Setting a Tone to Your Brand Voice!

“Hey there…… mind your tone!!” This is a line we often use in movies and hear during our usual day events. When you utter a word, it is the ‘how’ that matters the most; rather the tone, for otherwise even the right words can get interpreted as wrong if the tone of delivery is not good.

Of course, in marketing, the ‘brand tone of voice’ is more about the written content or visuals than just speech. Whatever a company positions, believes, the brand story, everything comes through ‘how it sounds’ or the ‘tone of voice’ — — all reflected in the company’s, website, social media handles, emails and yes, product content, as well.

As human beings, consumers are wired to have an emotional connect with material things. We tend to choose a brand with which are emotionally attached to. In order to create that ‘connect’, how does a business convey that brand story or the brand feeling? It can only be accomplished through your brand voice or brand tone of voice.

A two-year research study of 100,000 retail customers reveals, “emotionally connected customers have a 306 percent higher lifetime value (LTV), stay with a brand for an average of 5.1 years vs. 3.4 years, and will recommend brands at a much higher rate (71 percent vs. 45 percent).” This write up, Let’s Talk About Brand Personality, Voice, and Tone appeared in Medium Marketing, the hottest new a platform for brand managers and advertisers.

Numerous brands in the market today are selling the same product and offering similar customizations. Where is the differentiation? It’s your ‘brand tone of voice’ that sets you apart. It adds feelings to an otherwise hollow sound.

Few interesting voice tones –

Happy…. wise…. humour tone!

Have you noticed how the most popular binge watch channel Netflix has carefully imbibed a cool and clever vibe? The video streaming service never ‘sells’ its content. It advertises its shows with witty captions. Its Instagram handle announces a shows arrival with character screenshots and tag line with a carefully cultivated humorous tone. Eventually triggering a thread of Twitter conversations — — all claiming that the show is an instant hit, a complete sell out! One of the striking brand tone of voice examples.

“Netflix on Twitter takes more of a good friend’s stand that shares some words of wisdom misted with a pinch of trendy often innovation-related topics and of course a good sense of humour” writes Gosia Letki, in an article for Brand24, an internet monitoring service for brands.

Health Inspired

Equinox, a health and fitness brand, has set a tone that inspired customers to try and be their best selves Their Instagram feeds drives people to get up from the couch and exercise with motivational slogans.

In 2019, they presented themselves as a complete lifestyle brand. A two-minute video. ‘Life’ that features Grammy Award winner Ciara and stuntman Chase Armitage, they represent forms of nature, such as ‘soul’ and ‘energy’ and talk eloquently about the brand’s ‘nature connect’ with clever one-liners.

Taking a cue from Adrianne Pasquarelli’s Ad Age India article, Equinox debuts campaign ahead of new business ventures launch. This phrase “It’s not fitness, it’s life,” was introduced by the same brand in 2004. The film’s executive creative director Liz Nolan says, “We believe it’s more representative of the truth of our brand today than ever before”. Brand voice at its communicative best!

Conveying a sense of power and positivity

Dove is a well-known brand in beauty and self-care category. Over the years, it has set a tone for itself which only talks about body and skin positivity. Their recent campaign has models which the fashion business labels. The brand’s, real beauty sketches campaign had women getting their sketches done through spoken description and then visual contact.

The results showed that most women, even the conventional beautiful, harbour self-doubt and believe they were ugly. The ‘real’ portrait however tells a different story. The tone of this conversation is carefully liberated, subtle and friendly. As a beauty brand it immediately connects with the true essence of beauty. Rendering integrity to the brand tone of voice.

“Moving and poignant, the video received 163 million global views, topped Cannes YouTube Ads Leaderboard and won the Titanium Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity,” the Think with Google page reported.

Trendy yet informative

LaCroix, the popular carbonated water brand has the persona which is bubbly and happy go lucky. ‘The beverage du jour of hipsters and moms alike’, its tone says its for everybody, age no bar. It is one of the leading brands which boasts of its social media communication skills. In fact, how much can you talk about carbonated water? One of the best brand voice examples, LaCroix answers the question purposefully. It gives detailed tips on how to keep flowers fresh or how to make a variety of cocktail combinations. Informative content is the key. “True authenticity in advertising can best be described as marketing that doesn’t look at all like marketing.” Marks Dave Sutton as he talks about LaCroix in his article for Business 2 Community, a business networking agency.

Grand with a personal connect

In April this year, the sports brand Adidas supported the 30,000 runners of the Boston Marathon. Adidas filmed each and every runner’s journey with the help of high-tech chips on the race bibs and mats transmitting radio signals. Additionally, a 20 people camera crew was hired to record the footage at the 15k mark and finish line. A few hours later they sent individual videos to all the participants. As per Adweek, these videos collectively registered 100,000 views in the first two days after the race event. Personalization with a lot of media exposure created the buzz.

John McGarry, chief growth officer at an advertising agency Drumroll feels, “We are going to start seeing more of these kinds of ideas that promote the brands while creating real, tangible value for consumers,” Referred by Natalie Koltun in her piece, 11 marketing campaigns that made a splash in Q2 2018 for Marketing Dive, a marketing publication. Cashing on high-end events with consumer involvement is the new ‘brand tone of voice’ here.

Trendsetter Tone

The tone for the fashion retail AllYearRound, is simply ‘today’ which sparks the fun element. Agreed it is not subtle in its tone to the level of Tiffany & Co. Nevertheless, it uses the casual slang people use in their everyday life. Establishing an easy connectedness. The website page has calls to action titles, ‘Whoopee’ or ‘YAAAAS’, a friendly banter vibe for the marketing voice. The brand voice examples.

These companies have point blank won the ‘brand voice’ game. Looking into the depths sets the message straight, that there is indeed a strategy that goes into it. For instance, Dove, it has recently started talking about skin colour or the meaning of beauty or anything similar. The timing here, is no coincidence. With the awareness of causes and social media exposure, Dove has developed a ‘brand voice’, with a specific tone. A well thought out organic strategy, at the time when it matters and will be heard.

Let’s look at it practically as to, how it can be done.

· Don’t set limits for your brand voice, use different mediums.

· Create a visual tone of voice communicative experience.

· Experiment, Yes! But do not jump the gun.

· Take smaller risks to begin with and then explore.

A Harvard Business Review study showed that emotional engagement matters more than customer satisfaction and drives brand loyalty. Felicia Sullivan refers to the fact in her article for Medium Marketing, mentioned above. A hands-on experience always remains instilled in one’s memory. Design an experience to die for, strategizing your brand tone of voice. Be a storyteller and let your customers be the actors. Think of something out of the box, blend in your brand personality with the story. Make the otherwise uninteresting tasks like reading an email, very interesting. Set the tone for the content and roll on, first tiny step to start with.

Finally, don’t be a tone-deaf brand, it will be a major company loss in today’s scenario. Create and strategize your brand voice, speak to be heard! A huge challenge this is, easier said than done! Litmus helps you achieve it professionally with an organic tone.