---
name: copy-workshop
description: >
  A guided AskUserQuestion creative strategy and copywriting workshop inspired by
  Bruce Bendinger's The Copy Workshop Workbook. Use when a user needs to develop
  advertising, campaign, web, sales, brand, presentation, email, or promotional copy
  from a clear strategic foundation before exploring copywriting approaches.
---

# Copy Workshop

## Purpose

Guide the user through the thinking that should happen before copy is written.

The hierarchy is:

**Problem → Audience → Action → Product Truth → Benefit → Tension → Promise → Proof → Strategy → Idea → Copywriter Lens → Execution → Critique → Rewrite**

Do not jump directly to headlines, taglines, or polished copy when important strategic information is missing.

The goal is not to make weak thinking sound polished. The goal is to make the thinking stronger first.

---

# Interaction Mode: AskUserQuestion

Use `AskUserQuestion` as the primary interaction method.

## Rules

1. Ask questions in small groups.
2. Prefer multiple-choice questions when useful.
3. Always allow an "Other / I’ll explain" path when the available options may not fit.
4. Do not ask the user to repeat information already supplied.
5. Infer obvious facts from the conversation, but confirm strategic assumptions that could materially change the work.
6. Keep each question plain and short.
7. Do not overwhelm the user with copywriting terminology.
8. Translate the user's answers into the strategic language internally.
9. Show a concise strategy summary before concept generation.
10. Let the user correct the summary before proceeding when a correction would materially affect the work.
11. Do not choose a copywriter lens until the core strategy and at least one concept direction exist.
12. If the user says "you decide," make the best choice and explain the reason briefly.
13. If the user already provides a strong brief, skip questions that have already been answered.

---

# PHASE 0 — What Are We Making?

Ask:

**What are you trying to create?**

Suggested choices:

- Advertising or campaign
- Website or landing page
- Email
- Sales collateral
- Presentation
- Social content
- Brand or product messaging
- Brochure / print piece
- Video or commercial
- Something else

Then ask:

**What do you need from this workshop?**

Suggested choices:

- Find the core message
- Develop the big idea
- Write headlines
- Write the full copy
- Improve existing copy
- Explore several creative directions
- All of the above

Do not begin writing yet.

---

# PHASE 1 — The Business Problem

Ask:

**What needs to change because this communication exists?**

Suggested choices:

- More people need to know about us
- People know us but do not understand the value
- People understand us but are not taking action
- We need to change how people think about us
- We need to launch something new
- We need to differentiate from competitors
- We need to make a complicated offer easier to understand
- Other

Then ask for any useful measurable outcome:

- sales
- leads
- meetings
- registrations
- downloads
- visits
- signups
- renewals
- adoption
- awareness
- another action

Capture:

`BUSINESS_PROBLEM`

---

# PHASE 2 — The Audience

Ask:

**Who specifically needs to respond?**

Do not accept "everyone" without challenging it.

Follow with only the questions needed to understand:

- Who are they?
- What situation are they in?
- What do they already know?
- What do they currently believe?
- What do they want?
- What are they worried about?
- What are they tired of hearing?
- What language do they naturally use?

Capture:

`AUDIENCE`
`CURRENT_MINDSET`
`DESIRED_MINDSET`

---

# PHASE 3 — The Action

Ask:

**After seeing this, what should the audience do?**

Examples:

- Buy
- Book a meeting
- Request a quote
- Try it
- Sign up
- Download
- Attend
- Approve
- Share
- Remember
- Reconsider
- Ask a question

Force one primary action whenever possible.

Capture:

`PRIMARY_ACTION`

---

# PHASE 4 — Product Truth

This phase is factual.

Ask:

**What is actually true about the product, service, company, or offer?**

Prompt for:

- Features
- Process
- Price
- Time saved
- Money saved
- Performance
- Convenience
- Expertise
- Availability
- Materials
- Method
- Technology
- Experience
- Results
- Customer evidence
- Guarantees
- Constraints
- Weaknesses or tradeoffs

Ask:

**What can you prove?**

Separate facts from unsupported claims.

Capture:

`PRODUCT_TRUTHS`
`PROOF_AVAILABLE`

Never invent proof.

---

# PHASE 5 — From Feature to Human Benefit

For each important product truth, ask:

**So what does that mean for the customer?**

Continue asking "so what?" until the answer reaches a meaningful human consequence.

Example:

Feature:
`Automated reporting`

→ Benefit:
`Reports take less time`

→ Human consequence:
`The marketing manager gets Friday afternoon back instead of rebuilding slides.`

Favor the deepest credible benefit, not the most inflated one.

Capture:

`FUNCTIONAL_BENEFIT`
`HUMAN_BENEFIT`

---

# PHASE 6 — Tension

Find the friction that gives the message energy.

Ask:

**What is standing between the audience and what they want?**

Suggested choices:

- Time
- Money
- Complexity
- Risk
- Habit
- Skepticism
- Confusion
- Too many choices
- Internal politics
- Lack of expertise
- Lack of resources
- Fear of making the wrong decision
- A competitor or alternative
- They do not believe the problem is urgent
- Other

Then ask:

**What is the uncomfortable truth here?**

Examples:

- They know the current process wastes time but keep using it.
- The cheaper choice creates more work.
- The product category all sounds the same.
- Nobody wants another platform to learn.
- The presentation looks polished but nobody understands the point.

Capture:

`TENSION`

---

# PHASE 7 — The Promise

Ask:

**If the audience remembers only one thing, what should it be?**

Help the user reduce the answer to one proposition.

A strong promise should be:

- Relevant
- Specific
- Credible
- Differentiated when possible
- Easy to repeat
- Important to the audience

Avoid combining three promises with "and."

Capture:

`SINGLE_MINDED_PROMISE`

---

# PHASE 8 — Reason to Believe

Ask:

**Why should anyone believe the promise?**

Possible evidence:

- Demonstration
- Data
- Customer result
- Product feature
- Process
- Guarantee
- Test
- Comparison
- Expert evidence
- Track record
- Design detail
- Price
- Trial
- Transparency

Capture:

`REASON_TO_BELIEVE`

If proof is weak, say so. Do not compensate with stronger adjectives.

---

# PHASE 9 — Brand Voice and Boundaries

Ask only what is needed:

**How should this feel?**

Suggested choices:

- Smart and direct
- Warm and human
- Bold
- Dry / witty
- Premium
- Reassuring
- Practical
- Rebellious
- Technical
- Playful
- Minimal
- Other

Then ask:

**What should it never sound like?**

Capture:

`VOICE`
`DO_NOT_SOUND_LIKE`

Also capture any required:

- words
- claims
- disclaimers
- brand terminology
- legal constraints
- formatting limits
- channel constraints

---

# STRATEGY GATE

Before generating concepts, show:

## Creative Strategy

**Business problem:**  
[one sentence]

**Audience:**  
[one sentence]

**They currently think:**  
[one sentence]

**We want them to think:**  
[one sentence]

**Primary action:**  
[one sentence]

**Product truth:**  
[one sentence]

**Human benefit:**  
[one sentence]

**Tension:**  
[one sentence]

**Single-minded promise:**  
[one sentence]

**Reason to believe:**  
[one sentence]

**Voice:**  
[short phrase]

Then assess the strategy:

- CLEAR
- NEEDS WORK

If NEEDS WORK, identify the one or two weak points and use AskUserQuestion to repair them.

Do not move on merely because every field contains text.

---

# PHASE 10 — Generate Idea Territories

Generate **5 distinct concept territories** before writing finished copy.

Each territory must contain:

### Territory Name
2–5 words.

### Core Thought
The idea in one sentence.

### Human Insight
Why a person might care.

### Creative Mechanism
How the idea works.

Examples:

- Contrast
- Reversal
- Demonstration
- Exaggeration
- Unexpected comparison
- Visual metaphor
- Product-as-hero
- Problem dramatization
- Cultural observation
- Confession
- Challenge
- Participation
- Before / after
- Literalization
- Absurdity
- Understatement

### Visual Possibility
What could be seen rather than explained.

### Sample Line
One rough line only.

Do not fully polish the copy yet.

Make the territories genuinely different. Do not generate five variations of one headline.

---

# PHASE 11 — Choose the Concept

Use AskUserQuestion:

**Which idea has the most potential?**

Options:

- Territory 1
- Territory 2
- Territory 3
- Territory 4
- Territory 5
- Combine two
- None — generate five more
- Recommend one for me

If the user asks for a recommendation, judge concepts using:

1. Audience relevance
2. Strategic clarity
3. Distinctiveness
4. Credibility
5. Emotional or intellectual tension
6. Visual potential
7. Ability to extend beyond one execution

Capture:

`SELECTED_CONCEPT`

---

# PHASE 12 — Choose a Copywriter Lens

Only now offer the copywriting lenses.

Explain:

**The strategy and idea stay the same. The lens changes how the idea is expressed.**

Do not claim to reproduce a writer's exact voice. Apply principles commonly associated with their advertising work.

Use AskUserQuestion:

**Which copywriting approach should we explore?**

---

## Claude Hopkins — Reason Why

Best when:
- The product has facts, proof, process, or demonstrable advantages.
- Skepticism is high.
- The audience needs a rational reason to act.

Principles:
- Specificity over adjectives
- Explain why the claim is true
- Give useful information
- Treat copy as salesmanship
- Make proof do the persuasion
- Favor testable claims

Creative question:

**What specific fact makes the promise believable?**

Avoid:
- Empty cleverness
- Unsupported superlatives

---

## John Caples — Tested Attention

Best when:
- Response matters.
- The headline must work hard.
- A benefit, curiosity gap, or useful piece of news can open the message.

Principles:
- Lead with self-interest
- Use news when there is real news
- Create curiosity without becoming vague
- Be specific
- Test alternatives
- Make the opening earn the next sentence

Creative question:

**Why would the right person stop and read this?**

Avoid:
- Curiosity with no payoff
- Headlines detached from the offer

---

## Rosser Reeves — One Proposition

Best when:
- The product has a strong differentiator.
- The category is crowded.
- The message needs to become memorable quickly.

Principles:
- One main proposition
- Make the benefit explicit
- Give the audience a reason competitors cannot easily claim
- Repeat the strategic idea consistently
- Eliminate decorative messages competing with the promise

Creative question:

**What one proposition can we own?**

Avoid:
- Three benefits fighting for attention
- Cleverness that obscures the sell

---

## Bill Bernbach — Intelligent Human Idea

Best when:
- The category is dull, familiar, or full of clichés.
- Word and image can work together.
- Humanity, wit, honesty, or self-awareness can differentiate the work.

Principles:
- Respect the audience's intelligence
- Find the human truth
- Use wit in service of meaning
- Let copy and visual complete each other
- Turn apparent weakness into creative strength when truthful
- Prefer an idea over a formula

Creative question:

**What is the unexpected human truth hiding inside this assignment?**

Avoid:
- Jokes pasted onto strategy
- Copy merely describing the visual

---

## David Ogilvy — Informative Persuasion

Best when:
- Research, detail, product information, or credibility matter.
- The audience is making a considered decision.
- There is a meaningful story behind the product.

Principles:
- Do the research
- Make the headline useful
- Be factual and precise
- Give readers information worth knowing
- Use detail to create credibility
- Long copy is acceptable when the information earns attention

Creative question:

**What useful thing can we tell the customer that competitors are not telling them?**

Avoid:
- Pretentious language
- General claims with no substance

---

## Howard Gossage — Interesting Enough to Deserve Attention

Best when:
- The audience is tired of being advertised to.
- Participation, personality, irreverence, or conversation can create interest.
- The idea can become an event, invitation, argument, or experience rather than merely an ad.

Principles:
- Treat the audience like participants
- Be conversational
- Give people something worth engaging with
- Use irreverence when appropriate
- Make the communication itself interesting
- Think beyond conventional ad formats

Creative question:

**Why would someone voluntarily spend time with this?**

Avoid:
- Advertising that assumes attention is owed
- Irreverence without purpose

---

## Leo Burnett — Inherent Drama

Best when:
- The product itself contains a strong story, ritual, visual detail, character, or emotional truth.
- The brand can build recognizable symbols.

Principles:
- Search for the product's inherent drama
- Make the product central
- Find the simple human story
- Use memorable imagery
- Build brand character
- Favor warmth and clarity over sophistication for its own sake

Creative question:

**What is already interesting about the product that we have overlooked?**

Avoid:
- Importing an unrelated concept when the product has a better story

---

## Mary Wells Lawrence — Brand as Experience

Best when:
- The assignment needs energy, personality, transformation, theatricality, or a strong brand world.
- The product experience can become the message.

Principles:
- Think beyond the individual ad
- Create a recognizable brand personality
- Use surprise and showmanship strategically
- Make the experience embody the promise
- Consider environment, naming, design, behavior, and promotion together

Creative question:

**How could the brand itself perform the idea?**

Avoid:
- Spectacle that people remember while forgetting the product

---

## George Lois — Provocative Compression

Best when:
- A cultural tension can be expressed in one arresting thought.
- The work needs to stop people immediately.
- Image and line can collide to create a larger idea.

Principles:
- Compress the idea
- Be visually decisive
- Create tension
- Challenge familiar assumptions
- Make every element earn its place
- Look for the one gesture that communicates the whole thought

Creative question:

**What is the sharpest possible expression of this idea?**

Avoid:
- Provocation for its own sake
- Complexity

---

## Bruce Bendinger — Workshop Mode

Best when:
- The user does not want a historical lens.
- The goal is to keep exploring and improving the core concept.

Principles:
- Strategy before decoration
- Generate alternatives
- Learn by doing
- Treat copywriting as thinking
- Keep words and visuals connected
- Rewrite

Creative question:

**Is the idea itself strong, or are we merely polishing the sentence?**

---

## Blend Two Lenses

Allow the user to combine two approaches when strategically sensible.

Examples:

**Bernbach + Caples**
Human wit + response-oriented headline discipline.

**Ogilvy + Hopkins**
Research + detailed reason-why persuasion.

**Reeves + Bernbach**
Single proposition + unexpected human expression.

**Gossage + Lois**
Participation + provocative cultural idea.

**Burnett + Ogilvy**
Product drama + useful product information.

Do not mechanically average two styles. State what each lens contributes.

---

## Recommend a Lens

Always offer:

**Recommend the best lens for this assignment**

If selected:

1. Examine the strategy.
2. Recommend one primary lens.
3. Optionally recommend one secondary lens.
4. Explain why in no more than three sentences.
5. Let the user accept or choose another.

---

# PHASE 13 — Develop the Copy

After the concept and lens are selected, ask what level of output the user wants.

Choices:

- Headlines only
- Headline + subhead
- Short-form copy
- Full ad
- Landing page
- Email
- Social campaign
- Video script
- Presentation messaging
- Sales collateral
- Multiple executions
- Other

Then write the appropriate deliverable.

Unless the user specifies otherwise, generate:

## A. Headline Exploration

Create 12 headlines:

- 4 clear
- 4 more conceptually ambitious
- 4 bold / unexpected

All must remain on strategy.

## B. Core Execution

Create:

- Primary headline
- Supporting line
- Body copy or message
- CTA
- Visual concept
- Why the words and visual belong together

## C. Extension

Show how the same idea could extend into 3 additional executions without changing the strategy.

---

# PHASE 13.5 — Layout Mockup (When Requested)

If the user asks to "see it as a layout," "show contrast," "add hierarchy," "mock it up," "lay it out," or otherwise wants the copy to look like a designed ad rather than a labeled list of fields, do NOT rely on markdown headers and bold labels to imply hierarchy — bold `**Headline:**` labels read identically to bold `**Body:**` labels and create no visual contrast between the actual headline, subhead, and body text.

Instead, produce an actual rendered layout:

- Build a small self-contained HTML/CSS mockup (or hand off to a visual design tool/skill if one is available in the session) that sets real type contrast:
  - Headline: largest size, heaviest weight
  - Subhead: medium size, medium weight, often a secondary color or lighter weight than the headline
  - Body: smallest size, regular weight
  - CTA: styled distinctly (e.g., a button treatment), not presented as plain text
- Reflect the Visual Direction from Phase 13 (composition, image treatment, mood) in the mockup's actual layout and color choices — not just as a paragraph of description underneath it.
- Keep the underlying copy identical to what was approved in Phase 13/14. This step changes presentation, not the words.
- Offer this as an addition to, not a replacement for, the Final Output Format text document — the document is the creative brief; the mockup is the visual proof of the hierarchy.

Do not skip this step silently or substitute a plain-text list dressed up with bold labels. If no visual rendering tool is available, say so plainly rather than presenting markdown as if it were a designed layout.

---

# PHASE 14 — Critique Before Approval

Do not assume the first finished version is good.

Score the work from 1–5 on:

| Criterion | Question |
|---|---|
| Strategy | Does it express the single-minded promise? |
| Relevance | Will the intended audience care? |
| Clarity | Is the meaning immediately understandable? |
| Distinctiveness | Could a competitor say the same thing? |
| Credibility | Can we support the claim? |
| Interest | Is there a reason to keep reading? |
| Compression | Is anything unnecessary? |
| Word + Image | Do they add meaning rather than repeat each other? |
| Extendability | Can the idea become a campaign rather than one line? |
| Voice | Does it sound appropriate for the brand? |

Then identify:

**KEEP**
The strongest element.

**KILL**
The weakest element.

**PUSH**
The biggest opportunity to improve.

---

# PHASE 15 — Rewrite

Generate a stronger second round based on the critique.

Do not merely synonym-swap the first version.

Change the thinking when the critique identifies a conceptual weakness.

Then ask:

**What would you like to do next?**

Choices:

- Push this direction harder
- Make it simpler
- Make it smarter
- Make it funnier
- Make it more emotional
- Make it more direct
- Try another copywriter lens
- Blend two lenses
- Return to the concept territories
- Return to the strategy
- Finalize it

---

# Fast Mode

If the user says:

- "fast"
- "quick"
- "5-minute version"
- "don't ask me everything"

Use only these questions:

1. What are we making?
2. Who is it for?
3. What do we want them to do?
4. What is the most important true thing about the offer?
5. Why should they care?
6. Why should they believe it?
7. What is stopping them now?
8. What should they remember?

Then:

- Summarize the strategy.
- Generate 3 concept territories.
- Select or recommend a concept.
- Offer the copywriter lenses.
- Develop the chosen direction.

---

# Deep Workshop Mode

If the user asks for a full workshop:

- Use every phase.
- Probe weak answers.
- Explore contradictions.
- Generate 10–20 raw ideas before narrowing.
- Compare concept territories.
- Test at least two copywriter lenses.
- Critique before finalizing.

---

# Existing Copy Mode

If the user supplies copy:

Do not immediately rewrite it.

First diagnose:

1. What is the apparent audience?
2. What action is requested?
3. What promise is being made?
4. What proof is present?
5. What benefit is clear?
6. What is generic?
7. What is unsupported?
8. What could a competitor also say?
9. Is there an actual concept?
10. Is the visual relationship known?

Then use AskUserQuestion only for missing information that would materially change the rewrite.

---

# Guardrails

## Never fabricate

Do not invent:

- Statistics
- Testimonials
- Awards
- Research
- Product features
- Customer results
- Competitive claims
- Guarantees
- Prices

Mark unsupported claims clearly.

## Do not confuse tone with concept

"Make it funny" is not a concept.

"Make it premium" is not a concept.

"Use short sentences" is not a concept.

The concept is the organizing idea.

## Do not let adjectives replace evidence

Weak:
> Revolutionary performance.

Better:
> Opens a 200-page file in under two seconds.

## Do not let the visual repeat the headline

If the headline says:
> Faster delivery.

Do not default to:
> Picture of a delivery truck going fast.

Look for an image that adds a second piece of meaning.

## Do not worship the copywriter lens

The lens is a tool.

If applying the lens makes the work less clear, less credible, or less relevant, reject the stylistic move.

Strategy wins.

## Do not imitate blindly

Never present generated copy as if it were written by the historical copywriter.

Use language such as:

- "using principles associated with..."
- "through a reason-why lens..."
- "using an inherent-drama approach..."

The finished work should belong to the user's brand.

---

# Final Output Format

When a direction is finalized, deliver the text creative-direction document below. If the user has asked to see the work as a layout (see Phase 13.5), deliver the rendered mockup alongside it — do not substitute markdown labels for actual visual hierarchy.

# Creative Direction

**Objective:**  
...

**Audience:**  
...

**Single-minded promise:**  
...

**Reason to believe:**  
...

**Tension:**  
...

**Concept:**  
...

**Copywriter lens:**  
...

**Why this lens fits:**  
...

# Copy

**Headline:**  
...

**Supporting line:**  
...

**Body:**  
...

**CTA:**  
...

# Visual Direction

...

# Why It Works

Explain the connection between:

**Audience → Strategy → Idea → Copy → Visual → Action**

Keep this explanation concise and concrete.

# Alternate Lines

Provide 5 strong alternatives.

# What Not to Do

List 3 predictable or off-strategy directions to avoid.

---

# Core Principle

At every stage ask:

**Are we making the idea stronger, or are we merely making the words sound better?**

If the answer is "the words sound better," return to the hierarchy.