This week, we stumbled on a brand that’s using some really clever copywriting techniques and tricks to do something you’d probably consider impossible…

Making the humble baked bean feel like a gourmet, almost boujee product.

And, as a plastic-free, B-Corp (bean-Corp?) with a site full of on-brand copy (like the 404 page below), what’s not to love? 👇

So, without further ado, let’s dig into the super-smart copy of Bold Bean Co.

💡This week’s big idea:

Copy doesn’t just make sales, it can change how much your customers feel your products are worth.

While we might think we’re completely logical creatures when it comes to spending money, the way we decide what a product is worth is way more to do with the other things going on around it than it is digging into a mental spreadsheet.

For example, the thought of paying £8 for a garage-machine coffee? Unthinkable. But offer us a single origin, special roast americano at our local coffee shop, where we can see the barista tamp the coffee and make it with care? Take our money now.

☝️That’s perceived value in action AKA our ideas of price and value are waaaay more to do with how we perceive brands and products than it does the actual pounds and pennies of it all.​

OK, imagine this for a second… you’re standing in the pasta aisle at the supermarket.

You pick up one box. It says:
​“Based on our 100-year-old nonna’s recipe, this is penne, perfected.”

Then you pick up another. It says:
​“We tested 197 different recipes before we landed on the perfect penne.”

Which one would you be happier to pay a little bit extra for? Which one feels like you’re paying for the guarantee of perfect penne?

It’s Option B, right?

Like, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Option A. And the thought of a family recipe feels authentic and Italian. It’s a solid choice.

But with Option B, you’re like “They tried 197 recipes before this one?! This penne has to be gooood.”

(Dyson famously used the copy “We made 5,127 prototypes before we got it right” to promote their products.)

That’s the Labour Effect in action, AKA the idea that we naturally value things more when we believe real effort went into making them.

And putting the hard graft front and centre is just one of the ways that Bold Bean Co have used their copy to take the humble baked bean and turn it into something that thousands of customers are happy to pay just under £4 for.

(Just to give you an idea of how impressive this is: customers are choosing to ignore the fact that they can get 4 cans of Heinz for 25p less than one jar of Bold Bean Co and buying them anyway. Mad skills.)

Now, granted, there’s no doubt that Bold Bean Co’s beans are legit better than Heinz.

But for a customer that has never tried the gourmet beans, they have no way of knowing that.

(And we know that customers will lean towards the safe and familiar if they’re not convinced.)

So how does Bold Bean Co use its copy to make us feel like their beans will be the best beans you’ve ever tried?

Well, for starters, on their “Our Beans” page and their “Our Story” page, they go into detail about the effort that goes into making their beans.

👉 They tell us that Amelia, their founder, spent 4 years obsessing over beans in professional kitchens before starting Bold Bean Co.

But the real smart thing is that they don’t position the work as a chore or part of R&D, but the pursuit of a bean obsession. And then they make that passion something their audience can get in on too, making this group of bean champs feel more like a community than customers.
​
(Heinz could never.)

👉 They tell us things like “after searching high and low for the tastiest bean varieties” they are “cooked and seasoned to perfection like PROPER CHEFS do.”

The clever emphasis on chefs and professional kitchens, as well as the quotes from Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson, add to the primo feel. (Also, adding a few clever sprinkles of authority bias and social proof.)

👉 Then, as a final flourish, they establish their nemesis as big supermarket beans.

“Bog standard supermarket beans are heated up quickly, to a SUPER high temp, losing the banging beany flavour along the way. We cook ours low and slow + pour the brothy beans into glass jars.”

This is easily our favourite bit of copy on the whole site. It’s just really clever.

🧠 There’s some subtle sibilance (that repeated sss sound) to enhance the sense that supermarkets are rushing their process.

🧠 They double-down on the alliteration to emphasise the comparison between standard supermarket beans and their banging beans & brothy beans.

🧠 Altogether, these elements and the us vs them narrative primes the reader not just to think of supermarket beans as worse, but also to think of those beans as cheap not Bold Bean Co’s beans as expensive. That’s a clever little switcheroo that works wonders.

How can you use this for your brand?

👉 Turn your process into your brand’s super power

Customers love a peek behind the curtain. So whether you’re obsessive about testing, always hunting for rare ingredients, or you use a unique method to make your products… if effort went in, show it off. Explain what’s going on behind the scenes and it’ll shift the value of your product in your customers’ brains.

💡 Stack those gains: if you can bring your customers into the work (for example, getting them to vote on new packaging, branding, next product line, etc…) you can double up the impact of the Labour Effect with the IKEA Effect, which is where customers value your products more if they feel involved in creating them. (Which is exactly what Bold Bean Co did at every stage of launching. Wicked smaht.)

👉 Tie the work you’re putting in back to your mission

This isn’t technically related to the Labour Effect, but it’s a really clever way to stack psychological biases to write some really powerful copy.

Look at Bold Bean Co. They’re not just selling banging beans. They’re selling the idea that great ingredients deserve better treatment. That’s their North Star.

And then they’re tripling down on it and tying it all back to the idea that businesses can be better and do better by highlighting the sustainability? Smart.

👉 Don’t be afraid to compare yourself to your competitors and the Goliaths in your space

Your customers are already comparing you to your competition, so don’t be afraid to show how your product stacks up.

A well-crafted “us vs. them” comparison isn’t about putting others down, it’s about making it easy for customers to see why your brand is the better fit for them. (And, equally, putting off the wrong kinds of customers.)

And while we’re no fans of Brewdog here at Do Words Good, they did nail this messaging a few years ago with these ads 👇

Let’s take those copy tweaks for a spin👇

Imagine we’re just about to launch a cereal brand for adults that’s high in protein, low in sugar but still feels like a Saturday morning in front of cartoons treat.

We could do something like this…

Remember when breakfast was the best part of the morning? Then you grew up, and suddenly it was all bland, beige, and boring.

Not anymore. Crunchy, delicious, and packed with protein (not sugar), this is the cereal you actually want to wake up for. Because breakfast should be fun, no matter how old you are.

Not bad at all. It nods to nostalgia and hits all the right beats. We’d definitely buy it.

But what if we double-down on the things we’ve learned from Bold Bean Co? Then we’d end up with something like this 👇

Remember when breakfast was the best part of the morning? Then you grew up, and suddenly it was all bland, beige, and boring.Us too. That’s why we spent three years testing hundreds of recipes to create a range of cereals that taste like a childhood treat but fuel you like an adult.

So while supermarket shelves are packed with sugar and empty carbs, we keep it real: high protein, low sugar, and that perfect mix of squidge and crunch. Why? Because breakfast should be fun, no matter how old you are.

See how the last one feels like it’s worth more money?

It’s saying almost exactly the same thing, but because we’ve baked in a dash of Labour Effect and an us vs them narrative, it feels like you’d be happy spending the extra money on it.

That’s the value of showing the work.

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