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I have been itching to do a brand breakdown and rewrite a copy for a month now, and we are finally here.

Rewriting better versions of popular copy is my new favourite hobby—and one of my methods to pitch to my favourite brands—so here I am rewriting the email of one of my favourite fitness brands: Whoop.

What is Whoop?

The simplest way to describe Whoop is as a health and fitness tracker. It’s a minimalistic wristband that tracks sleep, stress, strain, and recovery more accurately than most brands in the market.

Like all fitness trackers, Whoop tracks your key metrics and makes sense of data to give you daily insights and monthly assessments of your activities. You can now use these analytics to optimize lifestyle and improve performance.

It’s as simple as that.

Why am I interested in Whoop?

Long story short, some bad things happened that could have been worse. I have been conscious about my health ever since.

Plus, data motivates me. I get the dopamine hit when I look at the stats improve. I was researching the best health trackers suitable for the amount of work I do and the sports I play. I stumbled on Whoop, learned all about it, and then realized it’s not available in India.

I waited so long and Whoop finally launched its latest version in India.

I went through their website and all the fitness reviews (again) to validate my purchasing decision. I haven’t bought it yet. I love everything Whoop promises. While I am in awe of the product as an athlete, the copywriter in me is disgusted about Whoop’s copy.

I mean, how can a brand this cool can be so bad with their email?

I closely resonate with the brands I love and couldn’t see this happen to Whoop. I have put my copywriting hat on and got to work! 🔨 

Let us look at Whoop’s email first

This is an abandoned cart email—the email sent immediately when you add the product to the cart and fill in all the details, but won’t complete the purchase:

Now let’s talk about why it sucks

• Subject Line (it’s not in the picture but here it is:) No More Excuses—Step Up Your Training. Seriously? Who opens that? And what does it even say about resuming the purchase or making me curious about opening the email?

• Poor image. If you want to show only the product, there are better ways to do that. Also, shouldn’t the image grab attention so readers can read more copy? I don’t see that happening here.

• Image could use some copy. Yes, an image speaks 1000 words, but copy on image 10xes the experience (there might be copywriter bias here :p)

• I don’t mind if the brands are to the point, but the entire copy is too generic to say the least. It’s not crisp, it doesn’t invoke emotion, and more importantly - IT DOES NOT GIVE ME A REASON TO PURCHASE. We both know how the brand makes us feel is equally crucial to its solutions.

• “Unlocking yourself starts now.” Come on, aren’t you tired of the word unlock and these generic phrases that don’t mean anything? To contradict, it’s okay not to mean anything if it makes you feel something.

The email lacks two fundamental copywriting principles.

1. Benefits over Features: All I hear is what Whoop can track. Where is the part that tells me how these metrics help?

2. Storytelling: I expected better from the brand here. Zero emotion invoked. Zero personality trait associated. There is a difference between thinking, ‘I like Whoop’s features’ and ‘I love how Whoop makes me feel about myself, and it’s super effective!’—and that difference is storytelling.

When I rewrote the copy, I focused on these basic copywriting principles to invoke emotion and make the reader feel they’re part of something special.

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Rewriting Whoop’s email

If you remember my Baskin Robbins and Valentine’s Day breakdowns, I talked about writing mock copy within the limitations of the original. This will ensure a fair comparison between the brand’s copy and your rewritten version.

According to the same rule, this is how I will approach the copy:

Subject Line: 4-7 words
Headline: 4-7 words
Body: 65-75 words
Closing Statement: 6-7 words

I will also keep it around encouraging the visitors to complete the purchase (it is an abandoned cart email after all) and mention a few benefits.

Subject Line: Remember what Ronaldo said?

Email:

PS: Shoutout to Priya for designing the email. Can always bank on her for my designs. She did a great job making the email look like the original Whoop email.

My reasoning behind the copy

• Whenever I rewrite a copy (or even write from scratch), I ask myself, “What are we trying to communicate here? What’s the core message we want to share? What’s that one detail our readers should know?” This gives me clarity about the story I craft.

• The brand has Ronaldo as its global ambassador and investor; so why don’t we use his images and project his aspirational value?

• Whoop is for high-performers. It’s for top athletes, doctors, entrepreneurs, artists, etc., who believe ‘minute changes lead to impactful results.’ I wanted to call them out in the copy on the image. I wanted to scream and tell THIS IS FOR YOU!

• I was conscious of three things:

1. We:You Ratio: I don’t know the benchmark but my funda is simple - The number of YOUs should outweigh WEs.

2. Give the copy a tone and personality. The original email was blank—with no tone. I wanted the copy to sound like a one-on-one conversation.

3. Use less Jargon and talk as little as possible about the features. To compensate, I focused on what Whoop does + why it matters.

• Made the first and last sentences about not delaying the purchase. At no point was I saying, ‘Whoop is good, take it.’ It’s always about the customer - ‘Winners don’t Procrastinate’, ‘You are one step away’, and ‘Don’t give up.’

• Nike sponsors Ronaldo and it ran a popular ‘Find Your Greatness’ campaign. I plugged in the word ‘greatness’, thinking it might ring a bell. Coincidentally, the word was used on Whoop’s website too.

Well, that’s my time!

That’s everything I have to share about Whoop, its email, and my rewritten copy. If you found this useful, please share it with the right folks and help Cognition reach more people. Like really really share!!

Have a great day ahead! ⭐️ 

Love,
Vikra.