Finally, the moment you’ve been waiting all summer for (not to mention spring) – the result of our #Subvertaslogan competition. And – oof! – what a lot of great entries we’ve received. No wonder it’s taken us so long to come up with the winner.
A big thank you to everyone who took part. Sorry we can’t mention you all by name or feature every wonderful entry we received. If we did we’d be here until Christmas (2021).
Where to begin. Why not with a couple a fabulous entries from our friends across the pond. The Chicago content powerhouse Words by Sørensen gave us a slightly sinister strapline for Amazon Echo – Making Your Dystopian Dreams a Reality. On a lighter note, in more ways than one, Karin Rego, aka @Tweetorialist, served up Weight Watchers – Thin Different.
Karin wasn’t the only one to pillage from Apple. Over in New York Milt Lowe adapted that most Jobsian of slogans for Rubic’s cubes – Think Difficult. More of Milt later.
Cut to London, England where Danny Solero @Solero_In_Smoke also went for elegant simplicity with this marvellous double hit on Nike’s famous motto: UHU – Just Glue It and Chewits – Just Chew It. Our own contribution to the genre can be applied to pretty much every day of the Trump presidency – Just Blew It.
While we’re on the subject of the world’s most deranged narcissist (apologies, we mean the esteemed 45th President of the United States), from safely over the 49th Parallel in Vancouver, Karin borrowed Burger King’s Have It Your Way for Trump – Have it my way. You’re a loser Karin, a total loser.
Back with confectionary, down the coast in LA John Blumenthal @john_blumenthal made a very tasty contribution with Marzipan – Almonds Are Forever. Meanwhile, from his hideaway in the English midlands James Barb offered a dryly accurate rewrite for middle England’s favourite brand, Mr Kipling – Exceedingly small cakes.
Widening out to food retail, Carina, @Carinawrites (sorry, we can’t find your surname or location) contributed Tesco – Every Lidl helps, which we like a lot, even if we are struggling to grasp its logic.
Returning stateside, New Jersey’s Darcy Grabenstein @write2sell produced the achingly good strapline for the British Orthopaedic Association – Snap! Crackle! Pop! – Time for a hip Replacement? Even better, in our humble opinion, was her appropriation of Avis’s strapline for Viagra – We try harder. Stop smirking at the back!
We received loads of great entries from Mark Blakewill of British comedy writing duo Blakewill and Harris, who was on sharp form with Sky – Believe in Rupert and the still more cutting Stella Artois – Inexplicably expensive, Microsoft – How do you want to crash today? Google – Don’t be Apple and The Independent – It no longer is. Are you?. He then mellowed out with Guinness is food for you and American Express – Don’t see Rome without it. Take a bow young man.
Before we announce the winner, a shout out to Milt Lowe for his wonderful collection of bumper stickers, which you can find on his website Taglion.com. Highlights include Botox – When one expression is enough, Facebook – Share pointless stuff with friends you don’t know and Twitter – When you need to say nothing quickly.
And so – drumroll – to the winner. She had us blushing and chortling in equal measure with her marriage of a great American product to the old strapline of that most British of publications, the Radio Times. Trojan condoms – If It’s On, It’s In. Darcy Grabenstein, you’ve a mind like a sewer, but we love you! A hundred pounds are heading your way – in dollars of course.
