Why would you trust a copycat?
Unless you’re looking for something cheap, shoddy, and just waiting to crumble, you probably wouldn’t buy something from one. The discount brands you find at dollar stores are intentionally trying to look like copies of better-known brands—and before long, they fall apart.

When trends evolve, copycats lag behind, looking for something new and flashy to rip off. The worst ones are outright frauds, like fake universities, or airlines that suddenly go under and strand their passengers or restaurant chains that drain investors but never open.

There’s probably not a faster way to undermine your organization, discourage your team, and break trust with your customers than being a copycat.

When it comes to branding, the high road is also the best one.

Rather than going superficial, whether that’s scraping something together arbitrarily, mimicking whoever leads your industry, lying, or outright copying—doing the work of discovering your authentic identity gives you the foundation for a brand and look that will connect and resonate with those around you.

After all, you’re remarkable.

And your potential clientele needs you as you are.

https://youtu.be/gkuDNBA51MU
Stealing from Another Brand is… Stealing
You’re not a criminal.

You wouldn’t steal someone’s laptop, car, purse… or even an Amazon package leaned against your neighbor’s front door (besides, there’s a good chance that one’s got a glitter bomb with a camera inside).

But when it comes to superficial branding, ripping off logos, color schemes, concepts, or whole stories—well, that’s different, right?

Not really.

Even if you don’t face charges for it (and you might).

Copying someone’s brand comes quick and easy, and probably masks an organization’s insecurity about itself, its values, or what it offers. It gives the impression of having solved something, but just like that knock-off denim from the dollar store, it fades and frays real fast.

It’s often easy to produce “copycat creative” — ways of expressing your brand that are duplicates of whatever seemed to work for somebody else. Imposter syndrome expresses itself through copying, rather than being genuinely creative.

Because you’re not comfortable with your organization’s real identity, you try to shield or deflect people from it by displaying an identity that you think they’ll like better.
You’re Different. Act Like it.
“Copycat creative” might mean using a variation on a color scheme that a company you admire uses. It might mean trying to write in the same voice and tone and that your competition writes in. It might mean using a certain template you’ve seen somewhere else, or choosing images that you imagine your competition using.

It’s googling, “what brands do millennials like?” and forwarding the results to your marketing team with the message, “do that”.

If a certain brand expression is working for your competitor, it isn’t as though they have a magical logo or website layout. What’s working for them is that their brand matches the reality their employees and customers experience, and so it produces trust.

You’re different from your competitor. Maybe it worked for them, but it probably won’t work for you.
Tell Your Own Story
Let other brands tell their story. It will get exhausting trying to keep up appearances and live out a story that doesn’t fit you. Your identity has a grain to it, like a piece of wood, and it will wear you out to constantly try to cut against the grain. Tell your own story.

Other companies are just as capable as you are of copying and pasting whatever the industry leader is doing. Copycat branding is as easy for your competitors as it is for you.

All things are as valuable as they are rare, and so people only pay a premium for preeminent products. If you look and feel basically like all of the other competitors you have, then the only way you have left to compete is on price.

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