Milking It: How Great Taglines Build Brands That Last

December 17, 2025

What do milk and beef have in common? They’re both CPG products, both come from a cow, and each starred in one of the most successful advertising campaigns of all time.

Marketing goes hand-in-hand with everyday culture, defining it and being defined by it. Culture itself reflects how we engage with brands and products. And whether on TV, billboards, or the internet, a great tagline can help a brand spread through society like wildfire.

Some of the most iconic brand slogans have become so ingrained into culture that often we know the words or meaning without knowing the origins. In this way, advertising taglines were the original memes.

A perfect example was born from QSR chain Wendy’s. In 1984 they aired a TV commercial featuring three women at a table in a non-Wendy’s restaurant looking down at oversized hamburger buns holding itty bitty beef patties. One of them (Clara Peller) looks down and asks, “Where’s the beef?” This single question has differentiated Wendy’s from its competitors for the last 40 years.


Thanks to the slogan’s popularity, it entered pop culture. It influenced political dialogue. It even inspired a song called "Where's the Beef?" by Nashville songwriter Coyote McCloud, with Peller featured on the track. Most influentially, “where’s the beef?” became shorthand to call out things perceived as lacking in substance. It remains one of the most memorable marketing moments of the 1980s, and the campaign’s success is credited for increasing Wendy’s sales by 31% and helping the brand become leaders in the fast-food industry (SOURCE: Wendy’s).

To this day, Wendy’s branding emphasizes the quality and quantity of meat in its burgers, emphasizing phrases like “fresh, never frozen beef.”


The Wendy’s brand incorporates an outspoken, often-cheeky social media presence, known for roasting QSR rivals and social media users. In 2022, Wendy’s even took to a bulletin in Chicago – just outside McDonald’s headquarters – to take a victory lap after its fries beat the Golden Arches in a taste test. These are nods to its marketing tactics from 30 years ago, just modernized and more relatable to modern-day consumers.

Seeking out confrontation in its advertising has remained a powerful tactic for Wendy’s in the age of social media.

This particular clapback corresponded with "Square's the Beef,": A 2023 brand campaign with basketball star Reggie Miller that explicitly played on the original tagline, coining the new phrase "Square’s the Beef" to tie in its signature square patties to its original brand core.

Why did “Where’s the beef?” do so well, and why did this catchphrase cause such an impact on society? The answer is its simplicity, and its resonance. The catchphrase was “genuine” and delivered in a way that people could relate to. Not only was the phrase simple, differentiating, and easy to remember, but people also felt emotionally connected to it on a human level.

The emotional connections brands create are as important as ever. But how those connections are made has changed. Today’s modern consumer seeks and responds to brand experiences, the kind only IRL advertising can deliver. By creating unmissable, unskippable, memorable, and meaningful moments of connection with IRL, brands can paint a masterpiece of endless possibilities on canvases across the U.S..

“Got milk?” is another iconic advertising slogan. Created and promoted by the California Milk Processor Board in 1993, the tagline transcended commerce to become culture. The logo’s big, black, condensed sans-serif script made it ripe for the phenomenon of snowcloning.


This campaign became part of everyday language in culture, with the phrase inspiring countless parodies, imitations, memes, and homages. It also rejuvenated the perception of milk as a product. The campaign even drove a 6% surge in milk sales by 1999 (SOURCE: USDA). “Got milk?” didn’t just sell milk; it changed the whole story around it. But how do you make drinking milk cool?

Joining forces with its California colleagues, MilkPEP elevated the “Got milk?” slogan by combining it with endorsements from celebrities and supermodels with milk mustaches, supporting the tagline with humor, fame, and even a little sex appeal in a blend of cultural relevancy, simplicity, and relatability.


More recently in 2022, MilkPEP launched the 26.2 Campaign Initiative, sponsoring female athletes participating in the New York City Marathon. The organization poured the power of IRL into both digital and static billboards along routes taken by the marathon runners, using a contextually relevant “You’re gonna need milk for that” tagline.


For many brands, a tagline can be their most durable asset. Some even use the same taglines that they started with. “Just Do It” by Nike, “A Diamond is Forever” by DeBeers, and “You’re in Good Hands” by Allstate are original taglines still in use today. Sometimes, a tagline can even redefine a brand.


In 2006, Dunkin’ Donuts introduced the "America Runs on Dunkin’” tagline to brand itself as fuel for on-the-go Americans. Focusing on coffee, the campaign was so successful that it helped influence the brand’s decision to drop “Donuts” from its name, rebranding as simply “Dunkin’.” Two decades later, the brand still uses the slogan, alongside other clever IRL advertising tactics that have earned Dunkin’ a spot in the OAAA’s Hall of Fame.

Great taglines help brands stay relevant, driving recall for years or even decades. And nowhere does a great tagline look better than in real life.

Let’s get your tagline on a billboard today. Contact OUTFRONT today.

Author: Sally Peay, Marketing Specialist @ OUTFRONT

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