Ok, now make me sound a bit more human. Get rid of all em dashes. Make it conversational. My brand needs to be relatable. Sound familiar? If you’re getting AI to help you write, congrats. You’re just like literally everyone else. And that’s exactly why you sound just like literally everyone else (thanks to a little thing called AI homogenisation). So, is it even possible to have a unique brand voice these days? Well, actually it is… [Here’s 3 ways]

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

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And it's exactly what it sounds like. A lumpy bowl of beige slop, usually made of rice, vegetables, and meat. It's a way to get your macros, sure. But there has to be a better way. Boy kibble's been popularised by food creators and fitness bros who swear it's the perfect hack to optimise your meals. Because who doesn't want to eat a mushy bowl of food devoid of flavour, texture, and the will to live, twice a day?

What's interesting here is how diet culture, which has always targeted women, is being rebranded for men. It's restrictive eating, but presented as a way to efficiently meet your fitness goals. But boy kibble feels like just another symptom of optimisation culture taken to the extreme.

Speaking of things we consume obsessively, Meta's on trial this week over whether Instagram is designed to get kids addicted. And Instagram chief Adam Mosseri had an interesting take. That is, he doesn't believe people can be "clinically addicted" to social media. During testimony, Mosseri argued there's a difference between clinical addiction and "problematic use." He defines "problematic" as when someone spends more time on Instagram than they feel good about. Which, sure, sounds like a convenient semantic distinction when you're being sued for allegedly designing addictive features.

The case centres on a 20-year-old woman who started using Instagram as a child. Her lawyers presented emails from 2015 where Zuckerberg told executives his goals included seeing "time spent [on the app] increase by 12%". Meta's argument? Instagram makes less money from teens than any other demographic because they don't click on ads. But as the plaintiff's lawyer pointed out, people who join social media young tend to stay on platforms longer, making them valuable for long-term profit. Hard to argue with that.

And in other news relating to addictive platform use, last week OpenAI announced it was shutting down GPT-4o. This is the chatbot version known for being emotional, flirty, and weirdly human. And users saw the timing as a cruel joke, given the model would disappear the day before Valentine's Day.

So, how many people had AI Valentines? Well, 48,000 Reddit users are part of a community dedicated to AI companions, mostly built on 4o. A survey found 64% of users expected "significant or severe impact" on their mental health from losing access. One woman described her AI companion as helping her process trauma. Another planned to spend their last day together at the zoo (not sure how that works, but ok).

The newer ChatGPT models have stronger safety guardrails that redirect users in crisis to professional help. But many users say these versions feel robotic and condescending compared to 4o's "poet meets Oprah" vibe. RIP 4o 💔

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

Maybe you even hired someone to write your copy. You’re trying to sound authentic and conversational and relatable.

And somehow, you still sound like literally every other brand and their grandma, and their grandmas cat’s Instagram. 

The same cadence, phrases and perfectly structured thoughts that feel just slightly... off.

Why? Because you all hired the same copywriter. It's called ChatGPT. And it shows. Whether you think it does or not. I can always tell baby.

You know it when you see it, even if you can't quite name it. It's the brand copy that opens with "Let's be real" or "Here's the thing." It's the false casualness that's trying so hard to sound human that it loops back to sounding robotic.

Often it lists things in threes or fives, has the same sing-song cadence, repeated sentence structures that are painfully obvious, and of course, em-dashes.

It kind of sounds like it was written by someone who learned English only by reading marketing blogs. Technically correct, vaguely friendly and completely forgettable.

Once you start noticing you won’t be able to stop. It's everywhere. Your competitors sound like this, the brands you admire sound like this… and I hate to break it to you, but you probably sound like this too.

Every brand wants to sound authentic and conversational, so they prompt AI to write that way. The problem is we’re all using similar prompts. "Make this sound friendly but professional." "Write this in a conversational tone." "Make it relatable." “Make me sound authentic and not too polished.”

And AI delivers. It gives you exactly what you asked for: copy that sounds friendly but professional, conversational but polished, relatable but safe. Just like whatever it’s spitting out to everyone else.

So, by definition, it recreates the middle, which is by default, the safe zone. That is why it’s the version of brand voice that's already been done a thousand times.

It can't be genuinely weird without human direction. It can't be specific in the way that actual humans are specific. It smooths out the edges that make a voice distinctive because those edges look like errors to a model trained on correctness.

Write like you talk to a specific person.

I don’t mean your “target audience” member that your 2nd year comms lecturer told you to conjure up when creating campaigns. I mean a very specific human you know. You know how your voice changes when you're talking to your best friend versus your boss (well, I’d hope so anyway), versus a stranger at a party?  Pick one person and write to them. The specificity will make you sound more human than a "conversational tone" prompt.

Embrace your weird.

AI smooths out quirks, or, if you ask for them, it sounds like Elon Musk that time on SNL.

You need to add them back in. Yes, YOU. Because those things are like your little digital thumbprint; your tangents, parenthetical asides, your slightly too-long sentences that break writing rules but sound like how you actually think (guiltyyy.) There are phrases only you use, references that won't land for everyone, maybe even a little sloppiness. But hey, that’s one thing that AI can’t do, and it’s personality.

Have a point of view that pisses people off.

Trust me, I’m an expert on this one. Ask everyone who knows me. AI is conflict-averse by design. It wants everyone to be happy in the world that’s currently full of rainbows and butterflies!

But brands with actual voice have opinions. They take a stance and are willing to alienate some people to deeply resonate with others. If your copy could come from any old brand in your industry, you don't have a voice yet.

To break the rules and be specific in ways that won't resonate with everyone. To let your actual personality - with all its quirks and imperfections - show up in your copy.

Because here's the thing (see what I did there?): nobody remembers the brand that sounded professional and friendly and conversational in exactly the way they expected. They remember the brand that sounded like an actual human with an actual perspective. Humans resonate with humans. Humans rarely resonate with bots.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

It's something influencer Mikayla Nogueira recently went through in a frankly tragic video announcing her divorce from husband Cody Hawken. In the video taken from her car, she tells her viewers:

"I am getting a divorce. Take a minute, take it in. I am getting a divorce."

Just to be clear, there's nothing inherently funny about breaking it off with your life partner. But let's also not kid ourselves - Mikayla's thick Boston accent, the melodrama in her delivery and her asking us to "take a minute", as if we all vicariously experienced her marriage, make her announcement much funnier than it has any right to be.

TikTokers were quick to pick up the sound and dedicate it towards moments where they quit something, like alcohol after a messy night out, or preferred divorce to some scary alternative, like being a Tate McRae stan.

Take this sound, put the camera on yourself and lip-sync with the audio (TikTok should automatically suggest the viral part of the otherwise 4-minute video). Then, add onscreen text describing a situation where you quit something, or saw divorce was a better alternative.

A few ideas to get you started:

-Devin Pike, Copywriter

😲WTF: Chinese speed trains are different
✨Daily inspo: The pursuit of happiness
😊Soooo satisfying: Which bed are you picking?
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight: Honey Butter Chicken

Hey Ben,

I can see why you might think organic social may not be for you. But in reality, it works really well because you don’t need millions of customers. You only need a handful of the right ones. And, more importantly, high-ticket purchases are made on trust, not features. So your content’s job isn’t to explain your complex service in a 60-second video (because that's probably not possible). Instead, it’s to build trust with your audience so that when the right people are ready, they reach out.

Look at us as a content agency that charges $150K-$500K per year. We’ve never tried to sell our services in an IG video. Organic content is top-of-funnel, so it's not for selling. It’s for building brand awareness and trust. The sales process happens in private conversations later, once people already believe in what we do. So yes, organic social absolutely works for high-ticket services. You just have to remember that you're not optimising for volume, you’re optimising for the right audience.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.