Almost every German who has watched television knows the sentence that ends a drug advertisement: Zu Risiken und Nebenwirkungen lesen Sie die Packungsbeilage und fragen Sie Ihren Arzt oder Apotheker. For risks and side effects, read the package leaflet and ask your doctor or pharmacist. The sentence is required by the law on advertising for medicines. The advertisement must send the viewer to the responsible professional. Since 27 December 2023, the required wording has been fragen Sie Ihre Ärztin, Ihren Arzt oder in Ihrer Apotheke, ask your doctor, female or male, or in your pharmacy.
advertising
Inform, Do Not Praise
German law sets the terms on which lawyers and doctors may advertise. A lawyer may advertise only soweit sie über die berufliche Tätigkeit in Form und Inhalt sachlich unterrichtet, as far as the advertising informs about the professional work in a factual way, in form and content. It may not aim at obtaining a particular mandate. The model professional code for doctors uses the same word. Doctors may give sachliche berufsbezogene Informationen, factual information about their work. Advertising that breaks professional rules is forbidden. The model code names three kinds in particular: advertising that praises, advertising that misleads, and advertising that compares.
Facts, Facts, Facts
Fakten, Fakten, Fakten und immer an die Leser denken. Facts, facts, facts, and always think of the readers. It was the advertising line of the news magazine Focus, which Helmut Markwort ran as editor-in-chief from 1993. The line became a common saying. In February 2008, Focus retired it.
Everybody Talks About the Weather
Alle reden vom Wetter. Wir nicht. Everybody talks about the weather. We don’t. In 1966, the Deutsche Bundesbahn, the West German railway, advertised itself with this line. A 23-year-old secretary at the McCann agency in Frankfurt, Margot Müller, came up with it while serving coffee at a meeting. The railway presented itself as a way to travel that the weather could not stop.
Today the railway publishes its punctuality every month. A long-distance train counts as on time at a stop if it arrives no more than 5 minutes and 59 seconds late. By that measure, 62.5 percent of long-distance trains were on time in 2024, and 60.1 percent in 2025.
Campaigns for Confidence
In 2005, twenty-five media companies ran a national campaign called Du bist Deutschland, you are Germany. It aimed to spark a movement for more confidence and personal initiative. Its lines included Du bist das Wunder von Deutschland, you are the miracle of Germany. Critics called it a feel-good campaign. In the same year, the federal government and German industry launched Deutschland – Land der Ideen, Germany, land of ideas. Twenty years later, on 3 November 2025, the federal government started another national campaign, Das kann Deutschland, Germany can do this. One of its stated aims was Zuversicht für den Wandel stiften, to create confidence for change.
New Territory
On 19 June 2013, at a press conference with Barack Obama in Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel said: Das Internet ist für uns alle Neuland. (The internet is new territory for all of us.) #Neuland quickly became the most-discussed term on German Twitter. The next day, the car rental company Sixt ran an advertisement with Merkel’s picture: Für alle, die #Neuland entdecken wollen. (For everyone who wants to discover #Neuland.)
You Know What You Have
Until 1973, the name on a pack of Persil, Henkel’s laundry detergent, normally came with a year. In 1973, Henkel dropped the year from the pack. The new advertisements carried a new slogan instead: Persil. Da weiß man, was man hat. (Persil. You know what you have.) Henkel’s own history says that this line stayed in consumers’ memory for good.
It Runs and Runs and Runs
The Volkswagen Beetle was sold with the slogan Der VW läuft und läuft und läuft, the VW runs and runs and runs. It was written by the copywriter Werner Butter. After 1967, the outside of the car hardly changed. On 17 February 1972, the Beetle overtook the Ford Model T as the most-built car in the world. The last Beetle sedan made in Europe left the plant in Emden on 19 January 1978. Production ended for good in Mexico on 30 July 2003, after 21,529,464 cars.
Always Better
Carl Miele and Reinhard Zinkann founded Miele on 1 July 1899 in Herzebrock, Westphalia. The two founders wrote their brand promise, Immer besser, always better, on their first machines. The company still uses it. Miele says its washing machines are designed to last about 20 years.
The testing foundation
Stiftung Warentest. A foundation established by the federal government in 1964 that tests consumer products and publishes comparative results with numerical grades. It takes no advertising. A poor grade is commercially serious, and a good one appears on packaging for years.