Insights
06/08/2024
A brand TOV (tone of voice) is an essential building block when you’re creating a durable and distinctive brand. How a brand speaks creates its personality, just as much as how it looks. Here are 9 ways to build a brand TOV:
The best place to start with building a tone of voice is with the product or service. What does the brand deliver? This can make a huge difference to the way you talk about it. For example the tone of voice for a children’s nursery will be vastly different to that of an undertaker. Who wants a hushed, reverent and formal kindergarten? Or a bouncy, fun filled, enthusiastic undertaker?
(Here at Undertakers Inc we live and breathe death. Everyday is a new corpse and a new sense of funereal possibility! And we can’t wait to make your nightmare our dream. Just give us a buzz on our Dearly Departed Hotline — 0800 — AFTERLIFE — and quote this promo code — 1234RIP — to get 10% off your first burial”)
Agreed, this bit isn’t rocket science, but don’t worry, it gets a little less obvious as we go along.
Talking to the people behind a brand gives you a good insight into the tone that already exists. Of course, this can change, and it may need to. But whatever you create for the brand needs to be easily used and adopted by the people who represent it and write for it daily. In the case of smaller organisations, the brand and the people who represent it can be very closely aligned, as they are the ones writing and presenting most of the material produced, be that emails, presentations, the website or whatever. For larger organisations, it’s more a case of understanding the culture and making sure the brand aligns – or at least doesn’t clash with it.
If the people you meet are all a bunch of sweary mavericks, they’re going to struggle to represent a reserved and conservative brand voice. Similarly, a bunch of mild mannered, bespectacled actuaries may find themselves at odds with a brand that’s too ‘rock ‘n’ roll’.
It’s always worth asking some fundamental questions about a company. The most basic one being, why do you exist? It’s not an easy one to answer but there is a reason every company set up in the first place, and a reason it still exists. Uncovering that history will help you appreciate the DNA of the company and – even if it’s evolved over time – help you build a brand TOV that is based in truth. As Bob Marley sang, “If you know your history, then you would know where you coming from”. It’s as true for a Buffalo Soldier as it is for a brand.
Who is the brand trying to appeal to? Is it a B2B brand in a highly technical space? (We’ve worked for a few of those.) In which case you’ll need to be up to speed with their level of knowledge and understanding, and some of the language of the sector. Is it a consumer audience? In which case, be as specific as possible.
For example, ‘people who buy cars’ is a very expensive strategy for a brand and only someone with the very deepest pockets would attempt it (although it wouldn’t be very smart – or even Smart). Whereas ‘drivers in western Europe, predominantly women aged 35-50, who are more interested in functionality and value for money than the kudos of an exclusive badge’ gives you a much clearer target to aim at when building a brand TOV.
It’s not enough to be right, a brand needs to stand out. Being aware of the other players in your brand’s competitive set is crucial. To help with this, it’s always worth asking the question, “Market Share or Market Growth?’. In other words, is your brand a challenger to the big players, that wants to carve out a niche by doing something different and distinctive? Or is it a major, well-established and trusted brand that will benefit from simply growing the market? Clue: if your brand always comes up first on Google, you’re probably in the market growth category.
Similarly, if you’re appealing to people who have never tried your product or service before, a market share strategy that focuses on your brand’s difference won’t connect with anyone who hasn’t done their homework. However, market share strategies tend to be the most noticeable and exciting – they’re often challenger brands, thumbing their noses at the establishment. Think Virgin, Aldi, or Liquid Death. Understanding the competition is the surest way to build a brand TOV you can ‘own’.
Where is the brand going? Where is the market going? A brand TOV needs to have enough flex in it to appeal to your audience, not just today but in five, ten, twenty years’ time. It’s useful to understand the ambitions of the company behind the brand. If it’s a cheeky niche brand today, are they happy for it to remain so, or is there a plan for massive investment that will make it dominant? Are there trends in the marketplace that could mean that, for example, a brand that started renting DVDs by mail in 1997, might need to pivot its brand TOV in order to remain relevant?
Where will the brand TOV you’re building be most expressed? If the answer is the website, how is that used? Is it a ‘digital brochure’ that explains what the brand does, and the services provided? Or is it an e-retail site, with high traffic and lots of products and prices? The two are very different in terms of frequency of visit (a ‘brochure site may only be visited by the same user once or twice, while an e-retailer may be visited weekly), and use of brand TOV. You don’t want to be trying to squeeze too much out of every product description on a retail platform – that could just be annoying.
Other media might include video or events and conferences. Or it might be mainly the paperwork and presentations the brand makes in its sales process. In all cases, understanding the medium will greatly inform how you build the brand TOV.
This one sounds obvious, but believe us, it isn’t. It’s very easy to set up a brand via brainstorm, where every adjective anyone can think of is faithfully recorded and a meaningless mission statement is sellotaped together from the fragments. Take Cisco, “To shape the future of the internet by creating unprecedented value and opportunity for our customers, employees, investors, and ecosystem partners”. Is it any wonder that Cisco hasn’t built a distinctive brand TOV?
Understanding good writing means appreciating the principles of AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action). In other words, respecting your audience and making them care enough to act. All good writing does this, from a novel to a political speech, a newspaper article to a tweet. And of course, as we’ve pointed out before, most of (good) writing is editing, so giving yourself time and space to question what you’ve written, hone it and perfect it is crucial to building a brand TOV that will connect with people meaningfully.
Finally, we’ve built our own brand on the motto Don’t Bury Your Brilliance. It’s our job to dig into what makes our clients’ brands special, different and enduring, and to articulate it distinctively. It’s surprising how many brands have forgotten what makes them brilliant, and have ended up focusing their efforts on communicating esoteric or irrelevant benefits. (Instead of reminding people of the key reasons to choose their brand over any other.) We uncover that buried brilliance and ensure brands shine and are proud of their unique brilliance – whatever market they’re in.
To find out what Craft can do for you, please get in touch.
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