A Victoria Sponge is a classic yet unremarkable cake. It has none of the hipster cool of cupcakes swirled with elaborate toppings, none of the naughty indulgence of a rich chocolate cake and none of the warming comfort of fruit cake. It’s a simple vanilla sponge with strawberry jam inside and a dusting of icing sugar on top. It screams “I can’t be bothered [making something special].”
It is never going to create a social media storm, nor will it win Great British Bake Off showstopper challenge. At best, your granny might say that it’s “nice.”
Don’t Impress Your Granny
Nice is boring. Boring is forgettable. Nice is a well-designed business card, a tri-fold leaflet, a glossy A6 postcard that seemed like a good idea at the time. Nice is what everyone else does. Which is why you need to avoid it like a soggy bottom.
Nice Is a Soggy Bottom
When you hand someone your business card, they’ll glance at it, maybe even turn it over in their hands, because it’s social etiquette. They may murmur ‘that’s nice‘ which is like Paul Hollywood saying “interesting” as you explain your flavours to him (a Hollywood-ism that should set off alarm bells as it rarely works out well).
When you give someone your card, you want to hear a sharp intake of breath, watch their eyebrows hide under their fringe as the person reaches for their phone, takes a photo and shares it with all their followers on Instagram. At the very least, you should ‘OMG That is Awesome!‘ gush out of their mouth.
Don’t look at what everyone else is doing, because most people are peddling the Victoria Sponge of marketing – nice, safe and boring.
Did you keep trying designs until your card made you go “WOW” before you printed hundreds of them? If you don’t want to frame your own business card because you are stupendously proud of how amazing it is, then keep changing it until you are.
Because unless you feel excited, or scared or amazed by it, then you have just put strawberry jam in yet another vanilla sponge.
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