What is cliché?
A cliché is a phrase or expression that was once vivid but has been so overused that it now signals lazy writing more than whatever it originally meant. "At the end of the day," "think outside the box," "move the needle" and "low-hanging fruit" all started as useful metaphors and became placeholders for thinking. Clichés still communicate, but they communicate the writer's lack of effort more than the specific idea.
Cliché: At the end of the day, we need to think outside the box to move the needle on this initiative.
Fresh: We need a new approach here. The current one has stalled.
Why does cliché matter?
Clichés make brand writing forgettable, which is the opposite of what voice is supposed to do. Every cliché is a missed chance to sound like your brand instead of every other brand, and the cost compounds across a page or a campaign. The risk of avoiding clichés is reaching for strained metaphors that are worse than the tired phrase, so the goal is plain phrasing first and fresh images second. Cutting the cliché usually makes the sentence better, even if nothing replaces it.
How do you use cliché?
Keep a team list of clichés your brand has banned, starting with the ones that appear most often in your existing content.
When you catch one in a draft, replace it with the plainest version of the underlying idea before trying to invent a fresh alternative.
Add a cliché watch-list to your Brivvy brand voice so every generated draft flags tired phrases for review automatically.
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