Why regulated industries need copywriters who ‘get it’

When you’re writing for heavily regulated industries - legal, FMCG, tech, finance, property, etc, every word matters. One wrong move and you can find yourself in a whole heap of trouble. 

Look at popular shoe brand, Skechers. Back in 2012, they had to shell out $40m in fines after their ‘Shape-Up’ advertising claimed wearers would ‘tone up’ just by wearing the shoes, rather than ‘needing to set foot in a gym.’ In 2022, milk alternative brand Oatly, and even banking giant, HSBC, had various advertisements pulled for false environmental claims. 

As a team made up of a former wealth banker and a solicitor, let’s just say we know a thing or two about working around regulations when it comes to publishing content. 

The thing is, you regulated brands out there can’t afford the risk that publishing unchecked AI slop or off-brand advertising brings. It’s simply too risky. The brands wanting to grow their market share and protect their credibility in their industry are using human copywriters who understand the regulatory parameters. 

Here’s why.

Trust is non-negotiable 

Trust is absolutely paramount in these industries. If you’re trusting someone with your money, your property, what you’re putting in your body, you need to be certain these people are the legitest of legit. 

Brands in regulated industries can’t afford ‘AI blunders’ or to be caught out publishing false claims. We’re talking potentially millions of pounds here. 

The problem with AI is it can’t always distinguish opinion from fact. Forums like Reddit are one of the biggest crawling locations for LLMs. If it’s published on the internet, it’ll pull through whatever it has to to make sure it answers your query if you don’t give it specific enough prompts and information. 

And look, we get it. AI can help get a high volume of copy produced faster. But once the copy lands in the lap of your regs or science teams, it’s only going to get delayed as they try to salvage whatever Frankenstein-non-compliant thing AI has produced for you. By the time you’ve got everyone’s two cents, edited and re-submitted, you may as well have got a person who understands the nuance of your brand and regs to do it in the first place.

It’s a fine tight rope, and one that copywriters like us take extremely seriously. Being able to critically judge whether research is legitimate or not is a big part of our day to day. Because we know one wrong move in your copy could ultimately bring everything about your brand into question. 

Human copywriters will push back 

It’s a delicate balance to maintain a strong sense of brand identity and personality while making sure everything you say is above board. 

We know marketing managers are constantly being pushed to do more with less, and AI certainly can help with this in some areas. When it comes to copy, if (and only if) your prompting is good, your messaging is nailed down, you know exactly who your audience is, and you have bulletproof brand voice guidelines, then AI can probably produce you some decent copy that won’t take an age to get through regs. It’s not outside the realm of possibility, but it does still carry a risk. 

But AI is ultimately a yes man. It’ll tell you that every idea you’ve ever had is simply genius, and most likely deliver your brief without any kind of consideration, question or critical thinking. And this could be dangerous for your brand. 

AI won’t sit with your brief and weigh up your brand guidelines vs. regulatory parameters. It can’t decide objectively whether just because you should say something, just because you can. It won’t push back if your SEO/GEO keywords are at odds with regulations (which happens more than you might think). It won’t say, ‘hey, given X, Y or Z, maybe this brief needs to be more in line with A, B or C.’ 

Human copywriters are not (or should not be) like that. 

Because people need to understand what you do 

Depending on what you do and who you do it for, the way you explain what you do to your customers won’t necessarily be how you talk about it internally (especially you techy people amongst us). 

When you’re in it, it can sometimes be hard to clearly communicate what you want your audience to know and what you want them to do with the information. 

To keep flogging the dead horse (AI), if you’re using internal language to prompt AI, it’s not necessarily coming up with copy that’s going to resonate with your audience and your product or service.

It’s your copywriter’s job to make sure your brand is speaking to your audience in the right way - helping them understand how you fix their problem and what you need them to do next. 

If your regulated brand needs help nailing compliant, compelling copy, it’s time to bring in the big dogs. Contact us and let’s create bulletproof copy that converts.