The Great Flattening: When Every Brand Sounds the Same

If it feels like every ad is starting to sound the same… it’s because they are.

We’re living in the era of the AI + trend loop — where every brand is “learning from what works,” copying top performers, and optimizing into oblivion. What starts as insight quickly becomes imitation.

Welcome to The Great Flattening.

Why This Is Happening:

1. Tools are too good
   AI makes it easy to spin up a hundred variations — all technically correct, none emotionally resonant.

2. Performance metrics reward short-term sameness
   CTR, ROAS, and CPC don’t penalize predictability — until they do (creative fatigue hits hard and fast).

3. Creative direction is outsourced to TikTok trends and Twitter threads
   Instead of defining what the brand should say, most teams are asking, “What’s working for others?”

What You Can Do About It:

1. Add friction to your ideation process
   Instead of “how can we say this more clearly?” ask: “how would our weirdest customer say this?” or “what would we say if this ad had to offend someone to work?”

2. Steal formats, not voices
   It’s fine to borrow structure — but your metaphors, language, and perspective should be native to your brand.

3. Create a ‘No-Fly List’ of clichés
   Ban certain phrases, hooks, or angles from ever making it into your copy. If your competitors use “stop the scroll,” you say “make them forget they’re scrolling.”

4. Measure distinctiveness as a KPI
   Test how memorable your ads are after the click. What line did people remember? What story stuck? What made it feel “like you”?

The brands that will win in the next cycle aren’t the ones that optimize harder — they’re the ones that refuse to be flattened.

You don’t need to sound like the winners.

You need to sound like the only one.

—Peter