Why a consistent tone of voice is a like a stick of rock

stick of rock

Blackpool rock has the same words all the way through. But few brands are rocking the same level of consistency.

Have you noticed how many brands suddenly flip between matey informality and legalese?

Or from a person-to-person voice to impenetrable corporate gobbledygook? It’s annoying and disappointing. But worse, it can be confusing and a fast way to lose hard-won customers.

Whereas the converse is true. If every aspect of your communications have been thought about and carefully considered, your customers feel rewarded. After all, if you’ve put so much thought and effort in here, you probably won’t have cut corners elsewhere.

Take (away) Puccino’s. A chain of coffee outlets at train stations in the Southeast of England. Their secret ingredient is Waldo Pancake, an illustrator and humourist called Jim Smith. Jim/Waldo has been let loose across all of Puccino’s advertising and merchandise, from their ‘stupid little biscuits’:

consistent TOV

To their many wry takes on the conventions of food retail:

consistent TOV

But visit the Puccino’s website and the tone is wholly different.

Perhaps the excuse is that some of the site is aimed at a different audience (franchisees). However, the parts that are customer-facing, such as the online shop and coffee information still feel like a totally different brand.

It’s not incorrect but it’s not consistent either.

There are faint echoes of the Waldo Pancake style in the use of the hand-drawn typeface and photos of things like the ‘stupid’ biscuits and staff wearing branded T-shirts. But nothing in the writing or tone of voice. At all.

Take this header,

It’s factual. It’s friendly. But it’s hard to feel it’s from the same brand as this:

consistent tov

Does it matter? Sure does.

Don’t you feel a sense of deflation when you get to the site? It wouldn’t take much to add some sparkle and wit. And it’s baffling why they haven’t. Especially when the brand has embraced witty observation everywhere else.

The Waldo Pancake approach has presumably worked, given they’ve stuck to it for so long, so why the lack of confidence here? Is it a contractual issue with Jim Smith? Or a disconnect in the internal team (someone different is in charge of the website, perhaps.) Who knows?

The issue of tonal consistency is something we were acutely aware of when we launched the Craft Words website.

In our internal guidelines we state,

“We’re a writing agency who trusts in the power of words to make a difference in the world. We believe that when you choose the right word and put it to work, it can make all the difference.As a brand, we are Considered: We weigh every word. Every one we add is a considered, defendable choice that earns its place. Harmonious: Everything just works in unison – creating an overall harmony that captivates the reader.”

If we didn’t practise what we preached, we wouldn’t expect you to listen to our advice.

That’s why we’ve weighed up every word, sentence, and paragraph on our site.

Even the privacy policy. Readers have a rough idea what these policies are about. Unfortunately, the standard method is to paste them in from a lawyer, or another site. That’s why these kinds of pages are normally filled with generic, impenetrable stodge (if you ever read them).

We took a different view. We wanted every nook and cranny of our brand to reflect our commitment to carefully considered language. To lapse into formal legalese just wasn’t our bag.

So instead of the usual cookie-cutter paragraph, we say,

“We may collect your personal identification information (such as your email) in a few ways. Like when you visit our site (thank you), subscribe to our newsletter (thanks again), and any other fun things we add to our site. We only collect this if you say it’s okay. We cool?”

Next time you eat a stick of Blackpool rock (or Brighton or Great Yarmouth – other seaside varieties are available), look out for the words petering out halfway through.