Alien gets top billing in survey that ranks movie taglines based on humor, attitude, expression, and influence on popular culture


SAN MATEO, CA – April 2, 2008 – Tagline Guru™, the world’s preeminent authority on taglines and slogans, today released its survey of the Top 100 American movie taglines.

According to more than 500 American advertising, marketing, and branding professionals, the tagline used to publicize the film, Alien – In space no one can hear you scream – was ranked #1 out of more than 300 submitted nominations.

Released in 1979, Alien is now regarded as a culturally significant science-fiction horror film, and was recently inducted into the collection of the U.S. National Film Registry.

According to Eric Swartz, president of Tagline Guru, “More credit should be given to the taglines used in movie marketing, advertising, and publicity campaigns. A good tagline can create buzz, mold public opinion, and strengthen a film’s overall appeal. It is, in many ways, the shorthand expression by which a movie is known and remembered.”

Swartz continues: “The goal of this survey was to discover which movie taglines are the most creative, original, and memorable – in other words, whether they’re clever, humorous, unusual, or unique; whether they capture the central theme or essence of the film; and whether they demonstrate an ability to influence popular language and culture.”

Methodology

More than 300 movie taglines were nominated from a compiled list of more than 1,500. Although many films had multiple taglines, only one was selected from each film. Movie re-releases were not eligible for consideration; however, movie remakes were. Also eligible were catch phrases from a film’s dialogue that were legitimately used as promotional taglines. All of the nominated taglines were verified on the Internet Movie Database.

Respondents were asked to rank their top ten movie taglines based on the criteria outlined above.

The Top 10 American Movie Taglines

Survey Results

“Fear, uncertainty, and vulnerability reign supreme in the horror, suspense, and science fiction genres, and no less so in their taglines, which exploit these feelings for maximum effect,” said Swartz.

Eighty-five of the top 100 movie taglines are from films released after 1980. Contemporary taglines use rhetorical devices such as irony, hyperbole, and double meaning to make their point. They’re more clever, cynical, and tongue-in-cheek than older taglines, which tend to be descriptive and serious, and rely heavily on superlatives and dramatic clichés.

“Movie audiences are more sophisticated these days,” Swartz said. “So is the art of sloganeering, which often pokes fun at the film and at itself to reveal some surprising, disarming, or humorous universal truth.”

Click the link to view the Top 100 Movie Taglines.

Tagline Guru is the world’s most scholarly resource on taglines and slogans. Its president and founder, Eric Swartz, has created more than 10,000 brand expressions, names, and concepts for companies, non-profit associations, public agencies, municipalities, universities, political campaigns, publications, and events.

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