Forbidden cliche

A forbidden cliche is a phrase a brand explicitly bans from its content — typically a generic AI tell ("excited to announce", "level up", "transform your business") or industry buzzword whose presence flattens the brand voice.

Most AI-generated marketing content reads as obviously AI because the same handful of cliches recur across every tool: chirpy openers, "thrilled to share", "in today’s fast-paced world", em-dash filler phrases. Forbidden-cliche lists are how brands fight back — an explicit ban list the generator checks against before output ships.

Quality implementations catch cliches at two points: in the system prompt (so the model is steered away from them up front) and in a post-generation check (so anything that slipped through is flagged or auto-rewritten). The list is brand-specific because what reads as cliche to one brand is the genuine voice of another.

Audiences increasingly pattern-match AI tells in under three seconds. A brand whose content uses two or three of the standard cliches per post is paying for visibility while signalling "this is not really us".