Why are corporate slogans so pervasive in American culture?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen asks why corporate slogans saturate American life, from “Just Do It” to “I’m lovin’ it.” Rick Rosner argues the United States’ giant consumer market rewards compression: short phrases win scarce attention and become rhythmic, sticky cues rather than meaningful sentences. He links the same “attention-economy” logic to television, where long theme songs gave way to minimal title sequences. Rosner adds that modern overload—accelerated information flow and post-COVID health burdens for some—makes simple messaging even more potent. Advertising, he says, works mainly as reminder: it keeps decent products mentally available.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The American landscape is littered with corporate nonsense: McDonald’s, “I’m lovin’ it.” Maybelline, “Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline.” L’Oréal, “Because you’re worth it.” Nike, “Just Do It.” Why is this so pervasive?

Rick Rosner: The United States has a massive consumer market, and the culture is saturated with sales talk. President Calvin Coolidge put it bluntly in a January 17, 1925 address to newspaper editors: “After all, the chief business of the American people is business.”People are continuously flooded with messaging, so brands compete for a sliver of attention.

Modern advertising learned—through trial, error, and a lot of bad copy—that short beats clever when attention is scarce. “Just Do It” is eight letters if you count letters only, not spaces. “I’m lovin’ it” is built to be compact and sticky; the dropped “g” helps keep it punchy and rhythmic.

You can see the same compression in television. In the United States, experimental television transmissions were happening by the late 1920s, and more regular experimental programming developed through the early 1930s, long before TV became a mainstream household technology. Early theme songs often acted like narrated premises. Gilligan’s Island is a classic example: the opening song functions as a quick plot summary, explaining the setup to viewers.

Then the industry moved toward minimalism. Lost is a useful marker: instead of a full theme song, it uses a very short title sequence—more tone than tune. Theme songs shrank because everything competes for mental space, and speed wins.

There is also a broader cognitive context. People are overloaded by information, constant stimulation, and a world that changes faster than our attention systems evolved to handle. On top of that, COVID-19 has had long-lasting health impacts for many people. Public-health agencies describe Long COVID (post-COVID conditions) as a condition that can affect one or more organ systems and involve many body systems. The World Health Organization similarly defines post-COVID-19 condition as symptoms that typically begin within three months of infection and last at least two months, with no alternative explanation. 

Finally, the 1918 influenza pandemic is often called the “Spanish flu.” That label stuck largely because Spain’s press was able to report openly on outbreaks while much of the combatant-world press was constrained by wartime censorship. The origin of the pandemic remains debated; it is not definitively settled that it began in the United States. Estimates vary, but roughly one-third of the world’s population appears to have been infected. 

On the “spike protein” question: it is accurate that the SARS-CoV-2 spike can act as a fusogen—a protein that can enable cell–cell fusion—in laboratory and model-system studies, including work showing fusion effects in neuronal culture models. However, it is not accurate to state, as a general fact, that “spike proteins get everywhere,” “damage immune cells,” or that spike-driven neuron fusion is an established explanation for cognitive problems in humans. The serious, well-supported point is simpler: SARS-CoV-2 infection can have multi-system consequences for some people, and Long COVID can involve symptoms such as fatigue and cognitive dysfunction, with mechanisms that are still being actively researched. 

People often feel like we are living in a hellscape and that things have never been worse. That is probably not true in aggregate. While we are busy panicking, many things are steadily improving, or at least being set up for significant improvements. While people are freaking out about AI, for example, AI is also going to help with many things and likely make many aspects of life easier—alongside whatever risks it introduces.

That said, people are more overwhelmed now than at almost any previous point in modern history, except for extreme crisis periods. Possibly Gen Z—and especially Gen Alpha—are an exception in one narrow sense: they grow up immersed in all of this and often tune a lot of it out, spending enormous time on their devices. It is a big, confusing world with many things to panic about, which is why simple, short messaging becomes so effective.

Take slogans like “Just Do It” (Nike) or “I’m lovin’ it” (McDonald’s). These phrases eventually lose literal meaning. “I’m lovin’ it” does not communicate much content; it is vague by design. “Just Do It” has more semantic content—it suggests action and engagement. Still, once you hear any slogan often enough, you become inured to it. It stops functioning as language and becomes a reminder.

At that point, the slogan no longer communicates an idea; it triggers brand recognition. It becomes: “Oh, right—Nike.” The words matter less than the cue. They retain some persuasive force, but fundamentally, all of this is competition for brain space.

Jacobsen: In your view, why does advertising work—at least when it does?

Rosner: Advertising only works if the underlying product is not bad. You can advertise a terrible product, but that only works until people realize it is terrible. At a minimum, the product has to be decent. Nike products are solid. McDonald’s tastes good—especially the fries, in my view and in the view of many people.

Once you have a product people already like, advertising becomes mostly about reminder rather than persuasion. The job is to say: “We are still here. Come get us.” That is why advertising works. It reminds people of things they like. In the case of untried products, it tells people, “This might be good.” With movies, this is especially clear, because marketing (“P&A,” prints and advertising) can be extremely large relative to production costs, and in some cases can exceed them—especially for wide releases. A $200 million movie can plausibly have a nine-figure marketing campaign, depending on strategy and scale.

You only need to get people to pay for a movie once. That business model has been strained by structural changes, but set that aside and think pre-COVID. You convince people to see a movie, and if it turns out to be bad, it does not really matter for that transaction. They have already paid.

Rick Rosner is an accomplished television writer with credits on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show. Over his career, he has earned multiple Writers Guild Award nominations—winning one—and an Emmy nomination. Rosner holds a broad academic background, graduating with the equivalent of eight majors. Based in Los Angeles, he continues to write and develop ideas while spending time with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN 0018-7399; Online: ISSN 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Further Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.

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