Consumers today expect value and quality. To win on shelf, retailers need to deliver on that promise.
Before Target was a household name, they were one Midwestern company’s ambition to become a discount store chain that would "combine the best of the fashion world with the best of the discount world, a quality store with quality merchandise at discount prices."
While Target’s iconic slogan–”Expect more. Pay less.”–wouldn’t debut until 1994, its founding vision captured that sentiment from the beginning.
It’s no surprise, then, that Target and their owned brands–also known as “private label”–still lead the industry in shopper sentiment. According to Fast Company, Target’s more than 45 private label brands generate in excess of $30B in sales each year. In a 2024 consumer report by Highlight on holiday spending, respondents ranked Target’s owned brands amongst their favorites (second only to Walmart).
Read the full consumer report
The most effective slogans successfully shape consumer perceptions of value. While a retailer’s owned brands might signal affordability, the right slogan (and larger merchandising strategy to match) can build the trust, familiarity, and emotional connection brands need to capture more share of cart and forge long-term loyalty.
It’s true what they say. In marketing, the best advice is to keep it simple. Target nailed that with four words that capture their central “reason to believe” (RTB).
Science says that the best slogans are short. The entire point of a slogan is to enhance brand awareness and image, which is most commonly measured by brand recall. Short, simple slogans tend to be the easiest to recall and stay “top of mind.”
In the case of Target’s slogan, they’ve struck the sweet spot with “Expect More, Pay Less.” The slogan’s use of parallel structure and its brevity make for easy recall.
Today’s consumers have plenty of options for affordable brands, but Target’s tagline tells consumers: “You can have it all.”
When Target tells their shoppers to “expect more, pay less,” they’re differentiating themselves from other bargain retailers. Customers seeking affordability shouldn’t have to compromise on quality to get reliable products at the price they need. And as long as Target continues to invest in consumer-led product development, they’ll be able to deliver on the promise of their tagline in a way that other retailers cannot.
For Target, “Expect More, Pay Less” works because as a company, Target remains dedicated to this premise, even after all these years. In an interview with Adweek, Rick Gomez, Target’s EVP and Chief Food and Beverage Officer, explains that remaining true to their roots requires both adapting to ever-changing consumer expectations while remaining authentic to the brand’s values across all consumer touchpoints. By fueling their product innovation pipeline with consumer insights, they’re able to meet and exceed consumer expectations while delivering on the value and affordability of their brand promise.
At the end of 2024, McKinsey & Co declared that we’d arrived at a turning point for private label brands. With many consumers feeling the pinch of rising cost of living and inflation in recent years, shoppers are on the hunt for products that will save them money.
That can provide an opportunity for retailers like Target that are already leading the way in private label excellence. But as McKinsey outlines, this doesn’t happen without deliberate, sweeping action. Retailers must take three specific steps to seize the opportunity presented by this moment.
McKinsey holds up European CPG brands that pioneered affordable private labels: Aldi and Lidl, brands that many US shoppers have grown to know and trust, too.
Many grocery stores have shifted away from offering tiered private label brands–for example, Tesco has eliminated Tesco Value–in favor of consistent price and quality. Tiered brands implies to consumers that “lower shelf” bargain labels lacked some sort of quality the regular label offered. Instead, many retailers are choosing to build their own brands’ prestige and trust with customers.
That’s even reflected in the use of the term “private label” itself. Today, many retailers have started using “owned brands” over “private label” to emphasize that these are not just products on a shelf–they’re strategically developed to put consumer needs first.
While Target did it first with “Expect More, Pay Less,” Lidl has taken a similar tactic for their slogan: “Big on quality, Lidl on price.”
Supply chains have changed radically since 2020. For many manufacturers–including retailers–dramatic increases in cost of commodities and other inputs have led to higher prices for the consumer.
Thankfully, new technologies are mitigating this trend. McKinsey offers the example of a leading retailer that identified a 24% cost reduction opportunity by gaining transparency into the impact of cost changes in rice, sugar, cocoa, and packaging on the cost of its cereal. By applying this same input cost monitoring technology across their SKUs, they were able to understand real costs, negotiate with vendors, or find new ones.
Alienation testing is a key component of such initiatives. When updates are needed to products that consumers already love, alienation testing can identify which new formulations are either undetectable to consumers or help consumers love the product even more.
The best private brands (like Target) put consumers at the center of everything they do. Gone are the days of producing bottom shelf options with no aspirations to compete with the name brand. Target and other nationwide retailers like Walmart, CVS, Costco and more are attuned to consumer preferences and cultural trends that allow them to genuinely delight their shoppers.
A great example is Target’s 2024 pickleball apparel and accessories collection with Prince. They tapped into a cultural moment, partnered with another brand to leverage double the brand equity and trust, and offered all this at prices as low as $9.99.
Read more about the product line
For private brands like Target’s, consumer insights and product research can make the difference between a product a shopper buys because they have no other choice, and the product a shopper buys because it’s so cool. Target is a pioneer in creating genuinely sought-after private brands–this particular product line even sold out in many locations!
When Wieden + Kennedy created the “Just Do It” tagline for Nike in 1987, they couldn’t have known the cultural impact it would go on to have, both for the brand and for the sports world at large.
In an interview with Creative Review, Nike’s Davide Grasso, VP of global brand marketing at Nike at the time, explained the slogan has gone far beyond its original purpose for an ad campaign.
“We actually don’t believe in slogans,” says Grasso. “Instead, what we’ve found to be most effective is inviting people to join us in what we believe in and what we stand for. And what we stand for is to serve and honor athletes.
“I think that’s why ‘Just Do It’ has had such an impact over the last 20 years and continues to. It’s genuine and speaks to our core mission.”
Just like Target’s “Expect More, Pay Less,” Nike’s “Just Do It” rings true for anyone familiar with the brand, and that authenticity keeps consumers coming back for more.
At first glance, you might think Maybelline’s iconic slogan breaks the rules of slogan-making. It’s much longer than slogans like “Expect More, Pay Less” or “Just Do It.” It’s also a bit puzzling: Born with what, exactly? What is it that Maybelline has imbued her with?
But that may be exactly why it works. Maybelline’s tagline captures the unknowable nature of beauty. Conventions may change with time, but there’s always a je ne sais quoi to beauty that is hard to put into words. Regardless of what it is, though, Maybelline can give it to you.
It also achieves something smart that slogans like Target’s and Nike’s do not: It actually contains the brand name.
Taken together, the slogan is brilliantly effective by conveying: 1. We’re talking about beauty, without even saying the word “beauty,” and 2. Maybelline is the “secret weapon” you need to access this allure for yourself.
In 1997, Apple was still up-and-coming in comparison to companies like IBM and Microsoft. IBM had chosen a suitably simple and memorable tagline: “Think.” So when Apple’s agency TBWA suggested “Think Different,” the Apple team recognized that for the stroke of genius it was.
Not only did “Think Different” capture the brand’s vision to make personal computers differently, it framed Apple as the rogue upstart, poised to shake up the industry. Consumers–especially American consumers–love an underdog story, and so the rest is history.
Nevermind that this slogan famously contains a grammatical error. Technically, the correct phrase would be “Think Differently,” but again, the effect is the same: Apple is out to change the world, even if that means breaking a few rules.
Dunkin Donuts’ latest slogan ticks a lot of best practice boxes:
Coffee from Dunkin fuels millions of American consumers every day. But in the context of a slogan, it works well because it leverages “herd mentality.” In other words, humans have a natural inclination to look at what others are doing in order to decide what they themselves should do. Dunkin’s slogan cleverly plays on that, essentially saying: Everyone else is drinking Dunkin–so maybe you should, too.
It’s not easy to build a brand that lives up to its promises. Many a clever marketing slogan has been written for brands that failed to meet consumer expectations. Target’s “Expect Less, Pay More” slogan and the way they’ve been able to so effectively do exactly that–and for decades, no less–shows that it can be done, with the right investment in brand building and innovating products people love.