I came across this little copy gem via a random celebrity I follow on Instagram.

Advert for Seafood Restaurant. Reads: Seafood and Eat It. Painstakingly Hanpicked. Fifty fifty crab. The Best of sweet white crab and intense brown crab.

They picked up a packet and commented on that tagline:

“Painstakingly handpicked”

And it’s certainly worthy of comment. Now, normally I’d advise against using negative language, much less plastering a word that includes the word ‘pain’ in it across your packaging. In general, you don’t want your customer to have any negative feelings when interacting with your brand. But this time, it really works.

Why does it work?

Have you ever picked crab out of a shell? It’s serious admin (crabmin?). I can only imagine what doing it over and over is like if you’re unlucky enough to be feeding a crowd, never mind a restaurant. Painstaking indeed.

And, as I said, while I normally recommend that my clients focus on the positives, the outcomes, the endgames, in this case, this word instantly transports us to the downside (or pain point) of eating crab. The time spent teasing out Each. Tiny. Morsel.

And sure, they could have said something like “Handpicked for you”, but the word painstakingly highlights the hard work Seafood & Eat It has put into bringing this product to you ready to eat. If anything, the word painstakingly is borderline dramatic. (Hence why the celebrity on my Instagram felt the need to comment.) It literally means taking pains to do something. They’re not here to sugarcoat the fact that this is a bloody tough job, and that adds huge value to the product.

Side note: You’ve also got a lovely bit of consonance (repetition of the same consonant sounds) with the p and the k which makes it feel spikey and sharp. Just like crab shell on your fingers as you dig around for the meat…

Make it work for you

Address the pain point that your product solves in your website copy. Try using only one word to create a short tagline. Bonus points if you can add some alliteration or consonance.
Where in your customers’ lives does your product or service have the most impact? Maybe it’s not where you’d expect – for example, in this case it’s not in the eating but in the prep. Talk about this in your next LinkedIn post.
What part of your product or service takes the longest or is the most challenging to accomplish? Draw attention to this in your copy to really sell the value of what you offer.