---
name: brand-copywriting
description: Use this skill when a brand needs a defined voice, a product page needs persuasive copy, or a campaign needs tagline options. It produces a voice system, message-hierarchy copy, and a rationale-backed shortlist ready for review.
---

# Brand Copywriting

> **What this is** — a repeatable, AI-assisted working method for defining brand voice, writing product-page copy, and generating campaign taglines, producing a rigorous, well-structured result quickly.
> **What this is NOT** — not a substitute for legal/compliance review of claims; regulated-industry copy (finance, health) must be reviewed for substantiation and disclosure before publishing. Treat outputs as drafts to validate before they ship.

## When to use this
- A brand's writing is inconsistent across surfaces and needs a defined voice and tone system.
- A multi-entity brand needs one coherent voice with room for context (relevant to Ed's ACYLogix work across a group).
- A product or landing page needs copy that leads with value and moves the reader to act.
- A campaign needs tagline options with a clear rationale for which to pick.
- Existing copy makes claims that need a substantiation and disclosure check before it can ship.

## Operating principle
A voice is a set of decisions, not a mood — attributes, a lexicon, and tone rules make it repeatable across writers and surfaces. Persuasive copy earns attention by leading with the reader's value, then backing it with proof and handling the obvious objection. AI accelerates divergent drafting and structure; human judgement owns taste, truth, and the call on any claim that needs review.

## Capability 1 — Brand-voice definition
**Goal.** Define a voice that is distinctive, consistent, and adaptable by context.
**Inputs.** Brand values and audience, existing copy samples, competitor language, and any group/sub-brand structure.
**Method.**
1. Name three to five voice attributes and, for each, write what it means and what it explicitly does not mean.
2. Place the voice on a tone spectrum — formal↔casual, serious↔playful, plain↔technical — and mark the default position.
3. Build a do/don't lexicon: preferred words and phrasings, and banned or off-brand ones, with short before/after examples.
4. Write a tone-by-context matrix so the voice flexes appropriately for, say, an error message versus a launch headline.
5. For a multi-entity group, define the shared spine and the permitted variation per sub-brand so they read as a family.
6. Compile a short style guide capturing attributes, spectrum, lexicon, and matrix in a form writers can actually use.
**Output.** A concise brand style guide: voice attributes, tone spectrum, do/don't lexicon, tone-by-context matrix, and sub-brand rules.
**Quality bar.** Each attribute has a concrete "not this" counterpart; the guide is specific enough that two writers produce consistent copy from it.

## Capability 2 — Product-page copy
**Goal.** Write scannable, persuasive page copy structured around a clear message hierarchy.
**Inputs.** The product's value proposition, proof points, known objections, target audience, and the page's primary action.
**Method.**
1. Establish the message hierarchy: value proposition → proof → objection handling → call to action.
2. Write a benefit-led headline that states the reader's outcome, not the feature, and a supporting subhead.
3. Sequence sections so proof (evidence, specifics, social proof) sits directly under the claims it supports.
4. Surface and answer the strongest likely objection rather than ignoring it.
5. Structure for scanning — short blocks, meaningful subheads, and a clear, single primary CTA.
6. Keep the copy accessible: plain language, descriptive links, meaningful heading order, and readable line length.
**Output.** Page copy with headline, subhead, section-by-section body, objection handling, and CTA, mapped to the message hierarchy.
**Quality bar.** Headlines lead with benefit; every claim has adjacent proof; the page is scannable and the primary action is unambiguous.

## Capability 3 — Campaign tagline ideation
**Goal.** Generate and shortlist taglines against explicit selection criteria, with a claims check.
**Inputs.** The campaign brief, brand voice, audience, and the promise the campaign can truthfully make.
**Method.**
1. Restate the brief in one line: the single idea the tagline must carry.
2. Diverge widely — generate many candidates across angles (outcome, emotion, contrast, wordplay) without self-editing.
3. Score candidates against four criteria: distinct, true, memorable, and ownable (not a competitor's or a category cliché).
4. Cut anything that isn't true or that overpromises; flag any candidate that makes a claim needing substantiation.
5. Refine the survivors for rhythm and clarity, and pressure-test them across contexts (small, large, spoken).
6. Present a shortlist with a one-line rationale per option and an explicit legal/claims flag where relevant.
**Output.** A shortlist of taglines, each with rationale against the criteria and a flag for any claim requiring review.
**Quality bar.** Every shortlisted line is true and on-voice; overpromises are removed, not softened; claim-bearing lines are flagged before selection.

## Worked example (illustrative)
*Illustrative only.* A fintech group with several sub-brands has copy that reads differently on every page. The voice work sets three attributes — precise, plain-spoken, quietly confident — each with a "not this" (precise, not jargon-dense; confident, not boastful), a tone spectrum defaulting to formal-but-human, and a shared spine that each sub-brand varies only in warmth. A product page is then rebuilt on the hierarchy — a benefit-led headline, proof directly beneath each claim, one objection answered, one clear CTA. For the launch campaign, dozens of taglines are generated and scored on distinct/true/memorable/ownable; a few are cut for overpromising, and two claim-bearing lines are flagged so nothing about performance or regulation ships without a compliance and disclosure review first.

## Guardrails & escalation
- Validate before publishing: any claim about performance, outcomes, safety, or regulation must be substantiated and reviewed.
- Never ship regulated-industry copy (finance, health) without legal/compliance sign-off on claims and required disclosures.
- Flag uncertainty explicitly: mark lines that assert a benefit needing proof, and separate what is demonstrated from what is aspirational.
- Escalate to legal/compliance for any comparative claim, superlative, guarantee, or disclosure-triggering statement before release.

## References & standards
- Brand voice and tone-of-voice frameworks (voice attributes, tone spectrum, tone-by-context).
- Message hierarchy and value-proposition design (value → proof → objection → CTA).
- Plain-language principles and accessibility of copy (descriptive links, heading order, readable structure; WCAG-aligned).
- Advertising claims substantiation and disclosure requirements for regulated sectors (e.g. finance, health), reviewed by qualified counsel.

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*Part of Ed Chen's AI skill set — how one designer absorbs unfamiliar, C-level work quickly by pairing AI with rigor and professional review. https://edwson.com*