Every Category Has a “Voicescape”

It’s crucial to review the tone and messaging for other brands in and around a client’s category to determine what the rules of that category are. Every category has some. As Adam Morgan of Eat Big Fish advises challengers, first you establish the rules of the category, and then you deliberately pick one or more that you can break—to differentiate from the pack.

I always try to include the client’s current voice (if they have one) and messaging in this review, to try to get an assessment of what the voicescape is out there and how the brand is currently stacking up. This is the only way to find a space where you can authentically fit and own.

Verbal language and visual language comprise a brand’s voice. That’s why I only seek out and collaborate with the best designers.

Expert design can sometimes carry a mediocre verbal identity, but verbal language and great copy cannot carry mediocre design. Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes all the way through. That’s why I’m particular about my design partners.

What the World Needs Now is Wit

We require it from our entertainers, from our authors and editors, and the companies we do business with. Because wit is the first sign of humanity, it demonstrates a mind with a pov, some self- and cultural-awareness, and that these particular humans may take what they do dead seriously, but don’t take themselves too seriously. Wit can change the game.

Verbal and visual identity are about the brand’s personality and tone. I occasionally cast actors to read the approved story, to see what we can learn from the nuances of different personalities.

This is where the story and tone notes are applied across multiple brand-related topics. I generally create a goldilocks chart with real examples of the correct tone, and examples where the tone goes too far, and where the tone doesn’t go far enough. This also provides current and future writers on the brand with a clear roadmap.

Depending upon the brand or product, long copy and/or long sentences might be completely appropriate. For a highly technical audience paying a premium, for instance, they’re likely going to want long and possibly more technical copy. “Even if I don’t read it, it’s comforting to know it’s there.”

It may be an opportunity for differentiation, as well, if all bicycle manufacturers use short pithy copy and you alone are waxing poetic and technical about yours. It depends largely on your audience/community, and their appetite for product knowledge.

To discover the brand’s true tone of voice, I like to question as many staffers as possible, having them identify what they believe are the top 4-5 personality attributes of the founders, leaders, the staff in general, and the community—particularly their most enthusiastic users. This is always best done after stories have been reviewed, debated, and agreed upon. The approved story becomes a narrower wellspring from which the tonal attributes are culled.

Then, all the top 4-5 answers are collated and compared. We’re also looking for outliers, original thoughts that get it away from the usual suspects, like “Honest, authentic, knowledgeable” and so forth. ”Fussy” was one attribute that came up recently for a hospitality brand and it at least painted a picture of a type of person. As opposed to just “welcoming.”

A current cloud computing client recently zeroed in on the word, “sophisticated.” I probed a little further: How are you sophisticated? “We know our shit.” Okay, how do you know your shit? “We are obsessed with this technology, and we only hire people who are obsessed with it.” So, what they were calling “sophistication” was really “an obsession with cloud technologies” and they intentionally surrounded themselves with similarly obsessed peers. The words “curious” and “teachable” would also describe this trait. But “sophisticated” indicates a level of mastery and knowledge.

Some Beliefs We Probably Share

Every personality attribute and every strategy should be able to survive this time-proven test:

1. Is it true? Truth is always the most powerful lever a brand has. There has to be some empirical evidence that a thing is true, not just a hope 
 or an aspiration. (“We believe we are the most authentic 
 brand in the category” is not provably true.)
2. Is it believable? Something may very well be true about a client’s company, but if it seems implausible, or if other brands in their category are claiming the same thing, it may not be believable. When I worked with Ziba on the
renaming and rebranding of the Kauai Community Federal Credit Union, we had hard data showing average visit times 
 across banks and credit unions on the island, and people spent significantly more time at KCFCU. Renaming them Gather, as a place to come together, to talk story, and yes, to do some banking, was not only based on an empirical truth, but given the culture 
 and way of life on Kauai and KCFCU’s reputation, it was also 100% believable.
3. Is it memorable? Naming their credit union Gather was initially a bit of a shock for the board—it was breaking some rules for naming credit unions
 —but it distilled the spirit of the staff and that 
 community in such a unique and vivid way, it did what every great brand name should do: it told a true, believable, memorable story.

Unsung Creative Opportunities

It might seem somewhat counterintuitive, but some of my most appreciative clients, and many of my most successful projects, have been in categories not traditionally thought of as being “creative.” Particularly engineer-driven companies, like biotech, cloud and AI companies, public utilities (multiple projects for PGE, Northwest Natural, SDG&E, Sierra Pacific Power, et al), healthcare, and finance. I thrive in these environments as much as I do when I’m naming a hotel or a wine or a hangover cure. And they’re usually pretty grateful when you can help them unite and align their staff, and engage with their customers in a meaningful, human way. Occasionally, some of these companies have had to manage some crisis PR, and having established a human connection with their customers, essentially placing themselves as fellow customers, neighbors even, has helped mitigate against what could have been a brand disaster. That’s why they tend to come back, again and again. Note: brands in these categories generally have healthy budgets.