Developing a Brand Voice
While the visuals of a company (the logo, the color scheme, the product designs) tend to be the flashiest part of developing a brand, there is another important brand feature that is less seen than read. Every sentence, paragraph, or essay put out into the world by any established company is defined by that company’s brand voice. While information on company websites first comes off as monotonous and direct, a closer look reveals a wide variety of tones, attitudes, and verbal texture in these businesses.
The Brand Voice can often be boiled down to adjectives. Is the business plainspoken, addressing the everyday customer and not drowning them in jargon? Is the business technical, aiming to advertise their services to a specific niche? Is the business playful, selling a more positive, relaxed lifestyle? Establishing a brand voice means that your customer can get a glimpse of your business beliefs and ethos without having to read your mission statement. Don’t believe me? Look no further than Cards Against Humanity.
Without any actual information about their product, their core audience, or their mission, we can glean the values of the company immediately from the tone they inject all over their website. They are proud of being indecent and lean into this spirit, often gently making fun of the customer for interacting with their brand or their repetitive questions. They use tumblr and have the absurdist carelessness of millennial humor (re: Hawaii 2) so their target audience is clearly The Youth. However, they may be fun, but when it comes down to you having any issues, they still take it seriously and provide avenues to get help. When these card makers appeared on the scene, they had to cleave their own space in the family-friendly niche of board games. They did this in the excellent design of the product, but it also comes across with just their brand voice.
When developing a brand voice, ultimately this is the goal. If you remove the context of your company and your services or your design, leaving just the text, your customer should still be able to understand the ethos of your company without a single word having to be spoken.
