Safe content doesn't get remembered

That first line is more or less a quote. Here’s how Matt Navarra, a social media consultant who’s advised Google, Meta, the BBC, and 10 Downing Street, put it in Charlie Oscar’s 2026 report:

The safest thing a brand can do is optimise every creator partnership into blandness, then call it best practice. Same hooks. Same transitions.

Same hooks. Same transitions. The report has a word for what this produces at scale: slop. Eerie AI affiliates, identical TikTok Shop scripts, the same products passing from account to account. Even credible creators are now parodying the tactics that pay them.

Sameness is your opening, not your problem

Audiences are fatigued. They’re scrolling through sameness, hoping something finally surprises them. So the thing that feels risky (having a point of view, doing something that isn’t the template) is actually the thing that gets seen.

You don't need to be controversial for the sake of it, but you do need to be distinctive. Safe content rarely gets seen or even remembered.

Distinctive, not controversial. There’s a difference, and it matters. You’re not trying to start a fight. You’re trying to make something only you could have made.

Lean into your lore

The strongest example in the report is Philadelphia working with a “spicy” voice actor known for a very particular narration style. Instead of asking him to tone it down for a brand, they leaned all the way into the thing he’s known for. The narration became an asset other creators played with too, from food accounts to book accounts. The schtick was the point.

Your lore is the same. The bit, the format, the running joke, the thing your audience shows up for. That’s not a distraction from the brand work. It’s the reason the brand work lands. A brand that asks you to drop it is asking you to be worse at your own job.

How to hold your nerve when a brand wants you safe

Push back on the brief, politely but clearly. Show them the numbers: your best-performing content is almost always the stuff with a point of view, not the stuff that reads like an ad. Offer them a version that’s actually yours, alongside the safe one if they need the comfort. And if they still want vanilla, price it as vanilla and take the fee. Just know what you’re selling.

The brands worth keeping will get it. The report’s whole argument is that the ones who win are the ones with the nerve to let creators be distinctive. Your job is to make that the easy choice.