I can bet you’d be able to recognise a brand by their messaging. Their tone of voice, the way they infuse their copywriting with emotions, the way it all sounds… This is exactly what we want your brand to do to your customers.

Businesses that are most enduring are those who put a lot of effort into building a cohesive brand. As you surely know by now it’s not just about your logo, colours or website, but also about your tone of voice and the words and phrases you use.

We want to create a brand that people immediately recognise across all different platforms it may be on: whether it’s on your website, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Tik Tok or inside your newsletters and even correspondence with clients and customers.

The words and phrases your brand uses is as much important as your visuals. They show your personality and evoke certain feelings, which allows you to connect with your customers on a deeper level and make them “feel in their gut” you are (or aren’t) a brand for them.

We want to make your brand memorable.

We want your customers to instantly connect to your message.

How do we do it though?

Well, today I’m going to explain exactly that + give you the examples from other brands so you’re able to see it put to practice and apply to your brand as well.

 

What is a Brand Voice?

It’s the personality and emotions your brand is trying to evoke in your communication. It’s what it feels like to be communicating with your brand. Depending on your brand’s personality, you’ll speak differently, use different words and phrases.

Remember: building a recognisable tone of voice requires consistency and repetition. Nobody is reading all your content, so don’t be afraid to repurpose, tell people the same things all over again.

There are two elements of the Brand Voice:

Voice: it’s your company’s personality that should be consistent and not changing.

Tone: it’s the emotional inflexion that is applied to your voice. Depending on what piece of content you’re preparing or what medium you’re preparing your content for.

 

Brand Voice Examples

Magnum Ice Cream

As a Lover brand, Magnum always talks about pleasure. Their brand motto is “true to pleasure” and chocolate snap is so recognisable you can almost feel this taste in your mouth when you hear it.

The entire brand is devoted to help you experience pleasure and a moment of bliss. They play on sensory experiences and show us all the wonderful layers of chocolate and ice cream making us want it so bad we’re almost ready to go to the store at midnight just to get it.

Who didn’t see the famous now Magnum Ruby advert? The story starts in a stylish town setting where we see a stylish woman walking down the street when she sees a boutique shop window and a beautifully presented Magnum Ruby. There’s a moment where she looks at it closely and we can relate to what she feels right now, awaiting the pleasurable moment she wants to experience. She walks inside the stylish shop where she is greeted and observes the care and devotion workers put into creating the ice cream. Everything is stylish and beautiful and she’s there alone, to reinforce the feeling of being a special customer.

She gets to try the ice cream as an act of almost flirting with the product.

Their brand voice always revolves around pleasure and sensory experiences. The words and phrases they use are always infused with emotions and quite descriptive: pleasure, bliss, velvety, love, sensual, rich, decadence, luxury and indulgence.

Charlotte Tilbury

The brand’s goal is to create products that help their customers achieve skin transformation, flawless look and supercharge what’s possible for them.

Charlotte is focused entirely on the magical feel and the transformation they bring to their customers.

Their cosmetics are here to make you feel more beautiful, more powerful and empower you to master your makeup skills through their tutorials and “Beauty Universe”.

In their messaging, we can find words like magic, elixir, supercharge, empower, powerful, transformation, experience, exclusive, special formula, expertise and master which are all the words we encourage you to use in your brand as Magician.

 

FENTY Beauty

Created by Rihanna, FENTY beauty promotes “uncomplicated” beauty for all. A big belief of the brand is that beauty is for everybody and it should be accessible, not difficult and unpretentious.

It’s created for everyone, “even for fellas”, as they describe on their website.

“FENTY BEAUTY WAS CREATED FOR EVERYONE: FOR WOMEN OF ALL SHADES, PERSONALITIES, ATTITUDES, CULTURES, AND RACES. I WANTED EVERYONE TO FEEL INCLUDED. THAT’S THE REAL REASON I MADE THIS LINE.” – Rihanna

FENTY Beauty creates a perception of being approachable, friendly and down to earth through their language and tone of voice. They often use words and phrases that are casual and speak as they would to a friend, without creating any sort of distance, for example:

“You gotta wash your face”
“It’s for everybody, even fellas”
“You’ll wanna see this”
“Butta drop” (instead of butter)
“Get all the info”
“Down for more” We got you”
“Beauty faves”

 

 

What is your Brand Voice?

You can make a judgment of a stranger’s personality after having a short conversation with them. Or better yet, you can do that by hearing them speak to someone else, can’t you?

That’s because we all speak differently: we use different words and phrases, different tones of voice.

It’s the same with your brand. People can recognise its personality by the way it communicates.

That’s why it’s so important to define your Brand’s Voice and be consistent with it!

Brand’s Voice is a reflection of Brand Personality though. That’s why before you try to define the way your brand will sound, you need to first be clear on your brand’s personality.

• What it is that you stand for?
• What is your attitude?
• What do you promise to your customers?
• What makes you different?

These are difficult questions our clients have been stuck on for YEARS before working with us.

But don’t worry, we made it so much simpler for you to define your brand personality: Brand Archetypes.

 

Brand archetypes are a great way to use psychology to tap into your clients and customers emotions and influence them, help you focus your brand WHILE still staying true to your values.

You don’t need to pretend to be somebody else, you don’t need to try to be everything to everyone.

The more you focus, the easier it gets to attract the right customers AND define your brand’s personality (and voice).

 

TAKE OUR 1-MIN QUIZ NOW

 

So if you’ve been feeling like you:

• need to rebrand again and again
• HUSTLE but never get the MOMENTUM
• are screaming into a VOID

Read on because this is for you.

Different people can perceive different brands differently. That’s why it’s so important to only focus on YOUR ideal people and not worry about the rest.

It all is influenced by your brand PERSONALITY.

To really connect with our IDEAL customers and touch their hearts we need to tell a story.

We need to start selling and EXPERIENCE, not the product or service.

And Brand Archetypes help you figure out what that actually is.

 

TAKE OUR 1-MIN QUIZ NOW

 

Brand Archetypes help us focus and build a consistent character, but that’s not all.

They help us DIFFERENTIATE our brands from others in our niche. You can use them to have a unique take on your niche, build a different personality.

For example: let’s compare Canduby’s chocolate to Snickers. Both are chocolate, but they have totally different personalities.

Cadbury is all about the pleasurable moments (Lover archetype) and Snickers helps you get going again (Hero archetype).

Even though this is the same niche, they are totally different brands.

Or brands Like Tresseme (Girl Next Door Archetype), L’Oreal (Magician) or Magnum Ice-cream (Lover Archetype, all about pleasure).

We all have goals, motivations, fears and personalities.

 

Those things can be organised into 12 Brand Archetypes:

 

We’ve got 4 core differentiators between Archetypes groups and those are the main goal of the archetype. So there’s:

1. Provide Structure with Caregiver, Ruler and Creator
2. Connect to others: with Girl Next Door, Lover and Joker
3. A spiritual journey with Innocent, Sage and Explorer,
4. and Leave a mark with Rebel, Magician and Hero.

 

 

How to define your Brand Voice

The power of your Brand Voice is the power of tapping into your customers’ minds and FEELINGS will help you instantly build a connection with them.

That’s what will make them feel your brand is right for them, and therefore irresistible.

 

So how to use Brand Archetypes to make your brand irresistible?

• Assume an archetype perfect for your brand: it’s the same as your audience core desire. If you’re not sure of it or it’s still a bit vague, You can try an exercise to get clarity on this: just ask yourself what do your customers want as it relates to your brand? And when you get an answer ask “so they can…” and do this multiple times until you get to the core motivation, core desire.
• Dig deep into your brand’s personality: depending on your Brand Archetype, your personality will be different. Make sure to take our quiz to discover this + get tips and pointers for your specific archetype.
• Define your brand tone of voice: looking at your brand personality, how do you need to sound to send the right message across? Are you going to sound reassuring and empathetic? Or will you sound bold and shocking? Professional and researched? Or inspiring and aspiring?
• Define up to 3 voice characteristics to describe it: how can you describe your Brand Voice? What are the 3 characteristics you can use to explain it to someone?
• Create your vocabulary: now that you know what you want your brand to sound like, write down words that are aligned with that.

 

For example, some of the words the Magician brand could use are:

 

For the Girl Next Door these words could be:

 

And for the Hero:

 

 

• Define phrases you’ll use: Now that you know the words you’ll use, try defining the phrases. Are there things you say often in your business? Infuse them with your Brand Archetype’s energy and make them FEEL like your brand.

For example, A Ruler brand would greet their customers “Welcome, Marie”,not “Hey, gal!”,

The Innocent would say “Simplify your workouts and enjoy it again!” rather than “Transform your health using my formula.”.

• Define stories you’ll tell in your brand: depending on your Brand Archetype you’ll be telling different stories to make your customers relate. Some of these will be similar (like the founding story), but some completely different, or from a completely different angle.

For example, The Magician brand should tell stories about transformation, because it’s the very thing this archetype is based on.

The Rebel brand should talk about the upcoming revolution and steer the frustration inside its customers so they are ready to abandon all the rules and become powerful by becoming free.

The Creator should tell stories about bringing vision to life and creating something of lasting value digging deep into our creativity.

The Joker, on the other hand, should tell stories of having a good time, loosening up and not treating everything so seriously.

• Document and stay consistent: create a document designed to describe your brand voice so you can keep it consistent across all platforms and while you grow your brand.

 

 

Ready to define your brand voice?

Now that you understand what it takes to define your brand voice and what steps you need to take it’s time for you to work on yours!

Simply take two steps:

1. Take our quiz to discover your brand personality
2. Download our FREE workbook to guide you through the process of defining brand messaging, vocabulary and more.

 

Remember: Your Brand Voice is something that has a huge impact on your brand’s perception, so stop going around in circles and instead make your brand irresistible!

You will feel incredibly empowered once you do this work and get clarity around your brand voice.

Comment below and let me know: what do you struggle the most with defining your brand voice?