A colleague of mine recently shared a set of photos from his supermarket visit. Every corner was plastered with the annual marketing spectacle called ‘Back to School.’ My social feeds and the expensive, strategically located billboards across town weren’t any different either.
Sadly though, I couldn’t tell one brand from another. Even for someone in advertising, it was impossible to distinguish them. They all had the same messages, the same visuals, the same offers.
That’s a shame. Back-to-School is one of the few cultural moments that genuinely resonates here. From a marketing perspective. It’s not as significant as Ramadan, but significant nevertheless. There’s a treasure trove of emotions waiting to be tapped. Yet what we got was “10% off backpacks,” “buy one of this and get one of that free,” and stock (or AI) images of smiling kids.
On the surface, these campaigns tick their boxes. Sales happen (the bigger the offer, the better the numbers, most likely), reports are filed, everyone moves on to the next brief. But beneath that, something more damaging takes root: the erosion of brand distinctiveness.
Strong brands are built on difference. If every message looks the same, the brand becomes wallpaper. And when a brand is allowed to blend into the background, climbing back into people’s minds takes years, and far bigger budgets.
It’s a bit like antibiotics. They provide quick relief, but overuse weakens the body’s natural defenses. Generic campaigns do the same. They deliver a short-term sales bump, but weaken brand resilience in the long run.
What’s worse is the lost potential. Back-to-school could have captured the nerves and joy of a child’s first day, empathised with parents juggling routines, or even sparked nostalgia for grown-ups remembering their own school years. These are human stories, universal and relatable. They don’t need Cannes budgets, just imagination. They could have built connections that lasted beyond the sale. Instead, what we got was uniformity.
Who’s responsible? Both sides. Marketers who brief only for “seasonal sales campaigns with quick ROI” shouldn’t be surprised when that’s all they get. Agencies who present tired, lowest-risk ideas are just as guilty. When the work is nothing more than an emotionless sales pitch, everyone loses: brands, agencies, and of course the audience, who could have been treated to something memorable.
And then, of course, a few years later, when top-of-mind recall is weak, brands are compelled to roll out “emotional,” “human” campaigns to stand apart. Millions are spent to fix the very problem the brand spent millions creating in the first place.
Advertising isn’t cheap. To spend precious marketing budgets producing campaigns nobody can associate with your brand is wasteful at best and destructive at worst. At that point, it’s not spending to grow the brand. It’s spending to bury it.
By Manoj Ammanath, Brand Partner, Rain Creative
