HOW A Slogan sparked a movement
When people hear Waze, they immediately think of “Outsmarting Traffic, Together.” It’s the line that followed the brand into campaigns, app stores, and headlines around the world. What most don’t realize is that I created it during my time as Waze’s first in-house communications strategist.
Back in 2010, Waze was still a scrappy startup trying to prove itself against giants like Google Maps and Garmin. The product was powerful — a live, crowdsourced navigation system unlike anything else — but the story hadn’t caught up to the tech. My mandate was clear: define a positioning that could resonate not just with early adopters in Tel Aviv or Silicon Valley, but with millions of drivers worldwide.
The challenge was deceptively simple: how do you transform a cold, data-driven app into a living, breathing movement people want to belong to?
The breakthrough came when I stopped thinking about Waze as a map and started seeing it as a community. The app wasn’t just showing traffic; it was people helping each other beat it. That insight crystallized into a phrase that carried both urgency and optimism: Outsmarting Traffic, Together.
The tagline wasn’t just a slogan. It was a rallying cry that turned a navigation tool into a cultural movement. It gave Waze a global identity rooted in collaboration, helped shape the company’s narrative as it scaled, and ultimately carried through to the brand’s acquisition by Google.
Waze didn’t just help people get from point A to point B faster. It showed what was possible when technology and community worked hand-in-hand — and “Outsmarting Traffic, Together” became the flag planted at the center of that story.
Back in 2010, Waze was still a scrappy startup trying to prove itself against giants like Google Maps and Garmin. The product was powerful — a live, crowdsourced navigation system unlike anything else — but the story hadn’t caught up to the tech. My mandate was clear: define a positioning that could resonate not just with early adopters in Tel Aviv or Silicon Valley, but with millions of drivers worldwide.
The challenge was deceptively simple: how do you transform a cold, data-driven app into a living, breathing movement people want to belong to?
The breakthrough came when I stopped thinking about Waze as a map and started seeing it as a community. The app wasn’t just showing traffic; it was people helping each other beat it. That insight crystallized into a phrase that carried both urgency and optimism: Outsmarting Traffic, Together.
- “Outsmarting” highlighted the intelligence of real-time, crowdsourced data — we weren’t passively following directions, we were actively outmaneuvering gridlock
- “Traffic” named the universal enemy, the daily frustration that transcends geography
- “Together” was the heart of it all — a reminder that Waze worked only because millions of drivers chose to contribute and share
The tagline wasn’t just a slogan. It was a rallying cry that turned a navigation tool into a cultural movement. It gave Waze a global identity rooted in collaboration, helped shape the company’s narrative as it scaled, and ultimately carried through to the brand’s acquisition by Google.
Waze didn’t just help people get from point A to point B faster. It showed what was possible when technology and community worked hand-in-hand — and “Outsmarting Traffic, Together” became the flag planted at the center of that story.
Creating Waze’s Tagline:
“Outsmarting Traffic, Together.”
Read more about how I created Waze’s tagline here in my published interview with HeavyBit.
