotional impact to the product and to summarize the brand’s advertising message. Sometimes slogans shift because advertisers change the message, attitude or strategy. Sometimes it’s because they change advertising agencies, and sometimes because they are trying various ways to capture a new audience.

Miller Lite Ice, trying to capture the hearts of Generation Xers, started life a year ago with “New Beer. New Rules.” The slogan, created by the Leo Burnett agency, shifted to “If You Get It, Get It” from Bates Worldwide and was replaced this month with “The Night Is Young” from the Leap Partnership.

Diet Coke is using two separate slogans at once to replace last year’s short-lived “This Is Refreshment.” One of the new lines, “Just for the Taste of It,” first debuted when the brand was introduced in 1982 and had a long, successful run. The other, which is used for the caffeine-free version and is aimed at an over-40 crowd, is “No Caffeine. No Sugar. No Limits.”

Some critics say slogans nowadays tend not to be as memorable as they used to be, but that doesn’t stop advertisers.

Brandweek magazine reports that Visa has ad agency BBDO looking for possible alternatives to “Everywhere You Want to Be,” because the card is often used in places you don’t necessarily want to be, and American Express is seeking a successor to “Don’t Leave Home Without It.”

“The whole purpose of slogans is creating memorability,” said Kay Stout, managing director of Landor Associates, a brand identity consulting firm. “It really doesn’t matter if people like the slogan or don’t like it as long as they remember the brand favorably because of it.”

Stout said one of the most memorable slogans of recent times is “Just Do It” from Nike. “Nike doesn’t sell shoes, it sells a way you feel about yourself,” she said.

But Nike began featuring the 5-year-old slogan less and less. “We got into a zone where we either took it for granted or neglected it,” said Nike spokesman Keith Peters.

That is changing with a series of new ads, including a TV commercial with Spike Lee and Michael Jordan trying to play baseball. “The fact that he is trying to do something that he is not as good at as playing basketball speaks volumes about what ‘Just Do It’ means,” Peters said.

In one new magazine ad aimed at women, Nike uses a variation that is less of a command than the main slogan: “If It Feels Good Then Just Do It.”

Here’s a look at some other companies’ new advertising themes:

Keds has just adopted a slogan, “Never Stop Growing,” that is aimed very much at women, to replace “They Feel Good,” which debuted in 1981. “We decided we wanted to refer more to women’s lives than to the shoes,” said Kate Bednarski, a former Nike executive who is senior vice president of marketing at Keds. A 17-percent drop in sales last year and a new ad agency, Kirshenbaum & Bond, helped prompt the shift, she said.

L.A. Gear’s new line, “L.A. It’s in Your Head,” reflects a shift to targeting women and children, not young men.

Hyundai is citing image in replacing “Cars That Make Sense” this month with “Some of the Best Ideas on the Road.”

Lexus is debuting “A New Journey” to succeed “Relentless Pursuit of Perfection.”

Just five months after launching its Contour compact, Ford is changing the theme line from “A World Class Car for the 21st Century” to “World Class Car. World Class Value.”

Gatorade is replacing “For That Deep Down Body Thirst” with “Life Is a Sport. Drink It Up.”

Miller Genuine Draft is switching from “Get out of the Old, Get Into the Cold” to “The World’s a Very Cool Place.”

Coors Light dropped “Right Beer Now” for “Keep on Movin.’ “