Brand Identity with Rebecca Price

Mind your language: or a guide to understanding why your tone of voice is central to your brand and how to manage it

Though it sounds like something your mother might berate you for, ‘tone of voice’ is the term we use to describe the way in which organisations speak and write. Your tone of voice is central to your brand. Get it right, and you will successfully reinforce your driving messages and effectively engage your audience, get it wrong and your efforts will be undermined at every turn.

Tone of voice matters a great deal. But don’t expect too much of it. Design can differentiate your business. Tone of voice alone won’t. You can’t specify a unique combination of words, as you can colours or typefaces. There are almost limitless design variations. But there are only so many different forms of words to express a given, often quite routine meaning. So it’s harder to make your copy unique. Design guidelines control something that is done occasionally, often by professionals, whereas writing guidelines must help everyone all the time.

Your brand values can and should drive your tone of voice – there is little point in saying you are dynamic, personable and engaging, if you don’t sound like it. But in professional services, one organisation’s brand values might be pretty close to another’s and you can only take this principle so far.

Tone of voice offers your ‘business to consumer’ cousins many more opportunities for standout, which you are denied. Innocent Smoothies might get away with a corporate responsibility statement that leads with, “we sure aren’t perfect, but we’re trying to do the right thing”. It’s doubtful that an accountancy firm, law firm or outsourcing business could get away with adopting the same vernacular.

Though mainstream marketing will (or should be) a crucial activity for you, equally crucial will be your professional reports. But this isn’t a get out clause for considering tone of voice. In professional services, it is far more about getting the basics right. How you say things matters too because it reveals how you think. If your words reveal that you understand and care about how your reader thinks, then they’ll deliver. This takes information, training and real empathy. Your writers need to understand the mindset of their readers and demonstrate the do’s and don’ts of your preferred tone of voice. And you need to believe that it really matters.

Your world is all about personal relationships – between advisor and client. Yet when you consider the yardstick in the industry, you’d be forgiven to consider this was anything but the case. Look at any number of corporate websites or brochures to see a string of examples of how not to do it. Just think, simply by communicating to people like people, your organisation could be the talk of dinner parties up and down the country!

So many of the tone of voice discussions we have with our clients revolve around how to simply write better. Precious little of our advice is rocket science, it’s common sense really, but common sense isn’t so common any more.

All to often, we end up in an endless debate about whether or not you can start a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘because’. Mrs Thomas in primary school may have told you that you can’t, but Fowler’s Modern English says it’s fine, and the bible is full of examples of it. So loosen up! Remember there is a subtle difference between marketing led copy and copy for a report. Be more flexible and relaxed in your language style, where it is appropriate to be so.

Even in formal documents, you can consider using contractions and the first, rather than the third person. Why not talk directly to your audience, as if they were in front of you in a meeting?

More casual language is not a grim reflection of the rapidly declining standards of today. Language is not static but evolves constantly. We’re usually on first name terms at work these days, and even the prime minister has been heard to use the term ‘cool’. The BBC doesn’t demand the wearing of dinner dress to read the news any longer. And you can write like a modern professional, rather than a 1950s newsreader. As a basic rule of thumb, don’t write anything that would sound silly if you were to say it out loud. 

Tone of voice can bring out the classroom intellectual snob in people. But good writing should be about the freedom to bring your own personality to what you write, rather than a protracted debate about split infinitives (leave that to anoraks like us!).

When writing, treat your audience as the intelligent and emotive adults they are. Think first about ‘how do I get my message across in a way that will ensure I am heard’. Write to get a result. Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream”, not “I’d like to spend the next half an hour presenting you with some pros and cons on the question of racial equality”. Charles Dickens wrote ‘A Christmas Carol’ to get across a political message, following the lack of success of more formal means.

So in professional services, tone of voice does not present a differentiating opportunity to bring the values to life. Your people are likely to be reluctant to be guided on it. But tone of voice does matter, and properly approached, is not difficult to manage. Talking to people, like people, should be central to organisations whose businesses are entirely dependent on them.

Real men (and women) don’t buy brand

Real men (and women) don’t buy brand. Or if they do, they rarely own up to it. It’s a bit like owning up to living in Milton Keynes or reading Hello magazine (and before the hate mail starts, I do both!). From our experience, you’d be forgiven for thinking that, in the serious world of B2B, openly declaring your belief in brand was a serious career faux pas.

As brand specialists focused on the B2B world, selling our services has never been easy. All too often our first step is to answer the challenging questions of the biggest cynics in the business, and convince them their brand is central to the business, needs to be addressed and that it can provide a valuable return.

"We need to review our brand, but when you meet the team, please don’t use the word ‘brand'"

There are probably as many definitions of the word ‘brand’, as there are brands out there. And the fact that brand is such a nebulous word and hard to pin down, doesn’t do much to help its credibility. Little wonder then, that we’re often asked to avoid using the word. It’s disappointing that ‘brand’ has been discredited, but avoiding the ‘b-word’ has some benefits. It focuses us on what you are trying to achieve and how it will benefit the business. And really focuses us on articulating this as clearly as possible.

“How’s brand going to add to the bottom line?”

Quantitative brand valuation can often amount to no more than ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’. Brand involves managing your audiences’ perceptions of you. There is no point is saying you are dynamic and innovative, if you don’t look it, sound like it or behave like it.

Managing perceptions is a slow and subtle process. Brand plays a central role in this, but it can’t do the whole job on its own. Singling out and ‘proving’ brand does it, is almost impossible. 

So there is no irrefutable response to the Finance Director’s ‘killer retort’, but investing in brand just makes good sense.

You wouldn’t go to an interview or business meeting, without thinking about how you presented yourself: the key messages and values that you want to get across, the clothes to wear to create the right impression, the right tone of voice and language to use to ensure you were heard, the right vehicle for delivering your message. Brand works in exactly the same way.

“I believe in brand, but no-one else in the team does”

From carefully articulating the rationale behind a project and putting plans in place to take people with you, to ensuring people are armed to deliver on the brand promise – effective internal communication is central to every successful brand programme. To get things right on the outside, you need to get them right on the inside. And you can’t assume the engagement of your staff any more than you can assume the engagement of your clients and customers. Lack of engagement has to be dealt with and isn’t a reason to reject brand.

“We need something ‘brand-y’ but we’re not sure what yet”

Half the skill of a good brand consultancy is in partnering with clients to get beyond the ‘not sure what’. We help businesses communicate and deliver on their business plan. That sounds simple, but most projects begin with a search for the right question. Because without the right question, it’s impossible to find the right answer. So the sooner you get started, the better.

“It cost our competitor £3m”

If brand reviews truly cost the sums quoted in the press, I would have retired years ago. Getting more out of your brand doesn’t always cost what you think it will. The financial pain involved in it is nearly always exaggerated by the press and the bloke down the golf club. And brand reviews provide a perfect opportunity to make cost savings, through rationalisation of collateral and improved procurement.

We’ve spent years managing the challenges of the cynics of the B2B world. Brand is hard to define and defend. But if you can be brave and stand up and be counted when it comes to brand, you’ll be seen as the ultimate real man – or woman.

London 2012 - a logo too far?

There has been a lot written recently about the new London 2012 Olympic logo designed by Wolff Olins.  Whether you like it or not it has raised the profile of the design industry into the public eye, maybe this is a bad thing (or maybe not).  My thoughts are:

The design trade is an invisible one: what we do is largely unseen by the public. This means that the public is necessarily sceptical and questioning of our dark art. From time to time our work becomes visible and for the credibility of our industry it is crucial that when it does, it shows itself in its best light. In this case, in the eyes of the public, the Olympic brand has been added to a roll call of what it regards as similar projects, including the BT piper and the BA tail fins, and our industry has been derided.

Half our skill involves managing challenging briefs and clients and differing interest groups. But the Olympics brief was a particularly tough one: political in the literal sense. It was a ‘lose: lose’ situation. Had things gone well, the politicians would have got the glory. It hasn’t and Wolff Olins has got the blame.

Love the logo or hate it, the mistake was that the logo has been sold, rather than the brand. No logo could ever “inspire people to make a positive change in their life” as Blair suggested. But a brand might.

It takes years to build credibility and seconds to lose it. The Olympics will become shorthand for ‘bad work and a rip off’ for years to come, and our already difficult sell will become ever more challenging.

Be confident, be human, be yourself and be famous in your universe

In the honest world of B2B there is no place to hide behind marketing spin, but be confident, reveal just a little of your heart and soul and you might rival just a little of the success of the B2C mega-brands.

Are business brands different from consumer brands?

Coca-Cola. Nike. Virgin. Think of a brand and names like these, spring instantly to mind. Our B2B clients often start by listing consumer brands when they describe what they want to achieve.

Comparing business and consumer brands can be misleading. Of course there are similarities. But there’s a big difference. Consumer branding is often about creating a myth to differentiate more or less identical products. One shampoo or soft drink is much like another. Differentiation depends on packaging, spin and a bit of gloss.

Indeed some B2B companies find this superficiality so off-putting they avoid thinking about their brand at all. In one respect they’re right. Smoke and mirrors don’t work for business brands. B2B branding is about identifying real differences in your business and bringing them to the surface. One engineering business or outsourcing consultancy or accountancy firm is profoundly different from another, as anyone who moves employer will tell you. B2B brands are often built on relationships, which depend on people who respond best to what is tangibly true.

B2B companies sometimes question whether branding is worth the investment at all, because few can name strong brands in the B2B arena. But should they? B2B brands don’t need to be known in every household. Just by those who need to know them.

Business branding doesn’t promise the immediate paybacks of consumer campaigns. Because it concerns truth, B2B is a slower burn. It’s about gradually shifting and shaping audience perceptions, both internal and external, to build reputation and loyalty. Less immediate - but also less dependent on last week’s campaign. This doesn’t mean B2B branding isn’t accountable, but it does mean you should use qualitative rather than quantitative measures. A thought to turn the Finance Director’s heart cold, but imagine a world where you only did things you could emphatically prove in pounds, shillings and pence.

As a B2B business you have a brand whether you choose to manage it or not. Build your future on your true strengths. Stick at it. And you’ll become famous – and successful – in your own universe.

Have you the courage to just be you?

Perhaps the greatest difference between B2B and B2C is confidence. When it comes to brand positioning, there’s a real lack of B2B corporate self-belief out there. Companies often act like unconfident teenagers. “If I look like the industry leader, perhaps I’ll be more successful.” “Just make me the opposite of what I am – more sparkling and exciting.”

Most of us can tell a strong brand from a weak one. Because it’s clear about what makes it better and different. But we wouldn’t recognise our own positive difference if it were under our nose. Indeed it may even be our nose. Which is why clients often urge us to keep looking, convinced that if more stones are overturned we’ll find something better than the familiar and special traits and attributes that were there all along. A bit of a problem when B2B branding is all about real, positive characteristics.

But every company has unique characteristics, not just the industry leaders. Finding what makes you positively different – and having the courage to let it shine through – is at the heart of successful branding.

So be you. It’s the one thing that no one can steal from you and that you can truly deliver on.

Do people really change when they step through the office door?

But something strange happens to men and women when they turn up for work. The moment they walk through the door, they stop being people. They become ‘executives’ or ‘managers’. Job titles.

This seems to be the generally held view, at least. Most marketers treat the business audience as a breed apart. Solemn. Rational. Dull.

We might be opinionated about the differences between B2B and B2C. But we don’t accept that the business audience is a different species. We believe it’s made up of normal men and women. Who buy groceries and cars and mobile ‘phones. Who have holidays, birthdays, romances, and arguments. Sensible people. Irrational people. Quirky people. But people nonetheless.

And because people respond at work much the same way as they do at home we think of all communications as B2P – business to people.

There are profound differences between B2B and B2C. In the B2B world, you can’t hope that artificial marketing glitz can do the job for you. You have to be yourself. But learn just a little from your confident B2C cousins and communicate with your business audiences as people, in an appealing, engaging and human way. Revealing just a little heart and soul. You might never be a household name, but within the relevant space of your own universe, you can rival just a little of the success of the B2C mega-brands.