copywriting

Copywriting

Every's general copywriting skill. Writes original marketing copy grounded in whichever brand-voice and positioning are loaded dynamically at invocation. This is the workhorse craft skill — channel-specific skills (launch-email, linkedin-post, etc.) handle format, but copywriting handles the fundamentals of writing well for brands.

The principles here synthesize the creative canon (Ogilvy, Bernbach, Wieden, and others from marketing-os) into operational writing guidance. The skill adapts to format and channel but the core craft is consistent.

System

Copywriting uses the following references:

references/principles.md

The copywriting principles we hold — synthesized from the creative canon in marketing-os. The non-negotiable standards for how Every writes.

references/formats.md

Format guidance — long vs. short, headline vs. body, manifesto vs. product copy. How format shapes the writing, and how to choose the right format for the job.

references/channel-adaptation.md

How copy changes by channel. The same message written for email, LinkedIn, X, web, and press operates differently. This reference governs those adaptations.

references/antipatterns.md

What not to do. AI tropes, cliché, LinkedIn-voice, hollow superlatives, and the specific failure modes that make marketing copy generic or untrustworthy.

references/messaging-doc-discipline.md

The writing rules for brand and messaging documents (generalizable across all products): the four-bucket protocol, research-before-drafting, proof-travels-with-the-claim, hypothesis tagging, full citations, the competitive-read expiry rule, and the differentiation ladder. The verification discipline that every strategy or messaging draft runs before delivery. Cross-references marketing-science/research/references/ (competitive audits, synthesis methodology) rather than restating them.

references/copywriting-line-rules.md

Line-level copywriting rules (C1–C10) from the sample-messaging passes and the creative canon: no imitation compression, every pronoun needs a visible antecedent, the line must survive its own logic, generate for a kill rate, state the claim plain before styling it, match the promise to the artifact, keep brand promises out of compliance-copy register, write for the ear, make every rhetorical device earn its place, and give each copy unit one dominant job.

references/failure-ledger.md

The failure ledger—the recurring ways a draft breaks when operational facts are left unsupported or brand promises are weakened by the wrong verification standard, with the claim-classification test for any draft.

references/creative-canon.md

For creative precedents and evidence limits, use references/creative-canon.md: readings of Ogilvy and Bernbach, eight campaign mechanisms, and email/social research. Extract the operation rather than imitate a famous line.

When to invoke

• When drafting net-new copy for any brand or product
• When a channel-specific skill isn't the right fit (multi-format, unusual deliverable)
• When writing copy that spans multiple channels or formats
• When a draft needs to be written from scratch rather than edited
• When the task is "write this" rather than "fix this" (editing) or "name this" (naming)

For an open-ended assignment that needs brief discovery, copy-job routing, concept selection, or a named reviewer, route to craft/compound-copywriting. It orchestrates this skill and the relevant channel guidance, then adds editing, run scoring, and the Marketing OS learning loop only when the work produces meaningful learning evidence.

Reference routing

Task type	Load
Core writing standards and principles	references/principles.md
Choosing or adapting to a format	references/formats.md
Adapting copy across channels	references/channel-adaptation.md
Reviewing for failure modes	references/antipatterns.md
Writing or auditing a brand/messaging doc for verification discipline	references/messaging-doc-discipline.md
Drafting or QC-ing original brand copy at the line level	references/copywriting-line-rules.md
Diagnosing why a draft reads unsourced, generic, or off	references/failure-ledger.md
Researching precedents or making clear copy desirable and distinctive	references/creative-canon.md

For original copy, read the principles and line rules before drafting. Add formats for headlines/subjects/hooks and channel adaptation for email/social. Name the reader's desire, friction, promise, proof, and action in working notes before choosing the creative approach. For a small revision, retain the current contract and load only what the edit changes.

Dependencies

• foundation/marketing-os
• brand-voice/{relevant brand} (loaded dynamically)
• positioning/{relevant brand} (loaded dynamically)

Status

Core principles, line rules, format guidance, email/social adaptation, creative precedents, messaging discipline, and product-example guidance are active. Their quality criteria are editorial judgments and testable hypotheses, not a guarantee of market performance.