Proprietary Enemy Naming

“The Injustice-Collector”

A mail-order booklet ad that profiles a type of manipulative person under a coined label, then describes how that person operates: continually inducing guilt, manufacturing situations in which the reader is trapped into causing offence, and then extracting compliance as the price of forgiveness. The copy closes the loop by promising that the single escape point from this trap is revealed on a specific interior page of the book being sold.

Why it’s this techniqueThe load-bearing move is the minting of a label, "The Injustice-Collector," that did not exist as a household term before this copy supplied it. The name comes first, capitalized and hyphenated so it reads as a formal category, and only then does the body explain the behaviour the name denotes, that ordering is the tell. The writer is not complaining about manipulative people; the writer is handing the reader a proprietary noun to file the experience under, and the only authority on that taxonomy is the booklet. The name does agitation work paragraphs of description could not, because a named adversary is recognized in one's own life instantly. The coinage also functions as enemy indictment, holding the named type up as the antagonist behind the reader's guilt, and as concept hidden villain, locating an unseen agent behind a felt problem; by promising the single escape point is revealed on a specific interior page, it also functions as curiosity gap.

“The Suspicious 6”

A skincare brand's origin-story page in which the founder recounts identifying six categories of ingredient she believed were behind her skin problems, then names that group with a trademarked coinage. The copy explains that eliminating the named group restored her skin, that she could not find products free of all six, and that this is why she formulated her own line.

Why it’s this techniqueThis is the move in its most literal, legally-claimed form: the enemy is named and then marked with a trademark symbol, making the proprietary nature of the coinage explicit on the page. "The Suspicious 6" bundles six disparate ingredient classes into one ownable adversary the brand alone defines and is formulated to exclude. The choice of "suspicious" assigns intent without a falsifiable health claim, the ingredients are framed as under suspicion, a posture the reader can adopt without the brand proving toxicity. The trademark symbol is the smoking gun that the name itself is the asset. The coinage also functions as villain enumeration, fixing the adversary at a countable six, and as concept hidden villain, casting unseen ingredients as the agent behind the skin problem.

“the Algorithmic Zombie Glaze”

A marketing newsletter passage that names the flat, sameness-ridden quality of mass AI-generated content with a coined epithet, abbreviates it within the same passage, urges the reader to flee from it, and then prescribes the antidote in sensory terms: work that carries fingerprints, bite marks, heartbeats.

Why it’s this techniqueHandley takes an abstract and hard-to-articulate problem, the homogenizing effect of algorithm-optimized AI content, and crystallizes it into a coined name, "the Algorithmic Zombie Glaze," which she then abbreviates to "Algo Zombie Glaze" within the same passage. The abbreviation is itself proof of the technique working: a name only gets a nickname once the writer expects the reader to reuse it, which is the whole point of minting proprietary vocabulary. The enemy is not a competitor or a person but a texture, and naming it is what makes it fightable, you cannot rebel against an unnamed vibe; you can rebel against the Glaze. The move also functions as enemy indictment (the named texture is the antagonist) and as single word moral verdict ("Zombie" / "Glaze" pass a one-word condemnation on the aesthetic).

“the Pied Piper of American Bankruptcy”

A financial promotion that attaches a coined epithet to a named public official (a former central banker), casting his low-interest-rate policy as a seductive march toward national ruin. The accompanying copy promises to explain why that single decision will cost the reader's family more than any war in American history, positioning the publisher's research as the way to understand and survive the named threat.

Why it’s this techniqueThe move is to take a real, already-public figure and rename him with a proprietary, folkloric epithet that reframes his role entirely. "The Pied Piper of American Bankruptcy" does not merely criticize the official; it recasts him inside a fairy-tale of seduction-to-doom, where his rate cuts are the pipe and the public the children led off a cliff. The coinage does the persuasive labour, strip the epithet and the villain dissolves back into an ordinary policymaker, and once the reader thinks of the man as the Pied Piper, they reason inside the publisher's mythology. The move also functions as enemy indictment (the epithet is the indictment) and, by promising the single decision will cost the reader's family more than any war in American history, as dread induction.

“The Four Horsemen of the Food Apocalypse”

A survival-product promotion that names four warning signs of impending food scarcity under a single coined, biblically-flavoured group label, then claims those signs bring a social and economic crisis with direct consequences for the reader's ability to feed their family. The named threat motivates the self-reliance system the promotion goes on to sell.

Why it’s this technique"The Four Horsemen of the Food Apocalypse" borrows a familiar apocalyptic image and repurposes it as a branded container for four otherwise-unrelated warning signs. Bundling them under one ominous name makes a scattered set of worries feel like a single coordinated assault and hands the reader a dramatic, memorable handle the product can be the answer to. The surrounding "I call these" framing is the clearest possible marker that the name itself is the asset being introduced. The move also functions as villain enumeration (the adversary fixed at a countable four) and, because the named signs are claimed to bring a crisis affecting the reader's ability to feed their family, as dread induction.

“The Great Squeeze”

A business-coaching page that names a pervasive modern condition of overwork and depletion with a coined, capitalized phrase, then offers a relatable diagnostic for it: you know you are caught in it if your reflexive answer to "How are you?" is "Tired." The named condition sets up the coaching offer that follows.

Why it’s this techniqueSethi plants a capitalized proprietary name, "The Great Squeeze," for a feeling his audience already has but has never labelled, then supplies a one-word symptom ("Tired") the reader recognizes in themselves, which makes the abstract name instantly self-applying. The reader does not just learn the term; they self-diagnose with it, which is far stickier, and the label is carried forward always tagged to its originator. That is the proprietary-naming payoff. Because the named condition is one the whole audience shares and recognizes together via the "Tired" test, the move also functions as common enemy, forging in-group identity around a single adversary the offer then promises to defeat, and as concept hidden villain, locating an unnamed force behind a shared malaise.

“If you feel tired and run-down, your trouble may be due to what doctors call iron deficiency anemia. We call it Tired Blood.”

A 1950s iron-tonic newspaper ad renames a diagnosed medical condition with a coined branded term the copy then treats as common knowledge.

Why it’s this techniqueThe ad performs the technique's signature move in one line: 'what doctors call iron deficiency anemia' names the clinical term, then 'We call it Tired Blood' immediately replaces it with the brand's own coinage. The tell is the direct substitution grammar, doctors' word given, then withdrawn in favor of the seller's word, so the reader learns to reach for 'Tired Blood' instead of the diagnosis. Because the coined name is vivid and bodily, 'tired and run-down', it maps instantly onto a feeling the reader already has, and because the brand supplied the label, later use of 'Tired Blood' routes back to the product built to cure it.