2 builders who never spoke to each other · contested
Show the value as a policy, not a slogan
Announcing a virtue invites doubt, in the way that nobody honest introduces themselves as honest. Put the value into something a buyer can check instead, a free replacement for anything that breaks or returns taken back for three months with nothing asked, and then describe that policy in plain terms.
Where this splits
Cohen keeps stated values out of the tagline entirely, while Dry credits a short line about what a brand stands for with making it read larger than its products.
3 claims against 1
Jason Cohen
Put the value into a policy buyers can check
- 01Assume that stating a virtue makes readers doubt it, so keep your values out of the tagline and put them into policies and behaviour instead.
- 02Once the behaviour is real you have earned the right to write about it, so state the actual guarantee in plain terms rather than the abstract virtue behind it.
State what you stand for in the tagline
Restate what you stand for in a handful of words so the brand reads as bigger than the thing it sells.
- 03Replace a claim about caring for customers with a policy that proves it, such as returns accepted for 90 days with no questions asked.
What it returned
His test: an honest person does not walk around announcing their honesty.
His examples replace a quality claim with a free replacement of any hammer that breaks, and a service claim with the fact that a person always picks up because business is personal.
New Balance repositioned itself with a six-word line
Sources
- Communicating Values: Show, don’t TellJason Cohen · longform.asmartbear.com · Communicating Values: Show, don’t Tell · 2009-05-18
- The most creative Coronavirus company pivotsHarry Dry · Marketing Examples · 3) New Balance · undated · dissenting
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
More in copy
- Keep the personality that drives some people off7 unconnected
- Interview buyers and write the page in their sentences6 unconnected
- Re-aim one durable claim at today's worry5 unconnected
- Answer the predictable objection with a specific4 unconnected
- Say the thing only you could have said4 unconnected
- Tighten the headline until only your segment fits4 unconnected