This month, I provide an abridged history of branding and discuss the unsettling rise of relatable marketing copy.
Authors note: To fully appreciate the irreverent comedic undertones of the next two paragraphs, a familiarity with the work (and voiceover style) of Adam Curtis, a British documentary-maker, is essential.
In the late 90s, a new kind of company emerged. It was a smoothie brand founded by two men from Cambridge. Together, they would subvert the traditional trappings of brand marketing and inadvertently alter the course of copywriting for decades to come. The company was named ‘Innocent’.
At the same time, a revolutionary technology was invading the offices and homes of billions. It was called the internet, and with it, society explored new ways to connect, communicate, and escape.
[Feel free to drop the Adam Curtis impersonation from here]
The internet was the new frontier — a blocky, brightly colored Wild West (an aesthetic retrospectively dubbed Webcore). Early online communities sprang up in BBS networks and Usenet threads, where users debated, shared, and flamed each other. Then came the amateur websites: garish visions littered with Times New Roman typography and absurdist 3D animations that looked like something you’d see after getting a strike at a bowling alley.
Then — and excuse me for skipping through a decade of history — things evolved.
The electronic hamlets of the ’90s, from chatrooms to forums to blog networks, gave way to virtual cities: MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and, for a smaller subset of underground users, 4chan. Dumpy ‘computer room’ desktops gave way to sleek ‘n’ sexy smartphones. Wi-Fi strangled dial-up with its own ethernet cables. The internet became cool (or simply mainstream, depending on which clique you belonged to).
People began to live their lives online. And, recognising an opportunity simply too good to refuse, the suits logged on. Relatable copy was born, and branding was about to change forever.
The birth of influence
Influential filmmaker impersonations aside, it’d be wrong to deposit all of the blame on the fruit-juice-stained doorstep of Innocent. #relatable copy has much deeper roots than you’d expect.
Back in the day — and we’re talking way back in the day here, specifically the 1920s — a man called Edward Bernays had an idea.
Eddie was responsible for pioneering the advertising tactics that, over time, would birth the irritatingly chatty copy stylings of 2025. Through his work with his uncle, Freud (yes, that Freud), he reshaped how brands hocked their wares to the masses.
Bernays realised that rather than focusing on the benefits of the product, selling through psychological persuasion was exponentially more potent. In what many consider the birth of modern advertising, Bernays veered away from promoting utilitarian value and rational, logical selling points, opting instead to advertise products based on how they’d make us feel.
Got a light?
In the early 20th century, smoking cigarettes, much like having a bank account or expressing an interest in science, was deemed a male activity. For women, smoking in public was seen as scandalous. Lighting up meant being labelled a lady of loose morals, and social norms dictated that any woman partial to smoking should refrain from lighting up outside the confines of her home.
Ah, the good old days.
50% of American men smoked, compared to only 5% of women— a foreboding statistic for us, but an untapped market for big tobacco. However, the stigma against female smokers was strong.
Then, to the detriment of billions of all-American female lungs, Edward Bernays came along, answering the cigarette pushers’ cries of “what to do?” with “hold my prohibition-era-compliant beverage”.
In 1929, Bernays orchestrated a stunt during the Easter Day Parade in New York City. He hired a group of fashionable, flapping debutantes and instructed them to march in the parade while smoking cigarettes. Tipping off journalists in advance, he guaranteed that the moment was captured and framed as a spontaneous symbol of female liberation, and in a move equal parts cringey and conniving, instructed the women to refer to their cigarettes as “Torches of Freedom”.
Headlines the next day obsessed over the powerful statement. It was a masterclass of manipulation. By linking tobacco to the suffragette movement and women’s independence, Bernays had transformed smoking into a progressive, feminist act, rather than a social taboo. In the coming weeks, millions of women would embark on a life of addiction, ashtray-emptying, and “need a light?” pickup lines.
Bernays’ Torches of Freedom PR stunt was a powerful and insidious proof of concept, and it set the stage for the marketing tactics of the modern day.
Doctors’ orders
Bernays’ Torches of Freedom campaign lit the fuse, but it didn’t cause an overnight shift in the way products were advertised. The stern voice of authority brands spoke in was still alive and well. Marketing revolved around something the American advertising executive Rosser Reeves dubbed the Unique Selling Proposition.
Advertisements still primarily functioned by hammering the benefits of the product into consumers’ minds. One of Reeves’ most famous campaigns was for Anacin Aspirin — a campaign that aimed to drill the medicine’s plus points home via a killer combo of patronising pseudo-science and irritating repetition. Unlike the more high-brow entertainment offered by campaigns like Compare The Meerkat or The Drumming Gorilla, this ad isn’t remembered fondly — although it undoubtedly inspired the infamous Head On ads of the early 2000s.
From stern print ads to deep-voiced narrators and cigarette-toting, besuited hosts delivering the sponsor’s message, the brand was always positioned as the expert. And like wide-eyed whippersnappers staring up at their teacher, the audience was expected to listen, trust, and obey. Reeves believed all advertisements should be underpinned by research and based on “theory”. His campaigns hinged on matter-of-fact explanations, doctors’ recommendations, and oversimplified charts. So staunchly opposed to creativity was Reeves that he once labelled it “the most dangerous thing in all of advertising”.
However, because there are no tangible health benefits to purchasing a Cadillac, advertisers also liked to play on ideas of social class and status. Buying the latest and greatest meant being on the pulse, hip — with it.
But as consumer skepticism grew — especially in the acid-drenched 60s and disillusioned 70s — the lacquer began to wear thin. Advertisers realised they couldn’t talk down to their audiences forever, relying on status anxiety to drive sales. Their students were maturing; they wanted to feel understood, and in much the same way an aging tutor tries to get down with the kids, brands began to mirror the language and mindset of their audience. The world took one step closer to chatty copy.
Think small
Slowly, companies began making more of an effort to relate to their customers. One of the first advertising firms to do this was Doyle Dane Bernbach. DDB ran campaigns based on ideas, rather than just data-backed selling points. Their founder, Bill Bernbach, came from a quality pedigree, having previously held the position of Creative Director at Grey Advertising.
Bernbach was frustrated. Not because he couldn’t rid his mind of the Anacin commercial’s incessant cries of “FAST, FAST, INCREDIBLE PAIN RELIEF”, but because he felt advertising lacked imagination. In 1947 he wrote a now-famous letter to Grey’s board of directors that read:
“The danger lies in the temptation to buy routinised men who have a formula for advertising. The danger lies in the natural tendency to go after tried-and-true talent that will not make us stand out in competition but rather make us look like all the others[…] Let us blaze new trails. Let us prove to the world that good taste, good art and good writing can be good selling”
The board didn’t seem to care, and in a true mic-drop moment, Bernbach left Grey and started his agency, DDB, where he pioneered one of the most famous advertising campaigns of all time.
Volkswagen’s “Think Small” campaign wasn’t interested in selling a perfect product. It didn’t concern itself with thinly-veiled attempts to induce class anxiety, nor did it bombard its viewers with dumbed-down diagrams or claims that “9 out of 10 drivers recommend VW!”. Bernbach and his team didn’t pretend that the Beetle was perfect. Instead, they used dry humour and honesty, and in doing so, they turned the car’s flaws into selling points.
“It’s foreign” became “It’s built by precision-obsessed Germans.”
“It’s slow” became “It’s reliable, and you don’t need to go fast, anyway.”
“It’s ugly” became “It doesn’t follow trends, and a simple design means fewer expensive repairs.”
Before the campaign, VW sold just 330 Beetles in the US. In the year of Think Small’s launch, sales jumped to 120,000 units. By 1972, the Beetle surpassed the Ford Model T as the best-selling car of all time, with over 15 million units sold.
Over the years, DDB stuck with the formula, producing several other campaigns in the same vein as Think Small, including:
Avis — “We Try Harder”
The flaw: Avis was the #2 rental car company, behind Hertz.
The flip: Instead of pretending to be the best, Avis admitted its underdog status — and turned it into an advantage.
The message: “We’re not No.1, so we try harder.” This made the brand feel humble, hardworking, and customer-focused, resonating with The Average Joe.
Levy’s Rye Bread — “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s”
The flaw: Rye bread was seen as a niche product for Jewish consumers.
The flip: The campaign featured a diverse range of people (Black, Asian, Irish) happily eating Levy’s bread, showing it was for everyone.
The message: A friendly, inclusive, and humorous approach that made the brand feel warm and welcoming — a big shift from traditional food advertising.
Life Cereal — “Mikey Likes It”
The flaw: Parents were skeptical about a “healthy” cereal tasting good.
The flip: Instead of using a spokesman, the ad featured three kids testing the cereal — two were unsure, so they gave it to their little brother Mikey, who unexpectedly loved it.
The message: Real, everyday reactions, using natural-sounding, unscripted dialogue — a stark contrast to formal cereal ads of the time.
DDB’s campaigns marked a turning point. How brands communicated their products’ selling points became as important as the selling points themselves. It was a shift from authority to relatability. Marketing was becoming self aware.
The voice gets louder
Let’s flash forward now. It’s the 90s. Discarded Pokemon card packaging litters the streets, Tamagotchis dangle from belt loops, and The Spice Girls are ordering everyone to “slam your body down and zig-a-zig-ah”. It’s an era remembered for both outrage and optimism — the peak of celeb culture, the arrival of grunge and Britpop, the rise of the internet, and the birth of reality TV, as eerily prophesied by web savant Josh Harris.
Everywhere, boundaries were being pushed.
Shows like Jerry Springer, Big Brother and Pop Idol began to break the walls between reality and entertainment. Consumer technology leapt forwards. Mobile phones filled the oversized jean pockets of teenagers everywhere, birthing text speak — a language where disemvowelled parent-confusing sentences allowed 90s kids to plot their weekly bus shelter meet-ups in coded secrecy. Perhaps most exciting of all, personal computers became affordable. Microprocessors became cheaper and more powerful, and by the end of the decade, almost 10% of homes in the UK alone had internet access.
And amid the gyrating popstars, You’ve Been Framed injury compilations and blow-up-furniture-filled bedrooms, marketers — sensing the opportunity to cross the line — embraced the shock-and-awe trends of the decade with open arms. Brands stopped speaking and started shouting.
Benetton – “Newborn Baby” (1991)
Benetton’s United Colors of Benetton campaign was infamous for its bold, provocative imagery — none more so than the “Newborn Baby” ad from 1991. The image was striking: a newborn baby with its umbilical cord still attached, covered in blood. The intention behind the ad was to challenge society’s taboos and force people to confront issues of birth, life, and death.
It worked. The ad caused immediate outrage, and many considered it too grotesque for mainstream advertising. Some said it was a tasteless attempt to shock people into paying attention. But others admired Benetton for its audacity. In any case, one thing was clear: The ad made people think — it generated conversations about everything from reproductive rights to societal attitudes toward life’s messy realities, and somehow, it helped them sell lots and lots of clothes.
Tango – “You’ve Been Tango’d” (1992)
Coca-Cola competitor Tango used a rotund, orange-painted man in their “You’ve Been Tango’d” campaign. In it, the man charges at people, slapping them with an exaggerated, cartoonish force. The ad was chaotic, absurd, and unbeknownst to the Americans, eerily foreshadowed a soon-to-be president.
“I first knew the ad was huge when I fell asleep on the London Underground one evening. I woke up to hear a group of kids talking about and mimicking it. I wanted to go up and say: ‘I did that!’”
— Trevor Robinson, Art Director for You’ve Been Tango’d
It was all fun and games until it wasn’t. You’ve Been Tango’d was met with widespread outrage after British schoolchildren mimicked the ad in the playground, resulting in several ‘Tango horror stories’, with many suffering perforated ear drums as a result of the craze. The ads were banned by the UK Advertising Standards Authority shortly after.
Budweiser — “Wassup” (1999)
Wasssssssssssuuuuuuuuuuuup?!
In the late 90’s, Budweiser hit on the perfect formula. The ad’s premise was simple: a group of friends call each other on the phone not to talk, but to repeatedly ask the question: “Wassup?” — a heavily contracted form of “what’s up?”. It was silly, stupid, and simple. The ad was an instant sensation, with the phrase becoming so ubiquitous that it was adopted into mainstream culture, and even parodied in a movie scene.
The “Wassup” ad didn’t try to be flashy or revolutionary — it just worked. It was a perfect snapshot of male friendship, and it resonated — not just with Budweiser’s audience, but with everyone. And if you wanna get deep into the wassup lore, check out True — the little-known short film on which the ad was based.
By the tail-end of the decade, the stage for chatty copy had been set. Purchasing decisions were informed as much by vibes as they were USPs. Speaking the same language as your target audience was priority #1.
My favourite example of this brave new world of advertising? Sony’s so-blasphemous-it’s-cool “More Powerful Than God” campaign. Firmly positioning the PlayStation as a console grown-ups could enjoy too, Sony printed the ads on perforated pages. Bearing the campaign’s slogan in a psychedelic typeface, they were intended for use as filters in hand-rolled tobacco cigarettes. Ahem.
But as tastes changed through the noughties, shock and awe, sex, and violence, fell by the wayside in favour of something softer and more approachable. A warm, cutesy kind of marketing language. Brands shrunk away from the slap-in-the-face approach, opened their arms, and went in for a hug.
Blame wackaging
“Chatty copy is annoying” isn’t a hot take. It’s not even a lukewarm take. Smoothie bottles cheekily telling you “stop looking at my bottom” or oat milk headlining their ingredients section “the boring (but very important) side” isn’t a new phenomenon. Journalists and web writers have been airing their grievances with these practices for over a decade. Take this 13-year-old article from Eva Wiseman, for example. In it, she laments the (then relatively new) trend of brands attempting to get pally with their readers:
“At some point brands stopped wanting to make us sexier and richer, and instead just wanted to be our friends. It’s as though they all decided to babyproof their packaging, sanding down the corners and hard consonants, replacing “complicated” photography with crayon illustrations, including little jokes to break up the monotony of reading their calorific intake info[…] These brands are the opposite of sexy. They’re anti-sex; they stand on the other side of the brand motorway to perfumes or Nuts magazine. Is this cuteness the consequence of sex-sells branding, the answer song to all those oily boob ads? If you feed in a lorryload of thighs and innuendo at the start of a decade, does it excrete cupcakes and baby voices at the end?”
A searing review perhaps; but even back in 2012, nothing new. Travel further back into the recesses of time, and you’ll find writers complaining about coffee cups with “I’m hot” written on their sides — something Simon Hoggart referred to as the infantilisation of culture.
So, where do we point the copywriting finger of blame?
Apparently, Innocent’s inspiration for the once-unique-now-everywhere copy came from the silver screen, confirmed in this interview with Innocent’s co-founder, Richard Reed:
Is it true you were personally responsible for “wackaging” —the quirky labels that are now everywhere?
Yes, that was part of my beat. I do think, oh my God, will my long-term contribution to the species be that I was the guy who introduced really annoying body copy on packaging?
Was it an Innocent innovation?
If we can make one claim, we can make this — that was new. I’ll tell you where it came from: have you seen Kingpin?
The tenpin bowling movie with Woody Harrelson? Of course.
Well, there’s one scene, it’s not an integral scene, where somebody goes round to somebody else’s house and says: “Oh, I’m desperate for a dump, have you got anything to read on the toilet?” The guy looks around and passes him a bottle of shampoo and he looks at it and goes: “No, I’ve read this one already.” That’s where the idea came from.
According to my research, Kingpin’s script was penned by Barry Fanaro and Mort Nathan; so if you ask me, they too need to be condemned. Lock them in the stocks and pelt them with organic guavas.
What’s the problem?
Unfortunately, I turned 30 last year, so I remember a time when the witty, off-the-wall remarks printed on the side of juice cartons seemed fun — exciting, even. At first, it was surprising to see “yes, really!” printed beside “2 and a half bananas” in the list of ingredients. Tongue-in-cheek instructions for what to do if you fall up the stairs? How random!
But then every brand started to emulate it. And it got really annoying. So much so, that even now, two decades on, humanity hasn’t adjusted. At first, I thought my inability to acclimate was a symptom of age, but then I was told that this tone of voice is built with millennials in mind. So if I — an until-now closeted millennial — hate it so much, why are brands still using it?
“It’s humanising”
The argument for: Chatty copy gives the illusion of a ‘human’ product — powerful stuff in an age where AI slop and automated everything seems to be sucking the soul from marketing.
The argument against: Yes, AI-generated copy is a problem, but there’s a huge middle ground between heartless, machine-produced garble, and twee ‘please be my friend!’ chattiness. It’s fine to talk to your customers like they’re customers.
“It builds trust”
The argument for: Consumers are more wary of corporations and their slippery ways. Chatty copy helps bridge the gap between faceless companies and their customers.
The argument against: Consumers are wising up. A couple of puns on your packaging won’t convince the public that you’re a force for good. Even Innocent isn’t safe from the public’s scrutiny!
“It’s comforting!”
The argument for: Soft, playful branding makes us feel all warm and cosy.
The argument against: I don’t know about you, but I neither want nor expect my water bill to comfort me. Brands dealing in duvet covers, toilet paper, or hot chocolate? Absolutely. Companies demanding I pay them or they’ll block access to one of the basic requirements for human survival? Not fine. Context matters.
“It’s hard to move away from”
The argument for: Once you’ve gone chatty, it’s tough to change direction without alienating your customers.
The argument against: The best time to plant an apple tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is today.
Edible Geography’s Nicola Twilley once said, “If packaging is a form of literature, wackaging is the social media equivalent.” And I think that’s a brilliant way to sum it up. But it’s not really wackaging that I despise — it’s the misuse of it. It made sense for Innocent, and it was refreshing when only a handful of brands used it. Nowadays, chatty copy is practically the default, go-to tone of voice— especially online.
Mean brands
The loose ‘out of working hours’ informality adopted by brands on the web is, again, nothing new. We’ve all seen it:
- Brands announcing a rebrand by gleefully declaring “We did a thing!”
- Landing pages chirping, “Oh hey, fancy seeing you here 👀”
- T&Cs pages quipping, “Ugh, boring legal stuff — but you should probably read it”
But in recent years, the lighthearted playfulness popularised by Big Smoothie et al has given way to something more edgy. The gossip-mongering (or to use the Gen Z terminology, tea-spilling) Tyler Durden to Innocent’s Phoebe Buffay, Joe Burns calls it the “Cool Friend” ToV:
“They saw Wendy’s cracking jokes on Twitter. They read Oatly’s playful self-referential packaging. They watched Duolingo go rogue on TikTok. And just like that, a thousand brands decided the way forward was to sound like an extremely online, vaguely sarcastic, elder millennial”
In his excellent analysis of the Cool Friend voice, Joe identifies five key reasons for its enduring popularity:
- Social training: The easiest way to farm engagement is via casual snarkiness. A few playful jabs or sardonic remarks and you’re bound to see the likes and reposts roll in.
- Copycatting: Direct-to-consumer brands popularised relatable, offbeat copy, and thus attracted swarms of imitators.
- Backlash Phobia: Consumers expect brands to take a stance against political and social issues. It’s easy to avoid getting sucked into the debate by hiding behind an ironic or quirky tone of voice.
- Data: Testing generally rewards whatever is easiest to process. Over time, brands converge on the safest, most palatable version of themselves.
- Playbook paralysis: Why waste time experimenting when you can just copy whatever’s working for someone else?
But I’d like to add my own reason, too: disarming insincerity. The Cool Friend tone is far more sinister than its cutesier cousin, because it allows brands to acknowledge their own artifice. It’s a sly wink at the customer, a thinly-veiled “I don’t really care what you’re saying, just buy our stuff”. It’s got a touch of the Regina George in Mean Girls about it, positioning the brand as a friend, but also an entity above you in the social hierarchy.
For this reason, I’d suggest it’s not so much the Cool Friend tone, as it is The Popular Kid Addressing Their Underlings Tone, though I acknowledge that doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Joe also points out that (much like Regina herself) one of the biggest problems with this tone is its popularity. Much like wackaging before it, it’s become a victim of its own success. Case in point:
Of course, where social media is involved, there’s a point to be made for the individuals behind the accounts. Duolingo’s account was overhauled by a 23-year old graduate, while Wendy’s pioneering brand of online sass was developed by millennial genius Amy Brown. To a certain extent, I think the increasing informality of online copy — social or otherwise — is a symptom of millennials and zoomers grabbing hold of the creative reins.
But Sonder & Tell’s take goes one step further. They refer to the Cool Friend tone as Bestie BFF marketing, splitting the voice into three distinct archetypes…
You’ve got the Hype Hunnis, who mix group-chat lingo with exaggeration and hyperbole, and desperately want to fill you in on the goss (AKA they’ve got something to sell you.) Then, you’ve got the Unhinged Chaos Besties. These are your corporate shitposters, a 50/50 split of glam and feral — brands using this voice are liable to pick (playful) fights in the comments, love to ignore grammatical rules, and genuinely don’t seem to care whether you buy their stuff or not. And at the most extreme end of the spectrum, the Ones Who Take No Shit. These companies value honesty over everything — they love to overshare, and revel in saying the quiet part out loud.
In their breakdown, Sonder & Tell call this style of copy more than a gimmick. They talk about the way it builds a relationship, creates spaces for connection, and builds community. That may be so, but I still think their analysis is a little off the mark.
To the average observer, the bestie voices all blur together. The distinctions Sonder & Tell outline — while interesting — are an exercise in after-the-fact categorisation, not a playbook-backed reveal of established brand guidelines. The reality is that most of these brands are simply hopping on an already moving trend, piping up in the same, tired colloquial tones because they know they work. Any nuance from one Cool Friend’s voice to the next is invisible to anyone outside the marketing world. Because of this, I’m erring on the side of Joe Burns’ observation.
But what’s my personal issue with the Cool Friend tone? There are several:
Enthusiasm overload is grating, but so is irony. If every shopkeeper peppered my in-store visits with witty remarks I wouldn’t laugh, I’d leave. Everything in moderation, please.
You’re not “just like me”, you’re a brand. Terms like “adulting” are patronising, not cute — especially when they’re used by a bank.
The internet doesn’t belong to the hip young things. 46% of internet users fall within the 34+ age range. The Cool Friend tone alienates older customers.
There’s a lack of imagination. My gripe isn’t necessarily the chattiness of the copy, as much as it is the sameness of it all. You can write casual, engaging copy without impersonating a chaotic group chat. Lush is a great example of this. Their copy is approachable and fun without resorting to hyperactive internet-speak or flavour-of-the-month slang.
Where do we go from here?
Something fresh and exciting clicks, everyone copies it, and a new equilibrium is established. We saw it with wackaging. We’re seeing it now with the Cool Friend voice, and in the coming years, we’ll see it again.
Scientific authority was the flavour of the 50s and 60s. By the 70s, brands were becoming self-aware, and the end of the millennium was defined by shock and spectacle. And now, we’re deep in the age of irony-laced, terminally online marketing.
Just like clockwork, every brand is beginning to sound the same — that we’re able to detect this is a clear indicator we’re entering oversaturation. But oversaturation creates a vacuum for differentiation. While everyone else is figuring out how to use words like “rizz” or “serving” in an authentic way, there’s money left on the table.
To use an age-old copywriting cliche: Everyone’s zigging, so it’s time to zag.
If the Cool Friend era is all about brands pretending to be our mates, then the next shift might be defined by those willing to take a step back.
Personally, I’d like to see a resurgence of straight-talking clarity. Copy that’s warm but direct. Product pages that explain the benefits while leaving enough room to let the item speak for itself. Death to gimmickry. Minimalism over memes. “Think Smarter”. Communication that’s intentional and considered, with zero fluff. I’d like to see copywriters killing their darlings, penning slogans that stand out precisely because they’re not trying too hard.
The future belongs to brands willing to funnel their energy into developing a voice all of their own. If you’d like some help with that, you’re in the right place. Contact our team today.
