The first good news is that those boring ones do not have to prove that consumers need them. We buy toilet paper or light bulb regardless of how many brand image campaigns were implemented. However, this advantage alone is, of course, not enough to become the favourite product among buyers.
The second good news is connected to this. Normally, the competition for the awareness among this type of products is not very intensive, as the brands themselves do not create it. So why not to steal all the spotlight from under the nose of others before they even think about it?

When you are not edible, not appropriate to be a detail of some image or to become a gift, then you should talk about yourself in a different way. First of all, you need to admit that your product, as an object of advertising, is sometimes simply…strange. In my opinion, this is the first step towards a brilliant campaign. Creativity for the boring ones is simply a must.
Self-irony. You can keep a serious tone and talk about “the exceptional quality of this printing paper”. In other words, simply choose the usual way: here’s our brand -> it’s very good. Or you and the audience can laugh from the fact that people don’t really care about which printing paper they are printing on. By expressing the idea: “we understand that you don’t know us…” and subtly mentioning your value, you will attract the attention to yourself and stay in the memory at least for a little while. And in the context of other printing paper manufacturers, that little while will already be something.
Surprise. Those brands that mastered the art of storytelling, tend to spend more time on screen telling a story, that builds an emotional relationship with the consumer, rather than focuses on the advertised product itself. Hooray! This means that the possibilities here are even for everyone – both, the fashionable sport shoes and the bathroom tiles. A story will bring you to a beautiful ending, where, after revealing the brand identity, will come admiration and maybe even some emotional bond. Doesn’t matter if you are an insurance company, Google photos or this bore, this only confirms that not so often the products, that appear in the ads can use surprise as their trump card.
A little bit of foolishness. For ordinary products, it is worthwhile to bring more life. The oddly ridiculous, somewhat absurd ideas help to do that. This step, though a bit risky (what if it is funny only to us?), seems to be created for the grey products – the more ordinary and daily-used product is, the more laughter its advertising campaign decisions bring. Such tactic has been well mastered and continued to master by Old Spice, that has showed its first advertisement of an oddly ridiculous campaign 9 years ago.
Education. Instead of trying to sparkle in the ads, it is possible to create real benefits to a consumer in a quiet, modest but meaningful way. To answer the questions that are important to him/her, help to solve a problem and thus, find a way to his/her heart in good faith. You can write a blog and discuss topics, related to home cleaning (and be one of the cleaning tools); or create an educational content for social networks on how to bring the obsolete items at home to a second life (and be the super strong glue that glues the details of those items). The most important thing for the brand in this case is not to become even more boring than it already is. Therefore, one of the most essential elements to get into the spotlight remains the idiosyncratic, distinctive communication.

Some products may brag for being more eloquent than a thousand words and others are only meant to clean up the carpet stains. However, it is not worth to follow the steps of the attractive ones. Leave the winged words and dithyrambs to them. The grey ones understand that it is not worth lying that they will bring more colours to the lives of their consumers. However, they also know what power these colours have in advertising campaigns.