Rule of Three's Ad Agency Makes Its Pitch

Drawing inspiration from classic advertising campaigns.

Nov 26, 2023

Rule of Three has just launched its own advertising agency, because we think Don Draper, of Mad Men fame, is cool, and developing winning advertising campaigns seems like a lot of fun.

As we work to develop our business plan for this nascent effort, perhaps it would be useful to reflect on classic advertising campaigns from years past.

I was fully prepared to provide you with a cornucopia of these memorable advertising taglines, but Rule of Three’s Director of Gamification pulled me aside and said, “Hey, we have a tremendous opportunity here: studies have shown that weaving a game into a column increases reader engagement metrics by 3%, and results in a nearly 1.2% subscription conversion rate.”

Now, who am I to turn away 0.3 new readers? To that end, we have crafted a simple game, which will delight and entertain you and other readers, and provide the Rule of Three Advertising Agency with the inspiration they need to turbocharge their creative development efforts.

And so, on with the game. It’s quite straightforward: all you need to do is identify the product or company being promoted in each of the following tagline examples (answers appear at the end of the column):

“Just do it.”
“We’re number two; we try harder.”
“I don’t always drink beer. But when I do I prefer ________. Stay thirsty, my friends.” (The Most Interesting Man in the World)
"Got Milk?”
“Where's the beef?"
“You're not you when you’re hungry.”
“You’re in good hands.”
“A little dab’ll do ya’.”
“Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh, what a relief it is.”
“The king of beers.”
“I’d walk a mile for a ________.”
“When you care enough to send the very best.”
“Breakfast of champions.”
“Fly the friendly skies.”
“It’s the real thing.”
“Have it your way.”
“When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.”
“There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s __________.”
“I’m lovin’ it.”
“Let’s go places.”
“Don’t leave home without it.”
“The quicker picker upper.”
“Betcha’ can’t eat just one.”
“Reach out, and touch someone.”
“Good to the last drop.”
“The pause that refreshes.”
“M’m! M’m! Good!”
They’re gr-r-reat!”
“All the news that’s fit to print.”
“What’s in your wallet?”

How’d you do? If you guessed all thirty correctly, you really need to get a life, or at least, a hobby; if you correctly guessed more than twenty, that’s a very strong showing - give yourself a pat on the back; if you correctly guessed less than twenty, perhaps you simply didn’t apply yourself; and, if you got fewer than ten right, go sit in the corner, and think about what you’ve done.

Perhaps there are some other iconic advertising taglines, which you think we missed. Well, you have three options: keep it to yourself; share these missing links with us in the “comments” section below; or, send a check to Rule of Three (hey, I took a shot).

Duly inspired by revisiting these classic advertising campaigns, the Rule of Three Advertising Agency creative team has developed the following pitches - it’s unclear whether or not these advertisers are currently undergoing an account review process, but, the team feels confident enough in their abilities that they’re pushing forward.

Chik-Fil-A - “We’re not open on Sundays. . .but, neither is Hobby Lobby.”
X - “We used to have a different name, but now we’re just using a single letter. . .and, not a very popular letter at that.”
Amazon - “What do you need? We’ve basically got everything.”

I know, right? The team really Don Drapered the hell out of these pitches. We’ll be ready to toast our success with the champagne chilling in our office right now.

All the Madison Avenue, alphabet-soup agencies, such as BBDO, DDB and FCB will be scrambling to keep up with ROT from now on.

As for the advertising tagline game, here are the correct answers - I hope you Don Drapered the hell out of it too:

Yeah, this one was a layup, intended to inspire false confidence, as you begin the game: Nike, of course.
This one goes back a ways, when Avis Rent-A-Car was the perennial runner up to Hertz; I think all rental car companies are now owned by a single entity, rendering this clever tagline irrelevant.
Dos Equis - a fine Mexican beer, and a witty, engaging advertising campaign.
You probably guessed properly that this campaign promoted the milk industry in some way - full credit only if you connected the dots to the California Milk Processor Board, but, partial credit can rightly be earned here, if your answer included the word, “milk.”
Clara Peller, anyone? This old biddy was the hottest thing on the planet when this campaign for Wendy’s premiered. She would have become a meme, had memes existed at the time.
This campaign touted the Snickers chocolate bar as a quick fix to hunger. The best part of the campaign, to me, was an elderly Betty White getting clobbered on a football field.
Insurance companies have spent a lot of money on advertising over the years - in this case, the hands belonged to Allstate.
Recognizing this one requires a very long memory, as the advertising dates back to the 1960’s; it also requires an old belief that slicking down the very short hair on a man’s head was a solid fashion direction to take - Brylcreem was the product in question here.
Another oldie, but a goodie, this jingle promoted an effervescent antacid and pain reliever, Alka-Seltzer.
The king of beers is a tagline attached to. . .are you ready for this. . .Budweiser. Dos Equis it ain’t, but, Budweiser does sell a lot of beer.
Ah, the good old days of cigarette advertising - Camel cigarettes are the ones people would walk a mile for - ironic, because if you smoked a lot of Camels (or, really any cigarette), it was likely a pretty difficult task to walk a mile, given the lung cancer, COPD, heart disease, stroke and other negative health affects associated with smoking.
This slogan was developed by Hallmark Cards. I can think of many other things which might constitute the “very best,” including: a bottle of The Balvenie (single-malt scotch), Garrett’s Caramel Corn, or Godiva chocolates, but, a greeting card is nice too, I guess.
No, the breakfast of champions does not include single-malt scotch, caramel corn or chocolates - it’s Wheaties.
I think United Airlines is flying the same skies as all the other airlines, but, they nonetheless laid claim to this slogan.
Coca-Cola is the real thing - I suppose that means that Pepsi-Cola and all the others are impostors.
Burger King is the fast-food purveyor who encouraged all of us to have it our way - unfortunately, for fast-food purveyors, that mantra adds cost, complexity and preparation time, no doubt harming customer satisfaction, and ultimately, profit.
This one belonged to Federal Express (we also will accept the truncated version in use now: Fedex), long before Amazon entered the scene.
This slogan, promoting Mastercard, actively promotes the accumulation of consumer debt.
Burger King might have urged consumers to have it their way, but McDonald’s was the object (or, is it the subject?) of the “I’m lovin’ it” campaign.
Toyota, which sells vehicles which you can use to go places, was tied to this tagline.
I am famously not a fan of American Express (see link to a column from a couple of years ago attached just below), but I grudgingly admit that this is a solid advertising slogan.
Sometimes the "Lifetime Value of a Customer" Can be Zero
Bill Southern
·
November 26, 2022
I’m not really one to hold a grudge - perhaps that’s because of my sometimes-failing memory - I simply can’t remember who I’m supposed to dislike. But, I have nurtured a healthy disdain for American Express, for over thirty years. Why, you ask? Well, you’re in luck - I haven’t yet prepared a column this week, and this seems to be as good a time as any …
Read full story
Bounty paper towels is the product in question here, utilized in a series of TV commercials in which actress Nancy Walker portrayed Rosie, a waitress in a diner. Fun fact: Nancy Walker also portrayed Rhoda Morgenstern’s mother, Ida, in the old The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda, a sequel - now you’re prepared to answer any number of trivia contest questions.
Lay’s potato chips is the featured product in this advertising campaign; the premise is just plain ridiculous - who’s going to go to the trouble of opening a bag of potato chips, and eat just one chip? Nobody, that’s who.
I’m just happy to know that “Reach out, and touch someone” wasn’t an advertising campaign developed for use by the Catholic Church - no, it was AT&T.
Maxwell House coffee was the beverage which was “good to the last drop.”
Coca-Cola was not just “the real thing” - it was also the “pause that refreshes.”
Campbell’s Soup deployed the “M’m! M’m! Good!” advertising slogan - it seems more appropriate to M&M’s, which utilized, “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand instead.
This was the catchphrase for Tony the Tiger, in his many TV commercials on behalf of Frosted Flakes. Why a tiger? No idea.
This one belongs to the “Gray Lady,” also known as the New York Times. It’s a solid moniker, but not my favorite newspaper slogan - that mantle is worn by a newspaper published in the southern suburbs of Chicago, known for years as the Southtown Economist, since rebranded as the Daily Southtown. The newspaper, which was circulated only in the southern suburbs, and not in northern or western suburbs, ran a slogan on a billboard for years which read, “Southtown Economist: People Up North Just Don’t Get It!” Truly sublime.
This message from Capital One has resonated with consumers. My response to their query: not an American Express card.

You needn't have recorded a perfect score in the advertising tagline game to secure your place in the Rule of Three universe - all it takes is a click on the "Subscribe Now" button below. . . .c'mon, man, it's free!