Tone of voice is a consistent brand asset that is a reflection of the brand’s personality. Beyond the visual, tone of voice can offer a depth to a brand creating further consumer connection and ensuring clarity of the brand purpose.
Tone of voice constitutes the tone of the brand’s words and the language used to communicate with consumers through the brand experience. A strong brand tone of voice will ensure consistency of communication across all consumer touch points: packaging, visual communications, social media content, advertising and even the more formal aspects of the brand experience such as customer service, and online forms.
Consistency is key to building strong brands and when it comes to tone of voice this is important to ensure the brand communicates as intended, and attracts the right customers, avoiding confusion and miscommunication.
In reflecting the brand personality in a consistent way, the brand ensures a deeper connection with consumers ensuring they are top of mind when it comes to time to purchase and recommend.
In order to see how tone of voice can be used successfully in branding I have chosen a handful of brands that do it well, that we can learn from.
Aussie
Aussie the haircare brand do well to communicate an approachable and playful brand personality in their communications on and off pack. In advertising they use a little self-deprecation to show a vulnerability and humour, which connects with a youthful audience ensuring their brand is seen as approachable and fun.
Around the pack and through social media communications, they use playful wording to bring interest to the product descriptor or instructions and allow the fun, young personality to come across, along with the occasional Australian phrase, highlighting their brand story and point of difference.
Nando’s
Capitalising on the concept of a “cheeky Nando’s”, this brand knows how to communicate with their audience in a playful and entertaining way. Its casual and relaxed tone is reflective of their dining experience of the same nature ensuring they connect with the right customers.
With their napkins, as a relatively low cost form of marketing, they can react to current events, which can enhance shareability through user-generated social media content.
ALDI
Aldi position themselves as a low-cost version of branded products, something they celebrate in no-nonsense comparison advertising.
With such a marketing strategy their packaging and products can often walk the line of copyright infringement, but in owning it they have managed to create an approachable tone of voice for their brand and create a positive association with consumers.
The legal case with Marks and Spencer over their blatant rip off of Colin the Caterpillar, the chocolate log cake, blew up online at the time. But with some clever and well-timed tweets, the brand was able to use it to further their tone of voice and connection with consumers, despite being on the defending side. The hashtag #FreeCuthbert followed the story as it happened and customers were gripped proving the adage that all publicity is good publicity.
The tone of voice for Aldi is so established, that like Nando’s they are able to react quickly to current news stories allowing them to remain relevant and bring their brand into the conversation with this example following the controversial rebrand of Jaguar.
Tony’s Chocolonely
This playful brand has a big and very serious brand purpose to end exploitation in cocoa production and create fairer (and delicious) chocolate. The seriousness of their mission is balanced by the playful visual, while their tone of voice is honest and approachable, ensuring that their purpose is communicated effectively.
Tiffany & Co
Undeniably a brand of luxury and opulence, Tiffany & Co ensure a consistent brand voice through a less is more approach. They don’t impart a huge amount of personality into the copy, but do use well-chosen adjectives to ensure clear communication of the product story, authenticity and trust without seeming overly superfluous.
Conclusion
Whatever your brand personality is, it is imperative that the brand tone of voice reflects it and aligns with your brand purpose and brand story.
It is important, then that the tone of voice is used consistently to avoid confusion and miscommunication of the brand’s personality.
Ensuring the right tone of voice will ensure that your brand attracts the right consumers, and communicates well with them to create a product and brand experience that furthers their positive connection with the brand and therefore keeps the brand memorable.
A strong brand voice copoled with quick reactive marketing techniques such as a Aldi’s social media presence and Nando’s napkins can allow a brand to remain relevant and form connections with consumers even when they aren’t expecting it.
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