Sausage roll
Written by
Rik Mulder
The worst-case scenario? That everything starts to look the same. LinkedIn posts, websites and copy. From the same butcher, the same taste. From the same prompt, the same outcome. You know the drill. You open a few websites. Scroll through some LinkedIn posts. Look at a few “new” brands. And somewhere midway through, you think, haven't I seen this before? Not because it's bad. Quite the opposite. Everything is perfect. Sleek design. Beautiful gradients. Good copy. Exactly the problem. Because everything is *so* perfect... that it starts to look the same. Welcome to the era of AI uniformity.
Table of contents
Where we all use the same tools, enter the same prompts, and are then surprised that everything tastes the same. A bit like a street full of restaurants with exactly the same menu. Good food. Nothing wrong with it. But you walk past without thinking. And so it doesn't stick.
And let's be honest, does everyone want to eat the same sausage?
The new middle ground is pretty good (and that's precisely the problem)
AI's uniform sausage lives in the details. In the small, repeatable choices that keep cropping up in copy, visuals, and layout. And that makes sense. Because AI isn't an opinionated creative director. AI is a pattern machine. It looks at what occurs frequently, what works well, what is “logical”... and serves it back. The result? Good texts, but without an edge. Beautiful designs, but without character. Websites that are logically structured, but nowhere surprising. Everything is correct. Everything feels good. Everything is... fine. And precisely because of that, it slides past you. No friction, no feeling, no memory. Actually, everything that HEMA's sausages *do* have.
Bingo!
And those texts, they are perhaps the most recognisable. Sentences that always make sense, but never say anything. Copy with no clever hook, where you think no one is going to fall for this. It reads easily. It sounds professional. But in the meantime, it's just a tilapia being farmed in a big tank. And the fish connoisseur knows what they're eating.
So that use of AI in copy doesn’t have to be bad. Depending on how you use it. Because AI writes exactly what you put into it. Give it ‘shit’, and you’ll get ‘shit’ back. Throw in courage, context, and a clear opinion, and it suddenly becomes a lot more interesting.
So the difference lies in the choices you make. In what you *do* say, but especially in what you dare to leave out. In the edge. In the tone. In the bit of personality you inject yourself. Because without that… it just stays neat.
Human differentiation
Here comes the good news. Distinction isn't a talent. It's not a creative whim that only works on Tuesday afternoons, we can tell you from experience. It is, in many cases, a series of choices. Choices you dare to make. And perhaps even more importantly, choices you dare to defend. Because that's precisely where things often go wrong. We've become so accustomed to ease, best practices and “what works” that we automatically stay within the lines (boring). Safe. Thoughtful. Substantiated. But also predictable.
And that is precisely where human creativity makes the difference. Not because we reinvent the wheel, but because we take the time to understand where that wheel needs to roll. As a branding agency, we don’t dive straight into design or copy, but first into the core. Who are you? Where do you want to go? From there, choices emerge that are not always the most obvious. Sometimes it's a bit of a rough ride. Sometimes it's just a little different from what's “usual.” But that's exactly where character is born. A distinct identity. Something that sticks.
Because let's be honest, as humans, we don't all want to look the same. We don't want to wear the same clothes, have the same hairstyle, tell the same story. And we don't all want to eat the same sausage. So why should brands?
The unit sausage
And so you return to square one. The generic sausage. Because as long as we keep choosing what's easy, fast, what works, and what “feels right,” we'll keep producing the same things. Tidy brands. Coherent stories. Fine designs. But likely also brands you'll forget about tomorrow. So the question isn't whether AI does that. The (main) question is, are you letting it happen? Will you keep choosing the flavour everyone already knows? Or do you dare to put something on the table that stands out? That grates. That sticks. Because let's be honest... does everyone want to eat the same sausage?
