---
title: Creative headlines and crossheads (tagline-as-headline method)
slug: creative-headlines-for-approval
summary: Joanna Wiebe's method for turning "meh" headlines into ones stakeholders love — write the conversion page first, then rewrite only headlines/crossheads as taglines by swapping your brand into a known positive idiom (IKEA "Make yourself at home", "Engineers build business"), with a clear payoff line.
domain: marketing
tags: [copywriting, headlines, taglines, creativity, stakeholders]
related: [headline-hooks-and-copy-frameworks, voice-of-customer-copy-mining, sales-page-audit-checklist]
sources: [yt:rYn2-fOtdp0, yt:iQwStsuFiQQ]
updated: 2026-10-24
---

# Creative headlines and crossheads

## TL;DR
- Copy that never gets approved never converts: the CMO/client is your **first customer**[^1].
- Creativity belongs in only two places: the **big idea** and the **headlines + crossheads**. Everything else is frameworks, VOC, proof[^2].
- **Order of operations:** write the full conversion page first, *then* rewrite headlines/crossheads to be creative[^3][^4].
- Bland 4–6-word headlines are clear but make no one feel anything; aim for an "oh, cute / that's clever" reaction[^5][^4].
- Method: take a phrase the market already believes and swap one word for your brand — "America runs on coffee" → "America Runs on Dunkin'"[^6].
- Always pair a clever headline with a **clarifying payoff line** nearby; clever confuses ~90% of people on its own[^7].

## Details
Joanna Wiebe ([[people/joanna-wiebe]]): for a CMO, copy also does a social job — it should make them proud of the brand. That's why headlines, not body copy, win approval[^5].

**Idiom method (worksheet)**[^8][^9][^10]
1. Write three words for the thing you're selling: one for its **category**, one for its **experience/UX**, one for its **differentiator** (IKEA → e.g. home…).
2. Look each up in an idiom dictionary (or Google "sayings about <word>", Pinterest, image search). Collect ~6 per word; the more common the saying, the better.
3. Substitute your brand/feature/spin into each. Keep only those that work on more than one level.
4. Test them in context on the page; tick the ones ready for validation.

**Belief-swap variant.** Ask: what does the market believe, in their words, and what do we want them to believe? GitPrime: leaders thought engineers "build products"; engineers wanted credit for the business → headline "Engineers build business" — liked by the CMO, engineers and leaders, and kept by Pluralsight after the acquisition[^11][^12]. Also: Coca-Cola "Open happiness", De Beers "A diamond is forever"[^6].

**Use positive sayings only.** For a marketer-matching service (Maple) "Creative with strategy is called Maple" works; a saying that makes sales sound bad turns against the brand[^13][^14].

**Antonym bonus.** Take the opposite of one of your three words, find an idiom for it and twist it: Segment's "the segmented wide world" from "the whole wide world"[^15].

## Disagreements / caveats
- Joanna herself says conversion copy rarely wants cleverness; this is about getting good copy shipped, then headline-testing it live[^4][^7].
- Single-practitioner method, illustrated with her own client wins.

## See also
- [[headline-hooks-and-copy-frameworks]] — conversion-first headline patterns

[^1]: yt:rYn2-fOtdp0 @ 00:00 — Joanna Wiebe
[^2]: yt:rYn2-fOtdp0 @ 06:07 — Joanna Wiebe
[^3]: yt:rYn2-fOtdp0 @ 09:16 — Joanna Wiebe
[^4]: yt:rYn2-fOtdp0 @ 10:45 — Joanna Wiebe
[^5]: yt:rYn2-fOtdp0 @ 07:41 — Joanna Wiebe
[^6]: yt:iQwStsuFiQQ @ 01:49 — Joanna Wiebe
[^7]: yt:iQwStsuFiQQ @ 09:55 — Joanna Wiebe
[^8]: yt:rYn2-fOtdp0 @ 13:13 — Joanna Wiebe
[^9]: yt:rYn2-fOtdp0 @ 14:01 — Joanna Wiebe
[^10]: yt:iQwStsuFiQQ @ 03:25 — Joanna Wiebe
[^11]: yt:iQwStsuFiQQ @ 00:00 — Joanna Wiebe
[^12]: yt:iQwStsuFiQQ @ 00:56 — Joanna Wiebe
[^13]: yt:iQwStsuFiQQ @ 05:39 — Joanna Wiebe
[^14]: yt:iQwStsuFiQQ @ 07:19 — Joanna Wiebe
[^15]: yt:rYn2-fOtdp0 @ 16:11 — Joanna Wiebe