Brand Personality - Voice and Tone

Brand Personality -  Voice & Tone

A brand's voice and tone are integral components of the brand personality. When applied consistently well, the brand voice is highy recognizable like a friend whose voice you recognize, even before you can see him or her. In other words, if your content appeared alone, ie without a logo or other cues, and if among that of competitors, your customers should be able to recognize your brand (ie strong brand awareness). As with any other aspect of brand strategy, brand voice design starts with considering the type of communication with which the target customer will  resonate. From that basis, the brand creates its voice accordingly. To be clear, voice includes any type of content; from social media content management, webpages to video, email autosignatures, product pages, the responses that your sales representative gives, the images in an advertisement and so on.

Brand style guidelines include communication instructions for your brand's content creators. Since the brand's voice must be consistent, instructions commonly have precise specifications with 1) goal regarding the desired emotional customer reaction 2) brand voice keywords, 3) tone instructions, 4) style tips and 5) any other noteworthy points.

1) Goals may be written as mini mission statements for the voice. Here are some examples. 

Mailchimp talks of "writing empowering content" which in short is essentially a mission 'to write empowering content'. 

Atlassian (that provides networking software to virtual team members) gives software creators 5 mission statements to "inform to build trust", "empower to inspire action", "encourage people along the path", "motivate by showing possibilities", "satisfy by meeting expectations" and "delight with unexpectedly pleasing experiences".

Extended goal / mission statements also sound much like a movie director's instructions to an actor on how to play a specific role. For instance, brands specify whether creators' content should sound like a trustworthy friend that makes customers feel secure (the 'innocent'), a wise teacher (the 'sage'), pampered (the 'lover') and so on. 

Mailchimp goes on to explain this mission in greater detail. Notice how they even name the role content players must act with the words "like experienced and compassionate business partner". I am unsure whether they provide content creators with details on how, to use their words, Mailchimp walked in their customers' shoes and know marketing technology is a minefield of confusing terminology. However by having shown their ability to relate, they provide a backstory to help creators to essentially pretend in their minds to be Mailchimp insiders who had those experiences and developed empathetic feelings for newcomers and, in turn, to recognize the need to "educate without patronizing or confusing" customers on behalf of Mailchimp.

we’ve walked in our customers' shoes, and we know marketing technology is a minefield of confusing terminology. That’s why we speak like the experienced and compassionate business partner we wish we’d had way back when.

We treat every hopeful brand seriously. We want to educate people without patronizing or confusing them.

Using offbeat humor and a conversational voice, we play with language to bring joy to their work. We prefer the subtle over the noisy, the wry over the farcical. We don't take ourselves too seriously.

Whether people know what they need from us or don’t know the first thing about marketing, every word we say informs and encourages. We impart our expertise with clarity, empathy, and wit.

Atlassian tells their creators to "write as if you are a wizened member of the team." Then they go on to explain that looks like. "Show up at the right time and be open, humble, and warm - offer direction for the most appropriate next steps and get out of the way." 

2) Brand voice keywords are adjectives like 'plainspoken', 'bold', 'optimistic' and so on (as pictured in bold print immediately below). Even though these keywords are usually commonly known vocabulary, brands define each word further to avoid variant interpretations. Notice how this often involves lots of other adjectives. They take no chances of ambiguity. For instance, like keyword #1 below, brands also establish boundaries that are 'do nots'. They often do this by highlighting how different their voice should be to a potential misinterpretation. For instance, after they describe how "the world' often speaks with "hypobolic language, upsells and over-promises", Mailchimp then stresses that "we strip all that away and value clarity above all".

Atlassian has 3 voice keywords 'bold', 'optimistic' and 'practical with a wink' (which they discussed in the 'personality' section of the introductory part of the document but go into even further detail in the 'Voice' section). They explain that creators should "inform by being open and clear on what people are experiencing in our products. It's about telling them what they need to know at that moment and nothing more." 

Designing a brand voice: voice keywords

A common practice is to establish roughly 3 voice keywords for content creators to apply to their brand voice. Consequently, these 3 words are pivotal elements of brand style guidelines.

Brand managers along with key content creators and communicators create and periodically finetune these keywords with a brand voice chart like the one immediately below (with examples that may correspond with the 'innocent' personality trait).

 

Voice characteristic	Description	Do	Don't
Authentic	We provide you with everything you will possibly need to do task X; tools and information.	-communicate directly and honestly (ie to be plain-spoken). - own up up to and address mistakes.	- overpromise - use jargon - push inappropriate products - distract with entertainment and hype
Emotionally intelligent	We want to understand and meet your needs directly.	- listen closely - observe - adapt to your needs	- make hasty assumptions - keep talking without checking on your emotional state.
Passionate (Brand evangelical)	We incorporate the brand's core values in our personal lives.	- use power words in describing the benefits of [the X cause re core values] - share our personal stories and those of others like you.	- do not use the passive tense. - use clichés or lukewarm language.

 

A brand voice chart is a live document that should be created and updated with input from others that include content creators and sales staff. Most importantly, check that content creators understand the raison d'etre and how to apply the keywords. This involves integrating the voice keywords into all aspects of human resources; from as early as: listing the (soft) skills you must look for during the recruitment and selection process; including this information in the onboarding process of new employees and content creators; or  testing and retesting their value and currency with internal and external persons related with the brand. 

Testing and retesting usually involves convening at intervals with key content creators and communicators for their feedback on what worked, what did not and ideal content.

These voice keywords are usually found and discussed in the brand personality part (of the 'Introductory') and or brand voice part (of the 'Contents' section) within the 'Brand style guidelines' document. 

3) Tone. If the brand voice is the spoken manifestation of the fixed brand personality, then tone is transient, like a mood! 

Difference between the brand voice and tone. 

As suggested above, the brand voice focuses on maintaining the emotional relationship with customers. All brands share the challenge of encouraging customers to trust the brand. However, some industries lend to certain emotional connections more than others. For instance, health care aims to encourage customers to feel cared for, financial services encourage customers to feel they can trust a brand, snacks encourage customers to feel that the latter can have fun with the brand. Brand style guidelines therefore respond directly to triggering these emotional states. The brand voice is fixed. Its goal is always to achieve a predetermined emotional state in the target customer.

While related, the tone of voice is adaptable. It is like the emotionally intelligent aspect of the voice that recognizes subtle differences among target customers and then adjusts how to still achieve the fixed goal of the voice.

For instance, if your brand sells financial investment services and aims to engender trust. While the voice will involve sharing basic product information, the tone recognizes that the nervous old lady who has no knowledge of financial risk management fits the 'amiable' buyer personality type and must be coddled. She is never going to catch on to hefty finance concepts and your fancy graphs. Focusing on those things will quickly lose any potential for gaining her trust. However, she wants to know that the client representative is someone with whom she has rapport, someone who understands her financial circumstances and take care of her. Conversely, a client who is a trader with an advanced degree in Finance fits the  'assertive' buyer personality type needs you to TONE DOWN your coddling but TONE UP your show of expertise in order to win over his trust. He would question your smarts if you tried to coddle him. However, you will win him over with demonstrably deep knowledge in Finance and can talk with him on his level, with the hard facts and figures to support everything you say.

The key however, is that, at the end of the day, both types of customer reach a high level of trust in your brand. All brands discuss emotional intelligence with creators.

In their 'Tone' section, Mailchimp tells creators to "consider the reader's state of mind [...] Once you have an idea of their emotional state, you can adjust your tone accodingly."

As pictured immediately below, when discussing tone, Atlassian diagramatically explains when creators should tone up or down some aspect of the voice. Here they expressly say to tone down 'boldness' when the person is apprehensive, confused, etc and give specific scenarios when this is likely to happen like when the person is new. They also specify places where this can happen like "error messages". Having clearly already done requisite data mining, they have prepared all of these instructions regarding toning up and or down voice elements within the context of each of the 5 goals in turn.

Here is another example.

4) Style tips 

Style tips covers many areas that might also appear in other sections of a brand's content style guidelines. They always discuss level of formality. Other very common points relate to level of humor. See examples below for other types of tips.  

Mailchimp content style guidelines provide style tips in the following way.

Style tips

Here are a few key elements of writing Mailchimp’s voice. For more, see the Grammar and mechanics section.

• Active voice Use active voice. Avoid passive voice.
• Avoid slang and jargon Write in plain English.
• Write positively Use positive language rather than negative language.

5) Other noteworthy points. 

Brand voice, tone & style in action

When discussing brand mascots (another powerful manifestation of the personality), I mentioned the snack brand Cheetos' Chester Cheetah's Twitter account. (The brand has since changed their brand voice. However, their old brand voice is a noteworthy case study). Pay special attention to that earlier content, language and even punctuation. The language was very informal. Consistent with his character and tagline 'dangerously cheesey', Chester sounded like a teenager. He broke punctuation rules, used slang, emoticons and spoke of misadventure while attempting to get the snack. 

 

Clearly, brand style guidelines were created because the brand's voice, tone and style were consistent across media. See video compilation of Chester Cheetah commercials.

Based only on the video and social media posts, I gather that this brand's guidelines likely suggest the following.

Goal(s) & role:

• Goal: 
• To make adolescent peers to think the brand (and their mascot Chester) are 'cool' and funny. (video content)
• To encourage adolescents to obey the call to action "get your own!" (written content)
• Role: to speak as if he is an American adolescent who conspires with peers in mischief.

Voice keyword(s):

• cheesy (obviously joking, slapstick and over the top, a pun for the cheese flavor of the snack)

Tone:

Style(s):

• Extremely casual speech. Regarding written social media content; anything goes! Rules regarding punctuation and spelling should be broken. Use many icons and emoticons that are over the top in nature (like bang and stars around the head). However, content should remain child-safe. For instance, it should exclude malicious forms of violence, aggressiveness and indecent language.
• Smooth and sly acting.

Cultural sensitivity

Brands sometimes attempt to capitalize on popular catch phrases that originate as part of the signature voice of minority groups. The sting that such groups feel is intensified when this cultural exploitation occurs amidst ongoing discrimination against such groups, especially by the cultural appropriating brand. For instance, after a black rapper called Meghan the Stallion coined the term 'hot girl Summer' in 2019, it became popular, motivating millions of social media users to join her 'hot girl Summer movement'. in July of that same year when a customer of the fast food chain, Wendy's commented on liking one of their drinks, Wendy's tweeted that that drink was the 'official drink of hot girl Summer'. However, the black community had experienced incidents of racial intimidation by that brand's representatives within recent history. One such incident includes when some Wendy's employees slipped a racist note (with the word 'niggar') into a black 7-year old's kid's meal package and then initially put the mother out of the restaurant when she complained to management.

Brands should encourage creators to research words, sayings, movements and concepts thoroughly before applying them to branding material. 

CONTENT RELATED TO BRAND PERSONALITY - VOICE & TONE

Branding

Brand style guidelines 101

Communication style guidelines - Mailchimp

Communication style analysis - Coca Cola

Social media 101

Brand voice - taglines

Brand personality

Brand positioning, strategy

Brand awareness strategy

Social media content management: Content planning involves first understanding your target customer. This includes preferences regarding how you sell to him or her (aka the 'buying personality' type). In turn, this should inform your brand and tone.