‘Chestnut’ slogans that just keep winning

A ‘chestnut’ slogan is one that is repeatedly found in competition winners lists, sometimes with the most minor of variations or – quite often – with no changes at all from one win to the next.

Whilst a Chestnut clearly cannot be original, when used in the right context it will arguably be apt, and if the judges have never seen it before then it will be original (at least to them!) too!

View some popular Chestnut slogans

And here's an article on 'Chestnut Ethics' by Steve Middleton, the editor of Compers News magazine:

As many compers will know, a “chestnut” is a slogan that crops up again and again on winners lists. Whatever our opinion on the subject, as compers we must acknowledge and accept that chestnuts are here to stay. While there are doubtless a few people out there who deliberately enter every single competition with an unashamed chestnut, I think that the vast majority of us try our best to be original. But this doesn’t preclude us from submitting the occasional conker!

There’s no harm in trying, we might think, if we have a spare qualifier (at the very worst, we’ll be doing our comping duty by duplicating and thus cancelling out similar efforts). Or if certain elements of a comp make a chestnut seem a sensible strategy (inexperienced promoter, for example). Sometimes we might simply submit a chestnut by accident – a subliminal memory of a past winners list maybe, or a cracking “first thought” that will probably be a lot of other peoples first thought too.

I often receive questions on this subject, covering everything from definitions to etiquette, and in this article I’m going to try to answer as many of your queries as possible. I don’t pretend that this is a definitive “chestnut” article, as it’s led by your questions and they are a somewhat eclectic mix!

‘Chestnut' slogans that just keep winning continues on these pages:

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