Open ten brand websites in your industry. Read the hero copy. Almost all say something like “We help businesses grow”. This is the great brand homogenisation crisis.
The Brief Is the Problem
Bad brand copy starts with a bad brief. The brief needs to start from: what is the one uncomfortable truth about our category that everyone knows but no one says out loud? The best brands say the thing. When you say the thing, people lean in.
Find Your Discomfort Zone
Write down ten things about your industry that are genuinely annoying, broken, or dishonest. That list is your differentiation territory. Your brand voice lives in the intersection of what’s true about your category and what only you have the courage to say.
Stop Optimising for Approval
Brand copy sounds the same because it goes through too many rounds of feedback from people optimising for “not getting it wrong”. Every layer of approval sands off another edge. Your brand voice is already there — somewhere between what you actually think and what you’ve been afraid to say.
