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Papa John’s slogan is “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.” — six words adopted in May 1995, federally trademarked the next year, and still on the company’s boxes and homepage in 2026. Since April 2024 it has shared billing with a second line, “Better Get You Some.” Only one of them has been fought over in federal court.
In November 1999, a Dallas jury found the slogan false or misleading, and a judge ordered the company to stop using it. Ten months later, an appeals court handed it back.
LIST OF PAPA JOHN’S SLOGANS
| Slogan / campaign line | Years | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Better Ingredients. Better Pizza. | 1995–present | The only true slogan; trademarked 1996 |
| ”Sorry, guys, I found a better pizza” | 1997 | Frank Carney ads that started the war |
| Not Just a Slogan | 2018 | First aired three days after Schnatter resigned |
| Voice of Papa John’s | 2018–2019 | Franchisees replaced the founder |
| Shaq-a-Roni | 2020–present | Charity campaign, $3 million first run |
| Better Get You Some | 2024–present | Companion line, not a replacement |
For how the line stacks up against the rest of the industry, see our roundup of fast food slogans.
BETTER INGREDIENTS. BETTER PIZZA.
Papa John’s adopted “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.” in May 1995, eleven years after John Schnatter started selling pizzas from a converted broom closet in his father’s tavern in Jeffersonville, Indiana. The company filed for a federal trademark in 1996, and the court record from the lawsuit that followed says the phrase went on to appear on “millions of signs, shirts, menus, pizza boxes, napkins and other items” — regularly as the closing tag line of its TV ads.
Nobody has ever been credibly named as the author. No agency claims it, and no court filing, trade-press profile, or company history identifies who wrote the six words. Company lore simply hands them to Schnatter.
The founding story did advertising work of its own. Schnatter had sold his 1971 Camaro Z28 in 1984 to buy used pizza equipment, and in 2009 the company turned that fact into a campaign, offering $250,000 to whoever could find the car. It worked: the Camaro was located and bought back the same year.
SORRY, GUYS, I FOUND A BETTER PIZZA
Papa John’s turned its slogan into a weapon in 1997, when it hired Frank Carney — the man who co-founded Pizza Hut in 1958 — to star in its commercials. Carney had left Pizza Hut in 1980 and signed on as a franchisee in 1994. In the ads, he faced a mock meeting of Pizza Hut franchisees and delivered the line: “Sorry, guys, I found a better pizza.”
The campaign landed. In May 1997, the chain’s sales rose 11.7 percent over the prior year while Pizza Hut’s fell 8 percent, according to figures in the appellate record. A February 1998 follow-up campaign bragged that the chain “won big time” in consumer taste tests.
Pizza Hut complained to the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division in November 1997. When that produced nothing it wanted, Pizza Hut went to federal court.
THE PIZZA HUT LAWSUIT
Pizza Hut sued Papa John’s on August 12, 1998, in the Northern District of Texas, arguing that “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.” — combined with the sauce, dough, and taste-test ads — was false advertising under the Lanham Act. On November 17, 1999, the jury agreed. The district court awarded Pizza Hut $467,619.75 for corrective advertising and enjoined the slogan outright, barring any recognizable variation of it — down to the word “better” modifying “ingredients” or “pizza.”
The slogan never actually left the air. The company appealed on January 20, 2000, and six days later the Fifth Circuit put the injunction on hold while it considered the case.
That September, the appeals court reversed. “Each half of the slogan,” the judges wrote, “amounts to little more than an exaggerated opinion of superiority that no consumer would be justified in relying upon.” In legal terms, the line was puffery — a boast too empty to be false. The $300 million the company had spent building the phrase was protected by the argument that it promised nothing. The Supreme Court declined to hear Pizza Hut’s appeal on March 19, 2001, and the war was over.
THE NFL YEARS
Papa John’s became the NFL’s official pizza sponsor in 2010 and spent the decade fusing its slogan to football. Peyton Manning bought into Denver-area franchises in 2012 and became the chain’s most familiar TV face.
The partnership ended badly. On a November 1, 2017 earnings call, Schnatter blamed slowing sales on the league’s handling of player protests during the national anthem, and the company apologized two weeks later for being “divisive.” In February 2018, the two sides called ending the sponsorship a “mutual decision” — and Pizza Hut, of all companies, took over as the league’s official pizza. Manning had sold his 31 stores two days before the announcement.
THE SLOGAN OUTLIVES ITS FOUNDER
On July 11, 2018, Forbes reported that Schnatter had used a racial slur on a media-training conference call that May. He resigned as chairman that evening. North American same-store sales fell 16 percent in the week after the story broke, and the company began pulling his face from its boxes and ads.
The slogan stayed. A commercial titled “Not Just a Slogan” made its first airing on July 14, 2018 — three days after the Forbes story — with Chief Ingredient Officer Sean Muldoon insisting that “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.” was company practice, not marketing.
That September, new ads replaced Schnatter with a lineup of franchisees under the banner “Voice of Papa John’s.” Melissa Richards-Person, the chain’s vice president of global brand strategy, explained the thinking: “That was a way to really reinforce that this is a brand that belongs to everyone. This isn’t a single person’s brand.”
SHAQ-A-RONI
Shaquille O’Neal joined the Papa John’s board in 2019 as the company rebuilt its public face — his full run as brand ambassador is covered in our mascot history. His mark on slogan history is the Shaq-a-Roni, an extra-large pepperoni pizza launched in June 2020 that donated a dollar per pie and raised more than $3 million for the Papa John’s Foundation in its first run.
THE PIZZA SLOGAN SCOREBOARD
Papa John’s rivals treat slogans as disposable. The company itself has run one for three decades.
| Chain | Signature slogan | Ran |
|---|---|---|
| Papa John’s | Better Ingredients. Better Pizza. | 1995–present |
| Pizza Hut | No One OutPizzas the Hut | 2016–present |
| Domino’s | 30 Minutes or Less, or It’s Free | 1970s–1992 |
| Little Caesars | Pizza! Pizza! | 1979–98, 2012–present |
Domino’s has cycled through more than a dozen lines since the 1970s, dropping its most famous one after a delivery-crash lawsuit. Pizza Hut has run eleven, and Little Caesars built an empire on two words repeated once. Little Caesars comes closest to that endurance record — but even “Pizza! Pizza!” took a fourteen-year break.
WHAT IS PAPA JOHN’S SLOGAN TODAY?
Papa John’s runs two lines today. “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.” remains the registered trademark and official brand promise. “Better Get You Some,” introduced April 2, 2024 with The Martin Agency, is the campaign platform layered on top — built, by the company’s own account, to reach younger customers who found the brand invisible.
Chief Marketing Officer Mark Shambura framed the new line as an addition, not a funeral: “Better Get You Some captures and champions the role pizza devotion plays in all our lives.” The company kept calling the 1995 phrase its core promise, and as of July 2026 the homepage still leads its brand page with it.
The line a Dallas jury ordered retired in 1999 is now in its fourth decade.
PAPA JOHN’S SLOGANS FAQ
What is the slogan for Papa Johns?
Papa John’s slogan is “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.” — in use since May 1995 and federally trademarked in 1996. It doubles as the company’s motto and catchphrase, since the chain has only ever run one primary line. In 2024 it added a companion campaign tagline, “Better Get You Some.”
What is Papa Johns jingle?
Papa John’s jingle is its slogan set to sound: commercials close with the sung or spoken tag “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza. Papa John’s.” The court record in the Pizza Hut lawsuit described the phrase as the regular closing tag line of the chain’s TV ads, a role it has played since the 1990s.
Does Peyton Manning still own part of Papa Johns?
No. Manning sold his 31 Denver-area franchises in February 2018, two days before the chain and the NFL ended the league sponsorship. He had been a franchisee since 2012 and the brand’s most familiar television spokesman through the decade.
