✴️ Want more consistent messaging? Do what we do. Copy Nike.

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Hello there 👋

Ooof, nearly the end of January already? How did that happen?!

Now, if you've read the last few weeks' emails, you'll know we've been digging into ways that you can tweak your messaging to help with price sensitivity. (Because a load of brands we spoke to last year mentioned it was something they were struggling with.)

But the other thing we've been hearing a lot lately is the struggle to keep messaging clear and consistent as the brand scales and you jump from task to task.

In other words, "how do we do our brand justice while also constantly coming up with new campaigns, new messaging, new PDPs, etc...?"

And, as luck would have it, there's a growing body of evidence that indicates that keeping your messaging clear, consistent and repetitive is directly linked to how much people are willing to pay, too.

So we thought we'd break down one of the exercises we do when we're starting a copy & messaging project that doesn't just keep all the copy consistent and saying the same thing, it also helps get you to that mythical land of ✨ internal alignment ✨ as well.

Spoiler alert: we just rip off Nike.

💡 This week's big idea: Consistent brand messaging doesn't just make your life easier. It helps with price sensitivity, too.

Inconsistent messaging is one of the easiest things to fall into as a busy brand because there's always so much stuff to get done.

You ending up picking a task, laser-focusing on writing the best bit of copy for that specific task, hitting publish and moving on.

And as you're constantly keeping your head down and dipping into your grab-bag of copy tactics to find new angles and messaging for every task, you end up with a bit of a patchwork of messaging that's kinda on-brand, but not really.

But here's a game-changer of a secret: being lazy with your messaging is actually a huge win.

(Lazy as in, not reinventing the wheel every time. Not lazy as in getting ChatGPT to write everything. Alas.)

In fact, studies show the more you commit to a core messaging idea, the more distinctive and effective it gets over time.

WARC’s write-up from Cannes points out that consistent brands are six times more likely to report "very large brand effects" (AKA, awareness, differentiation, values and salience) because the advantage compounds over time.

In other words, the gap between a consistent brand and an inconsistent competitor gets bigger the longer you stay the course.

On top of that, Les Binet (the authority on marketing effectiveness) showed how cat food brand Felix didn't change their messaging for over a decade. And in that time, market share went from 5% to 25% but the price sensitivity fell by half, which helped Felix move from being a cheap brand to one of the more expensive brands in the market.

And the key to all that? Something Sarah Carter calls "disguised repetition" AKA say the same thing in different ways all the damn time.

If you've read any of our emails before, you'll know that we're huge believers in the idea of having one big message that is the red thread that ties everything together.

The problem is: pinning down that red thread isn't easy.

So instead of reinventing the wheel every time we started a project, we decided to just start ripping off Nike.

Turns out, there's a reason that they say "good artists borrow, great artists steal"... because it's a game-changer.

In maybe 20-30 minutes, you end up with a statement that acts like a true north for your messaging, voice and all the copy you write.

Here's how we do it 👇

Why we kick off copy & messaging sprints by shamelessly "borrowing" from Nike's mission statement

At the start of every project where the messaging feels a little muddled or confused or just a bit not-quite-there, we'll always go back to Nike's mission statement.

Why? Because for starters, just check it out 👇

It is just so, so good.

They manage to distil everything that makes up Nike's brand down into 19 words.

And notice it's got nothing to do with trainers or gear?

It’s about what people are really buying: a feeling, a transformation, an emotional outcome...

(That's that ladder of why in action again.)

And it's this absolute clarity of messaging that means that Nike campaigns, copy, slogans, adverts... all feel like they're singing from the same hymn sheet.

But more importantly for people that write copy... in 19 words, you have pretty much everything you need to keep your messaging consistent, whatever you're writing:

Your emotional core and tone of your copy need to feel inspiring
You know you're talking directly to athletes
You know you should nod to a product's innovation
You know you're writing for a global audience (AKA, no super local terminology)
You know a large part of Nike's audience don't necessarily see themselves as athletes so you're selling an opt-in identity of athlete, not just to people who already see themselves as athletes.
You have a strong, crystal clear POV that you can write from.

And that's exactly why we start almost all of our projects by ripping this off, big time.

Because in a sentence or two, you have all the ingredients you need to make sure everything you write feels like it's saying the same thing in different ways. (There's that disguised repetition in action.)

Here's what we do...

We take that Nike mission statement and try and write our own version of it for whatever brand we're working with.

And by doing that, we can quite quickly pin down the key emotional core of the copy, the audience, the transformation we're selling, the broad USPs...

And then the piece de resistance... we review that with the team for sign off before we start write a word.

Why? Because, if we're honest: messy messaging is sometimes because you're busy, but sometimes it's because everyone has a slightly different idea of what the brand should do and say.

We don't really talk copy, brand voice or messaging at all.

We just kick things off with a "hey, is this the big thing you want customers to remember about your brand? The big thing you want them to feel? The big experience you want to sell?"

Then we work it until everyone is on the same page.

Because once the whole team agrees on a version of that feels like "YES! That's exactly what we're trying to say", that's how you reach that magical, mythical land of ✨ internal alignment ✨ and everything becomes easier.

In fact, we ran this exercise with a brand last year and their marketing manager said "Hell yes! You’ve made me understand and consolidate my own thoughts on what our brand is in a way I haven't been able to for the last 4 years!"

☝️And that is the outcome we're chasing here.

The actual output from this exercise will probably never see the light of day for your customers. But internally, you have this shared, signed-off idea of what your brand's copy should be saying, who it should be speaking to and how you should be saying it.

And then you can use it write everything in a way that ties back to one big idea so your brand messaging becomes consistent and every touchpoint sells the same version of your brand.

TLDR: Better for customers. Better for your bottom line. And better for internal alignment and getting things out of the door.

☝️ That is why we love it so much.

How to pinch the technique that we pinched from Nike

The thing we love about this exercise is that it's really, really simple.

You can get your team on a call and in an hour tops, have it done, signed off and ready to roll.

In fact, for some brands, you can get really lucky and map your brand's messaging one-to-one with Nike's mission statement. Those calls are super quick.

But for most brands, you have to take the spirit of Nike's statement and create your own.

Either way, when you boil it down, cribbing from Nike's homework forces you to focus on the answers to four key questions:

What emotional need does your brand fill? AKA what are you giving people outside of the product? (Pro tip: download all of your Trustpilot reviews and run a VOC audit on them looking for words tied to strong emotions like joy or relief or enjoyment...)
How do your products tie into this emotional need? What's the throughline from your brand's emotional promise to the experience of using your products? What transformation does it give them?
Who are you speaking to? AKA, what opt-in identity are you creating that customers can see and say either "that's me!" or "that's who I want to be". And what is your definition of that identity?
What's your worldview? What's the big, overarching belief that shapes everything your brand does? (Note: it's important this isn't just marketing fluff. It needs to be based in how you act.)

Then, when you've got them, you can write your own Nike-adjacent line using something like this:

We believe [brand worldview]. That's why we're on a mission to bring [emotional need] to [audience descriptor]* through [products] that [USPs].

*if you do [X, Y or Z], you're one of us.

That little three-sentence phrase makes everything so much easier to write.

You can read every headline, product description, subject line, social caption, WhatsApp message, Klaviyo email... and judge it against "does this feel like it's saying the same thing as our messaging statement?".

If yes, publish away!

If no, it becomes so easy to see where you're falling off the wagon and adjust.

🧠 Why we really zoom in on nailing these four things.

👉 Customers associate your brand with an emotion

As we've talked about before when we looked at Magic Spoon, brands don’t just get associated with features and logos, they get associated with feelings.

And it's those feelings that become part of what people remember about your brand.

In fact, a big, cross-category study by Columbia Business School showed a very strong link between brand affect (basically, that gut-level emotion people get when they think of your brand) and higher levels of customer loyalty, larger market shares and less price sensitivity (AKA, less need for discounts and offers to sell.)

👉 The message needs to match the experience
Annoyingly, it’s really easy to write copy that sells when you’re not bound by what actually turns up at the door. But messaging is also a promise to your customers. And there’s a whole body of consumer satisfaction research showing people judge brands by the gap between what they expected and what they got (it's called expectancy–disconfirmation).

In other words, when the experience falls short, it creates disappointment that hits repeat purchase and word of mouth. But when the experience of your products consistently backs up the promise, you build trust, loyalty and (over time) reduce price sensitivity.

👉 It has an opt-in identity
We've talked about this before, but consumer research shows that when an identity label feels self-relevant, it changes what people notice, how they interpret messages, and how likely they are to buy (because they think “other people like me buy this”).

On top of that, research by Reed et al in the International Journal of Research in Marketing shows that when we buy a product or brand that aligns with our desired identity — AKA, who we want ourselves to be — we feel validated and are far more likely become loyal customers and make repeat purchases. 👈 That's why make the identity something somebody can opt into vs just a demographic is a game-changer.

👉 It has a strong, sticky worldview
A worldview isn’t “brand purpose” fluff, it’s almost like the lens your customers use to decide whether you’re their kind of brand.

In fact, research on consumer–company identification shows people form stronger bonds with brands when the brand’s identity feels meaningful and self-relevant. On top of that, research into brand storytelling shows narratives can create self–brand connections AKA your brand starts to feel like part of someone’s identity, not just a product on a shelf.

That’s why a clear worldview is the cherry on the top of your repeatable messaging: it gives you one clear take on your category, so every campaign isn’t a fresh personality. (Remember, creative consistency and message discipline is the secret to those “very large brand effects” over time.)

Put them altogether and you get a shared true north that ticks all the boxes every time you repeat it.

Let's see it all in action

OK, let's pretend we're working together on a brief for Sundown, a DTC sleep brand selling a magnesium drink that helps with sleep and anxiety.

So, the first thing we do is take a look at their current copy and we see this:

Email subject line: “48-hour flash sale: 25% off magnesium drinks.”

PDP H1: “A calmer evening in a bottle.”

Product description: “Clinically proven ingredients to optimise your REM cycles and boost HRV.”

See how even though they're all well-written and would all probably convert OK in isolation, they're sending three different messages? (Quick & easy commodity, lifestyle-adjacent brand and a science-backed supplement brand.)

And that's the problem with not having a true north for your messaging: you're sending mixed messages at every touchpoint that make it hard for customers to really get a grip on why they should buy from you.

But what happens if we give them a true north?

Let's start with our Nike ripoff exercise and answer those questions. From that, we'll end up with something a little like this 👇

We believe rest isn’t a reward you should have to earn or work for. In fact, it's something that shouldn't even be on your mind. That’s why we’re on a mission to bring a calmer, more dependable wind-down ritual to overthinkers* that doesn't just give your brain the tools it needs to relax, but also tastes great too.

*if your brain turns into a group chat at bedtime, you’re one of us.

We've got pain points, a clear belief, an opt-in identity and messaging that matches the experience all right here in 4 sentences.

☝️ And once we have that, we can go into full "disguised repetition" mode and write subject lines, h1s, product descriptions that all feel like they're saying the same core message.

Email subject line: “25% off drinks that mute the group chat in your head.”
(Still says the same thing and adds FOMO, but now it matches the opt-in identity and core emotional need. Group chat signals our core audience, too.)

PDP H1: Magnesium drinks for when your brain just won’t log off.

Product description: If every evening feels like your body is tired but your brain just won’t clock off... meet Sundown. Available in blood orange & thyme or lemon & ginger, every can begins with a clinically-proven dose of magnesium that supports relaxation and finishes with an extra dose of relaxing botanicals that make it easier to wind down after a long day.

That way, you wave goodbye to those podcast bro 3-hour wind down routines that turn "getting a decent sleep" into yet another item on your mental to-do list.

Instead, you can say hello to starting your evening with a can of Sundown and letting your body ease its way into a deep and restful sleep, completely unbothered anything going on in your busy brain.

See how, all of a sudden, everything Sundown are saying feels like it's saying the same thing in different ways.

That's disguised repetition in action.

And that's why we love getting this statement nailed down early. It just makes everything (from copy to brand voice to internal sign off) so much easier.

And best of all? It only takes an hour to do.

Want to pin down your North Star in 2026?

If you're in a place where it feels like you've built an awesome brand with great products, 5* reviews and you're gaining momentum... but your messaging and copy feels like it’s holding you back, we'd love to help.

Next week, we're launching three new ways of working with us designed for brands that don't want to wait months and months for new copy & messaging:

One-day Punch Ups: we'll rewrite, transform and add new messaging & sections to your hero PDP. Done in Figma and ready for your design and dev team in 24 hours.
Sprints: give us your chunkiest briefs and we'll get our heads down on everything from website & PDP rewrites to Klaviyo email messaging to brand voice, messaging strategy, decks and more. Finished, signed off and ready for design/dev in 1, 2 or 4 weeks (depending on the scope).
Fractional Support: we'll act like your in-house senior copy team with a shared Slack channel & client portal for everything from copy briefs to strategy meetings to "hey, does this sound alright?" messages at 5pm.

More info to come next week, but if you want to jump to the front of the queue, we'd love to chat.

Grab 30 mins on our calendar here 👇

Let's chat!

See you next week for more ways to do words gooder!

Peace and love ✌️

Jack and Joe

co-founders, co-brothers and co-pywriters
at Do Words Good

PS. Want to do words even gooder? Let's chat 👇

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Do Words Good

✴️ Want more consistent messaging? Do what we do. Copy Nike.

Why we kick off copy & messaging sprints by shamelessly "borrowing" from Nike's mission statement

How to pinch the technique that we pinched from Nike

Let's see it all in action

Want to pin down your North Star in 2026?

✴️ 3 bits of copy we loved this month (and why they're so good)

✴️ Steal Jason’s trick to make your products feel more affordable

⚡ Customers sensitive about price? Steal Bold Bean's trick.