The vanillafication of brand writing

Every brand in the western world now shares the same three copywriters: ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.

They’re fast and cheap, and they’re making your brand sound exactly like everyone else’s.

Save your spot

Thursday 10 September 2026

8:30 – 11:00 BST

Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, London, EC2M 4QH

Limited spaces available.

The proof

We took nine brands, prompted an LLM with their tone of voice guidelines, and asked it to write a short newsletter in each brand’s tone of voice.

The similarities across the board were astonishing. The same words, phrases and ideas cropped up time and again – irrespective of the dramatically different tone of voice guidelines the LLMs were supposedly following.

What to do about it

There are only two ways to stop your brand sounding like everyone else’s.

The first is to stop using AI, hire specialist tone of voice consultants, and go back to the good old Word doc days.

The second is to train your LLM properly, with a brand language system.

Join us for breakfast to get the full story from our experiment, debate the strengths and weaknesses of the growing LLM writing invasion, and find out how a brand language system can help.

Who’s it for?

Brand leaders, marketing directors, heads of copy and content, and anyone responsible for how their organisation sounds. If you’ve started using AI for brand writing – or you’re wondering whether you should – this is for you.

You’ll leave with

A clear understanding of what a brand language system is, and how it gives AI the constraints it needs to actually sound like you – not like everyone else.

Your speakers

Harry Ashbridge

The man behind the Monzo tone of voice

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Maddy Potts

Global Brand Experience Lead, Specsavers

Nick Padmore

Head of Language, Definition

I run Definition’s Language team, a plucky gang of writers helping businesses of all shapes and sizes to define their tone of voice, and then make sure people actually use it. Beyond tone, we do naming, brand storytelling, internal comms and, unsurprisingly, writing – as well as working with our AI team to craft prompts that actually work, and train our clients to do the same.

Host

Alex Goldstein

Creative Director, Definition

I rummage around brand personalities, which means I’ve been the voice of detergent, ice cream, oil paint, margarine, and dogs, to name but a few. I studied philosophy, but always wondered if I should have done psychology; writing covers both. Playing with tone, words and sentence structure triggers different emotions and behaviour – it can even build and break beliefs. And, perhaps because I spent ten years in social media marketing, I like the challenge of doing that succinctly.

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