Chris West, CEO of tone of voice agency Verbal Identity looks at how brands have changed their language during Covid, and why it's time other brands did the same
When something like that happens, it’s a big enough reason to make a marketer reconsider how their brand can speak credibly in an altered society. But Covid, BLM, new heights of climate disaster and never-seen-before depths of economic devastation were four big societal shocks all heaped on top of each other.
Some brands froze, sticking their fingers in their ears and singing the same old tunes. But a few brand guardians saw the need to change how they spoke, sensing that their brand voice is much, much more than just their ‘tone of voice’.
What our brands to say and the worldview they say it from, express as much as the personality our brands try to voice.
At Verbal Identity, we listen carefully to what brands are saying, and we’ve seen the emergence of four new trends in the last year.
Increasingly, CMOs are using language to move their brand’s world view from the Annual Report or the Employer Brand into their marketing. So, just as being ‘not racist’ isn’t enough, being ‘not a climate change denier’ isn’t enough, either. It’s time for brands to talk up.
Not sure yet?
Compare Rude Health and Oat.ly. Same oat drink. Same Tetra Pak packaging. Available in all the same places. Yet Oatly, who are calling out the dairy industry for its effects on the climate destruction is valued at $12bn, roughly 140 times as much as Rude Health, who want you to Be Your Own Barista. Maybe your brand’s reason for doing nothing is that ‘brands shouldn’t be in politics’. But racism and climate destruction aren’t political issues, they’re moral issues. (And anyway, as we all know now, politics is downstream of culture, so are you really saying that your brand has no place in culture?) BrewDog, Ben & Jerry’s and Nike all agree. And be honest, wouldn’t you like your brand voice to work as hard as BrewDog’s, Ben & Jerry’s or Nike’s?
Where’s The Milk? | Stop AM 171 | Oatly
Headspace knows there’s a mental crisis. And their CMO, (adland’s wonderful ex-Creative Director, Caroline Pay) is sensitive enough to know that shouting isn’t going to make it better.
She carefully controls the tone of her brand voice, so it steers that tight line between being empathetic and patronising. She ends up with a voice that’s simple and supportive.
Other brand teams are realising that the highly provocative ‘Grab it before it’s too late’ CTA might not sit well these days, when many of us are counting what we’ve lost.
And DASH are using a tone of voice that’s as gentle but odd as the fruit they put in their drinks.
Suddenly, some of the lexicons that brands have been inadvertently using seem hideously out of date. Society’s understanding of ‘Healthiness’ isn’t about nutrient-dense foods anymore, or ‘Fantastically Fruity muesli’. Yet some brands continue as if that’s all we need to stay well. I once argued (cleverly, I thought) against the widespread use by brands of the same 4 tonal values for their brand voice: ‘Human’, ‘Friendly’, ‘Warm’ and ‘Approachable’. Which brand would want to be ‘Inhuman’, ‘Unfriendly’, ‘Cold’ and ‘Distant’, I asked? To which my client replied: luxury brands. And they’re right. Luxury brands have for too long used a language that equates being cold and emotionless with some sense of superiority. Instead, fast rising luxury clothing brands are finding the words to be warmer as they talk about luxury. (Check out how Harris Reed describes itself as ‘Romanticism gone non-binary’.)
Harris Reed - romanticism gone non-binary
Language has always been a marker of where you are in society. But the days of Nancy Mitford’s U and Non-U are gone. Instead, we have a society of P- and Non-P. Is your brand progressive? Because if it isn’t, it’s language will reveal it. As Conscious Style Guide (an invaluable resource) points out, “Nude” isn’t just one colour.
Imperial College, London, one of the best research facilities in the world, has dropped its Latin motto because its elitist. But how much longer will it be until it follows the Pearl Milling Company in updating its outdated name? (And hopefully without the negative flashback.)
Every brand voice works on 3 levels: not just ‘Ground Level Details’ of words and phrases and grammar choices, or the tone of voice (call this, the 1000 ft level). Your brand voice is guided by at the 10,000ft level by an overarching (sometimes inadvertent) narrative, deciding what you talk about and the angle your brand will take on it. As we emerge into a new post-pandemic way of life (hopefully), how will your brand voice change?
Take a moment to ask yourself, ‘What’s the world our brand believes in now?’ And knowing that, “So what can we say we stand for?” and “What do we stand against?” Being clear on this level of your brand voice is critical, because our brand voices rarely exist in a discrete 1:1 dialogue with consumers. Instead, our brand speaks within a range of the consumer’s ongoing conversations – and is judged against them. So, when more people are volunteering, what do banks sound like when they’re choosing to offer us £100 bribes to switch bank accounts? In contrast, Churchill recently offered to refund me money on my car insurance, but gave me the choice of donating it charity instead. And when you heard Coca-Cola (annual profits $33bn) talk heartily about its donation to Australian firefighters of $194,000, how did you feel, gladdened or saddened? Is it time for the marketing team to co-own the ESG agenda and use the brand’s voice to support the good societal changes we need to see happening?
If your brand voice’s narrative has changed, it’s maybe time to think about how your tonal values need to change. Do you sound casually patriarchal? Or old-style consumerist? Humanity wins, time and again. But rather than making ‘Human’ one of your brand voice’s tonal values, why not start adapting some of the easiness of social media into your other media?
Or even, giving your writers some training as we start to emerge into a new way of brands talking.
Our cultural life is partially created by the best brands, and when they speak with humanity, our society feels less greedy and more open.
If you ever laughed at a grocer’s apostrophe but never raised an eyebrow at a booksellers’ 3 exclamation marks, you might not have noticed that grammar is a class war. And maybe, redefining your brand’s grammar will help signal its position in a more egalitarian society. And the effects of missed education are expected to last years – so is it worth adjusting the readability scores of your brand’s copy?
We are language animals. Language was created to share ideas and deepen relationships. This is why language is uniquely powerful at making a brand stand out. Now is the right time to check that your brand’s voice is making it stand out for all the right reasons.
