What is a brand voice?
Brand voice is a simple term describing a limitless idea. A great definition can be found in a HubSpot brand voice guide: “Your brand voice is the personality your brand takes on in all of its communications.”
Consider your wider digital marketing strategy as a story. The brand voice is your narrator, and to develop one is to personify your brand with consistency across channels.
In this post we’ll take a look at some of the ways you can strengthen your communications by breaking down what makes an effective brand voice, alongside some brilliant examples.
Crafting the persona with brand voice adjectives
To start, imagine that rather than a business, product, or service, your brand is a person telling you about themself. What adjectives might you use to describe them, the tone of their voice, and which words they use?
With such a persona in mind, you can begin crafting brand voice adjectives. This persona might be bubbly and bright, or perhaps formal and straightforward. List as many adjectives as you can, and then highlight the strongest ones.
With this list, you’ve already laid the bedrock for a strong persona. Now let’s dive into taking these brand voice characteristics a step further, creating a consistent and recognizable tone that resonates with your audience.
Understanding the audience
Who is your brand’s audience?
You should already have a strong sense of your brand’s fundamentals:
- What service or product does your brand represent?
- What problem does it solve?
- Who is your target audience?
- What is their age?
- Career level? Career type?
- Language? Region?
- How does your brand fulfill the needs of your target audience?
It’s never a bad time to revisit these basic questions. Think of your brand voice persona as someone speaking directly to the people in your target audience.
You are not your audience
Although you are the authority on your brand, one roadblock we see founders encounter is difficulty separating themselves from their brand persona. This can lead to the mistake of assuming your audience is made only of people like you, putting serious blinders on your branding efforts.
If you find yourself struggling to differentiate, try:
- Finding brands like yours and paying attention to the people who engage with their content. What draws their attention? What types of posts seem to underperform?
- Keep in mind that brand voices that match yours may be for completely different products!
- Getting outside insights. Ask your colleagues, friends, or family to offer their impressions of content written in different voices. Hire a professional to help guide the process.
Strong brand voice examples
(and how they speak to their audience)
There are great brand voice and tone examples everywhere—so many it was difficult to pick only a few to highlight. Let’s take a quick look at three different brands and how they use tone and language to appeal to their target audience:
- Gucci targets people who are passionate about fashion and have expendable income to spend on a luxury brand. Their brand voice is elegant and refined, matching the prestige of their products and iconic logo. Across their website, they use simple, direct copy that leaves plenty of space for the glamor shots of their products to do most of the talking.
- Fortnite is an online video game in which players compete to be the last player standing. Appropriately, their brand voice is energetic and informal, but also serious, reflecting the competitive nature of the game.
- Their players are also deeply invested in collecting different avatars and outfits to use in-game, making Fortnite’s blogs about new releases a great case study in using your brand voice to drive sales.
- AARP is a nonprofit that connects older folks with resources for planning their late life. Their brand voice is friendly and personal, like a friend providing great advice. Their website is an excellent place to study how a consistent tone can bolster efforts as diverse as news stories and product copy.
Synergy with your wider brand
If you’ve already established a marketing plan, you should have a visual language for your brand well in place. Visuals are so often a great ally to a well-developed brand voice: they should, after all, reflect the same identity.
How pet brands are unifying brand voice and visuals
One industry that’s rife with brands killing it with in-sync copy and visuals are pet brands, like Chewy, BarkBox, and Rover. Each provides different services for pet owners, and accordingly, their brand voice and visuals embody different emotions:
- Chewy captures the fulfillment of caring for a pet by juxtaposing visuals of happy pets alongside casual copy that highlights the owner’s role in keeping their pets healthy.
- BarkBox evokes the joy of spoiling your pet with treats and new toys, with an energetic tone (lots of exclamations!), bright colors, and round fonts.
- Rover emphasizes the importance of finding proper care for them when you have to be apart; their restrained visual design pairs with an inviting and empathetic brand voice that identifies the potential anxiety of being away from your pets.
Authenticity above all else
Viral trends are a double-edged sword
Let’s be realistic about social media marketing for a second: social media users, especially young people, have a strong B.S. meter, which often flares when brands insert themselves into memes and trends in a clumsy manner. The lifecycle of a meme is short, which compels some brands to rapidly release content that tries to capture the electricity, to mixed results.
Similarly, while it’s tempting to go for the type of engagement Wendy’s or MoonPie used to get on X by roasting their followers, always consider the brand persona when thinking of making such content. If the brand voice and tone you want to cultivate happens to be snarky and irreverent, then by all means, roast away—but if you’re trying to do something different, it’s probably best to avoid.
None of this is to say that brands should never try to tap into a viral moment or employ some internet speak in their posts.
M&M’s Current Events Example
M&M’s often kills it on social media with timely posts that relate to current events, such as an image of an M&M blocking out the sun during this past spring’s solar eclipse.
Taco Bell Trends Content Example
Taco Bell runs a similarly effective Instagram, where their edgy and humorous brand voice coalesces with memes and reels that emulate user-generated content to showcase their menu items.
As with all aspects of your communications, engaging or ignoring social media trends should represent the authenticity at the heart of your brand. Stick to your core tone, even if it’s not trendy. Temporary engagement at the expense of long term credibility is a losing choice.
Conclusion
Communications are an art, not a science. Brand voice guidelines are a great jumping off point, but the most crucial component of your communications is understanding everything about your brand from the inside out. Proceed with consistency and authenticity!
How to develop a consistent and compelling brand voice
- Craft the persona of your brand with strong adjectives describing their voice.
- Understand your audience and how their sensibilities may differ from your own.
- Synergize your written copy with other elements of your digital marketing strategy, such as visuals.
- Maintain authenticity to your brand values. Don’t chase social media trends.
- Embrace the joy of the creative exercise!
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About the Author
Natalie Baker is a writer and digital media producer specializing in content marketing. Check out her portfolio at https://www.natalie.cool/