When to break copywriting rules
I won’t lie, I hated this brand’s copy when I first saw it.
What the hell are “flattering style solutions”?
In general, ‘solution’ is a copywriter’s enemy number one. It’s vague, it says nothing, it does nothing but confuse people. Heck, I even wrote a blog post on how it was one of my most commonly seen mistakes in B2B tone of voice this month Google and you will drown in businesses from every sector telling you all about their solutions. Only 99% of the time, you have no idea what it is they’re solving and how.
But.
Then I started reading this brand’s emails on the regular. And I noticed something. ‘Solution’ wasn’t just a lazy space filler because the writer couldn’t be bothered to find something that actually had meaning. ‘Solution’ was part of a cohesive family of words ME+EM uses to give their brand a technical, functional and practical edge.
Check out the opening line on their About page:
“I don’t believe that modern women should have to choose between quality and cost; between contemporary trends and clothes they can actually function and look great in.”
So you’ve got email subject lines like ‘Spring Investment Checklist’ and ‘The Essential Trouser Toolkit’. Inside, you’ve got words like ‘engineered’, ‘dimension’, ‘wardrobe building blocks’ and ‘upgrade’. In ME+EM’s world, the clothes ‘function’ and you’re encouraged to ‘use’ them. They even have a content slot on Instagram called ‘Style Lab’.
How does it feel? Scientific? Technical? Utilitarian? Yup. And isn’t that smart? Because suddenly they’re not selling frivolous garments but useful tools for our modern lives. ‘Intelligent style’ indeed.
Why does it work?
Now, am I suggesting you start calling your product or service a solution? No way. Let’s take a look at why this works:
They’ve picked a word ‘family’ (technical, practical words) and run with it. What would this look like for your brand? If you sell wallpaper inspired by nature for example, maybe you could use verbs like bloom, grow, fly and thrive.
The word family they’ve chosen reflects a key aspect of their products: usefulness and practicality. Let’s say your product is really fast, you might use lots of words that convey that sense of speed: pace, swift, tempo, rush, race, zip.
They don’t overdo it. It’s very subtle so as not to become cheesy.
What works especially well about this is that it’s unexpected: the combination of luxury garments and utilitarian language is surprising and refreshing.
They pare it back with a conversational style so it doesn’t feel too stark or cold: “You’ll be surprised...”
If ME+EM listened to conventional copy wisdom, they’d have run a mile from ‘solutions’ and in my opinion been worse off for it. Take a risk. Break the rules. It’s only words, not heart surgery, gang.
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