What is the first name that comes to your mind while shopping online?
“Amazon”!! Isn’t it? The eCommerce powerhouse takes care of 37.6% of US online sales followed by Walmart, Apple, eBay, and other platforms.
Like the brand, its marketing slogan holds equal importance for brand popularity. Right now, the Amazon slogan reads as,
Although there are some doubts if it is the official slogan for Amazon, the phrase weighs quite a lot among Amazon workers and netizens alike.
Creating a robust brand message may work wonders for your brand online. In this post, we will shed light on what is the Amazon slogan and how it impacts its audience. We will also tell you how to create such an impactful slogan for your brand.
What is the Amazon Slogan
“Work hard, Have fun, Make history”
As you can already guess, the slogan for Amazon carefully depicts the company’s work culture and ethics. Through the slogan, the eCommerce giant motivates its employees to give their best and have fun in the process. The brand has already made history by offering exceptional customer experience. The “Make history” portion in the slogan highlights this achievement and encourages the employees to keep impacting their customers on an exceptional level.
Work Hard (dual explanation) – On other hand, it inspires the employees to maintain the standards of customer service excellence through hard work. On the other, it convinces the customers regarding the brand’s dedication towards their satisfaction.
Have fun (employee-centric) – The employees are encouraged to have fun while working in the company. If they feel relaxed and happy, they’ll be able to give the best of their abilities to maintain the brand’s reputation.
Make history (brand shout out) – The company, here, highlights its ability to make history through the hard work of its employees. This is one of the best parts of the Amazon slogan that boosts confidence in the employees as well as assures the customers of its exemplary service.
How the Amazon Slogan Stands For the Company Culture
Jeff Bezos!
Does the name sound familiar to you?
He is the founder, former president and CEO of the world’s largest eCommerce platform, yes, Amazon.
If you want to understand the not-so-hidden meaning behind Amazon’s slogan, some knowledge of Bezos’ journey of creating Amazon is necessary.
Work Hard!
In 1994, Bezos started the business from his garage in Bellevue Washington. It was merely an online bookstore then. He diligently carried on his work for several years, expanding the company to what it is today – “The Everything Store”.
In 1997, Amazon started showing immense progress by selling CDs and DVDs online. Bezos, excited, wanted to explore the chances of expansion and emailed 1,000 people randomly asking them the same question,
“Besides the things we sell today, what would you like to see us sell?”
Though the responses were not that direct, he got the vibe that his customers wanted him to sell whatever they were looking for at the moment. Bezos confessed that someone even replied saying that they wanted him to sell windshield wiper blades. The person seemed to be in dire need of the product. And that’s how he got the cue to expand his online bookstore into “The Everything Store”.
Bezos wrote a letter to his shareholders in 1999 and expressed his wish to turn Amazon into the “Earth’s most customer-centric company”, where people can find whatever they wish to buy online. He wanted to invent and innovate for his customers, personalize, and work hard to build their trust and keep it.
The “Work Hard” part in Amazon’s slogan underlines this. From a garage full of desks made from doors that sold books online to the earth’s largest eCommerce store, Bezos has worked hard to climb up the ladder. No wonder he wants all his employees to do the same, thus highlighting the company’s culture in its slogan!
Have Fun!
It’s important to have fun in everything you do!
As Dale Carnegie says, “People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.”
Note: Dale Carnegie is an American scholar and lecturer, who developed multiple courses on self-improvement, corporate training, interpersonal skills, and even salesmanship. Some of his notable works are “Art of Public Speaking”, “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living”, and “How to Win Friends and Influence People”.
Coming back to Amazon’s slogan, this “fun” part explains how you can achieve work-life harmony seamlessly. Of course, by “having fun” at work!
Check out one of Bezos’ interviews below to see how beautifully he explains this part.
When you are happy and relaxed at work, you’re bound to be more productive. And what’s better to a company than having a team of super-productive “happy” people working day in and out to ensure maximum customer satisfaction? Nothing!
Hence, in the Amazon company slogan, Bezos highlights the importance of being happy and having fun at work.
Make History!
Creating the world’s leading eCommerce store from a mere garage is history in itself. Isn’t it?
Through the company’s slogan, probably, Bezos wants his employees to realize their value. Putting the right efforts and dedication in the right direction, anyone can make history. And that’s what the slogan highlights.
The company that sells EVERYTHING today was merely an online bookstore that operated from a garage.
No high-rise buildings and no air-conditioned, cozy, glass office structures! A garage that turned into one of the leading eCommerce stores in the world!
That’s what we call “Making History”, isn’t it?
The brand slogan cleverly touches this point, while encouraging the employees to do the same.
Earlier Brand Slogans of Amazon
The Amazon brand slogan that we see today is only one example of how creative Bezos’ marketing team is. However, when he started the company as an online marketplace for books, he had a different slogan for his brand. And it was no less creative and futuristic than the current one.
Earth’s Biggest Bookstore – Story of the First Amazon Slogan
Bezos dreamed of creating the world’s largest bookstore from his garage. But what’s more surprising is, he DID it!
The name, Amazon.com, which was registered on 1st November 1994, drew inspiration from one of the longest rivers on planet Earth. As Bezos wanted to do it BIG, he chose the name and created the slogan to highlight his ambitions.
In three years of its inception, Amazon’s annual revenue reached $148 million, despite being a private company still. In 1997, Bezos decided to go public to acquire more funds for his venture. There were some roadblocks though. For example, its rival, Barnes & Noble sued Amazon for falsely claiming to be the world’s largest bookstore. It insisted that Amazon wasn’t a bookstore but a book broker. The argument was settled out of court, relieving Bezos to continue claiming to own the “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore”.
In May 1997, Amazon became public, selling its shares for $18/share under the symbol, AMZN.
Hence, the company indeed became the Earth’s Biggest Bookstore, as mentioned in its slogan.
Everything from A-Z – Slogan Highlighted by the Amazon Logo
Before we talk about this particular brand slogan of the eCommerce Giant, take a look at its logo.
Designed in 2000, it is also the current logo of the company. Do you see how the arrow connecting the “A” and “Z” of the brand name is similar to a smile? Well, that’s what the company wants us to see.
By connecting the letters, A and Z, the brand keeps its message clear – You can get everything from A-Z, here. And that’s exactly what the slogan said.
Since 1998, Bezos started expanding his “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore” to stay on par with the diverse demands of his customers. From CDs/DVDs and gaming software to EVERYTHING that people want to buy online, he indeed created an A-Z category of products on Amazon. The brand slogan thus resonated with his efforts and services to offer ultimate customer satisfaction.
Key Branding Takeaways from Amazon’s Slogan
A marketing slogan is not just some impactful words put together. It should align with the brand’s primary objectives, mission, vision, and company values. Besides motivating the internal team, a brand’s slogan should also build trust in the audience. It helps establish the company’s identity in the world. The slogan also highlights what the company offers and how it means to satisfy the needs of its audience.
We have already learned how Amazon never failed to fulfill every sense of the term “Slogan” over the years. Let’s now discuss some of the key takeaways from its slogans to boost YOUR branding efforts:
An ideal slogan should be simple and concise
Simplicity never loses its charm, be it any branding effort, e.g., logos, taglines, or slogans. Have you noticed how beautifully Amazon’s slogans put forth the branding message without using too many words? You should do the same. After all, creating slogans is one of the key steps of brand building from scratch. Hence, understand your company’s primary objective in resonance with customers’ expectations and craft a message that highlights the same.
So the first lesson that you can learn from Amazon’s slogans is to be simple!
The slogan should resonate with the company’s purpose
At first, the purpose of Amazon was simple – selling books online. Its slogan, thereby, matched that purpose, besides highlighting the company’s goal – becoming the “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore”.
When the company changed its objective into selling EVERYTHING online, it also changed the slogan – Everything from A-Z.
Now when Amazon is a global eCommerce platform with 310 million users worldwide, it has changed its slogan to resonate with the company’s current objective – giving the best to its customers. It also emphasizes the happiness and satisfaction of its employees, who can help achieve this goal.
“Work hard, Have fun, Make History” – Summarizes all the three main objectives of Amazon, as a company, and as a leading eCommerce platform.
Using simple phrases, the company describes what it stands for, and what it offers to its customers. In brand storytelling, the Amazon slogan thus rightfully tops the chart as a brilliant storyteller.
Slogans should have a lasting impression
An effective way to create timeless slogans – something that’ll have a lasting impression on the minds of your customers – is to avoid trends. Trends are variable; one goes when the other comes. If you create slogans according to the latest trends, your brand, most probably, won’t register in the customers’ minds for long. Consider all the Amazon slogans. These are timeless and unbound to trends. Hence, the Amazons slogans come out as brilliant and unique, as the company itself.
Trends are temporary and meant for innovating services/products of any brand. As customers’ needs change, trends help a company understand the new demands and improvise accordingly. A slogan, on the other hand, is a brand recognition feature that highlights brand goals and objectives. It’s unchangeable and timeless, to say the least. Isn’t that what your users trust you for?
Over to You
The Amazon slogan is memorable, retainable, and relatable to say the least. It perfectly describes the business, as well as explains what it stands for. The primary goal of a marketing slogan is to connect with its customers on the ground level. The slogan for Amazon does that just fine!
The thumb rule for creating such a marketing slogan for your brand is to think, Write, Choose, and Improvise.
Think what your business stands for, and what makes it special. Write down all of its unique qualities. Choose the right words/phrases from the list and connect those, like a string of pearls. Improvise and innovate to create a slogan that is both understood and unforgettable.
Enjoy the process! When you see people connecting to your brand slogan like some famous quote and using it as a reference everywhere, know that you have succeeded.
Till then, “Work hard, Have fun, Make history!”