Us vs. Them
Sort the world into two camps, then hand the reader a place in the one worth belonging to.
Definition
What it does
This move draws a line down the middle of an audience. On one side it puts a group the reader would not want to join: the unaware, the conventional, the ones who do it the wrong way. On the other it puts the reader, alongside the smart, the bold, or the few who know better. The copy is built around the split itself, not around any single feature or villain. Once the two camps exist, choosing the product becomes a way of choosing which kind of person you are.
Why it works
People decide who they are partly by deciding who they are not. A clean binary makes that decision feel obvious and urgent: stay with the crowd you already look down on, or cross over to the side the copy has made attractive. The out-group supplies the contrast that gives the in-group its meaning, so the reader feels the pull of belonging and the small sting of exclusion at the same time. Identity does the selling. The buyer is not weighing claims, they are picking a tribe, and the purchase becomes the membership card.
Where it appears
* Most frequent first, based on materials selected for the Persuasion Taxonomy corpus.
Examples of Us vs. Them
“There are two types of people in the world: the Givers, and the Takers. For every Giver, there are a hundred Takers. They are constantly trying to latch on to you ... to make you carry them on your back ... to force you to give meaning, and value, and direction to their lives.”
A self-development book ad that opens by splitting humanity into Givers and Takers and casting the Takers as a draining out-group.
Why it’s this techniqueThe copy splits humanity into two named camps, 'the Givers, and the Takers,' then assigns the reader to one and a hostile mass to the other, casting 'a hundred Takers' as a predatory force that exists to 'latch on to you' and 'force you to carry them on your back.' That two-camp partition, one side flattering the reader and the other a swarming antagonist defined only by what it does to that reader, is the structural tell: the line builds identity through opposition rather than through any quality the Givers possess on their own. The whole frame runs on belonging to the better tribe by recognizing and resisting the worse one.
Classification
- Primary technique
- PT-IDF-9925
- Classification confidence
- 0.95
- Source
- Eugene Schwartz, 1960s print ad (attributed)
“I'm a PC. / I'm a Mac.”
Apple's campaign personifies two computer types as two opposed people, inviting the viewer to identify with one camp.
Why it’s this techniqueThe copy sorts the world into two camps by pairing rival self-identifications, 'I'm a PC' against 'I'm a Mac', so that choosing a product becomes declaring which side you belong to. The structural tell is the symmetrical two-line construction: two parallel first-person statements set face to face, each defined by what it is not. That mirrored opposition turns a category into a membership badge and recruits the reader to take a seat on one bench. It does not flatter a single hero or attack a flaw in the buyer; it builds an in-group and an out-group, and the whole line exists to make standing apart from 'them' feel like identity.
Classification
- Primary technique
- PT-IDF-9925
- Classification confidence
- 0.88
- Source
- Apple, 2000_2015 web page
“To the world, they're pets. To us, they're passengers.”
A dog-product line that contrasts how the world sees dogs against how the brand and its customers see them.
Why it’s this techniqueThe copy splits the audience from everyone else by contrasting how outsiders see the same thing against how the in-group sees it: 'To the world, they're pets. To us, they're passengers.' The shift from 'the world' to 'us' draws a membership line, and the reader is recruited onto the favored side. The structural tell is the matched pair built on the pronoun swap, 'they're pets' versus 'they're passengers,' which positions the broad public as the lesser reading and the brand's circle as the elevated one. The two-sentence symmetry exists only to stage that division, which is the spine the line is built around.
Classification
- Primary technique
- PT-IDF-9925
- Classification confidence
- 0.93
- Source
- BarkBox, 2020s web page
“Among the less intelligent, where pure air and cleanliness are also rare, oatmeal is hardly known.”
A print advertisement for oatmeal that characterizes the households where the cereal is absent.
Why it’s this techniqueThe split is drawn from one side only. 'Among the less intelligent, where pure air and cleanliness are also rare, oatmeal is hardly known' describes the camp the reader is meant to stay clear of, bundling low intelligence with foul air and dirt so that absence of the product reads as a type of person rather than a dietary habit. The reader's own camp is never named; it exists only as the inverse, and eating the cereal marks standing on that side. The tell is the correlation clause, 'where pure air and cleanliness are also rare', which fuses unrelated traits into one kind of household.
Classification
- Primary technique
- PT-IDF-9925
- Classification confidence
- 0.82
- Source
- Quaker Oats, 1920s print ad (attributed)
“Are you a weirdo? For most people who get up, go to work, get back home, scroll on their phones, watch Netflix, sleep and repeat, we are weird. It takes a certain character to become an entrepreneur.”
A marketing email that asks the reader whether they are a weirdo and sets that against the daily routine of most people.
Why it’s this techniqueThe dividing word is borrowed from the other camp. 'Are you a weirdo?' puts the majority's verdict to the reader as a question, and 'For most people... we are weird' reports that judgment as settled while switching to 'we'. The far side is drawn as a closed loop, 'get up, go to work, get back home, scroll on their phones, watch Netflix, sleep and repeat', which is what earns the label. Then 'It takes a certain character to become an entrepreneur' turns the insult into an entry requirement, so the reader qualifies for a place inside by accepting the name the outsiders gave.
Classification
- Primary technique
- PT-IDF-9925
- Classification confidence
- 0.88
- Source
- Virgil Brewster, 2020s email
See whether your own copy uses Us vs. Them, and what else it is doing: analyze your copy.
Boundary Conditions
When it lands
- The two camps are drawn sharply enough that the reader instantly knows which side they want to be on
- The out-group is characterized, not just named, so crossing over feels like an upgrade in identity
- The reader is placed firmly inside the favored group rather than left to choose
- The line splits an audience that already half-believes the division exists
When it dilutes
- The copy attacks a single villain but never builds an in-group the reader can join
- It only says the crowd is wrong without offering a tribe to belong to instead
- The partition is asserted but the reader is never clearly seated on the better side
- The split is so flattering or so broad that nobody could fall on the wrong side of it
Taxonomic Relationships
Provenance
- Robert Cialdini, 'Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion', on liking, similarity, and in-group identification
- Henri Tajfel and John Turner, social identity theory, on how minimal group divisions drive in-group favoritism
- Eugene Schwartz, 'Breakthrough Advertising', on channeling an audience's existing mass desire and self-image