Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. With it: all the clichés. Vibrators sold as “little acts of love”. Strawberries and chocolate touted as a “match made in heaven”. Brands writing poems that start with roses are red, violets are blue, followed by something empowering all about you. 

On Valentine’s Day we’re hyperaware of clichés. So smart brands avoid them. They know it’s a time to stand out and say something different. And we’re all the better for it. 

Rooting out clichés when it comes to telling your brand story is hard. You could argue that womenswear brands and empowerment is a brand cliché. Strategy is about revealing human truths in a way that gives people aha moments. And if you’re just recycling clichés your audience is never going to arrive at that moment. 

When we worked with fresh cat food brand KatKin, the entire cat care category felt like a cliché. Think: sweet, fluffy feline friends. Gentle brands that played into the “gentle, introvert” cliché of cat parents. And a perception that cats are easy to care for. 

But through conversations with cat owners, deep dives into Reddit threads and the most die-hard cat fan on our team (hi, Rae) – we realised cats and their owners, were actually super hardcore. Being a cat parent means a life covered in scratches and love bites. And enduring mouse sacrifices on their doorstep circa 6AM. So we built a brand strategy and story all around the hardcore love of cat parents. 

So this Valentine’s and beyond it, push yourself to think outside the obvious – go deeper, find more interesting insights, tell different stories. You’ll cultivate that creative mindset that says to do something different. Never a candlelit dinner.