Your brand voice toolbox: how to write on-brand stuff, lickety-split.

This week, I wanted to talk about an exercise that is insanely useful for pinning down your voice and making it much easier for everybody to use, whether you’re a huge brand or a team of one (like moi)…

Kitting out your brand voice toolbox.

First up, what on earth is a brand voice toolbox?

In my early copywriting days, I used to have to write in the voice of lots of my clients.

I had clients in finance, in engineering, in retail, in insurance, in US real estate, in e-commerce and fashion and yada yada…

You get the point.

I was young, green and ambitious, so I took on every project I could.

Which meant I had to learn how to change my natural writing voice on the double.

As you can probably tell, I don’t talk, act or sound anything like a banker.

Or a realtor.

Or an engineer.

Or an insurance agent…

So I stole a technique from impressionists: way-in phrases.

(Well, I don’t know if that’s what impressionists call them, but still…)

Ask somebody to do a De Niro impression and they’ll push out their lower jaw, squint, wobble their head and make an eh sound before they speak, every time.

Then they’ll say ‘you talking to me?’ and do the pinched-up hand thing.

Just like this. (Dave Franco’s De Niro cracks me up.)

Ask somebody to do a Trump impression and they’ll purse their lips, squint, wave their hands and say yuuuuge.

Same with Al Pacino (hooo-ah!), George Bush (squint and mispronounce something), Gandalf (“you SHALL NOT paassssss”)…

These phrases and expressions give the impressionists their way into the voice of the celebrity.

All of a sudden, something about them shifts and they become that person.

And the same thing happened when I was writing. I’d find a phrase that I could use over and over again to get into the character of that brand or that individual.

Maybe it was a snarky rhetorical question or a deliberately bad pun or even a specific pop culture gif or reference…

Whatever those things were, I’d create a document that listed them all in one handy place.

Looking through this document let me go from writing in a generic conversational voice into the unmistakable voice of that brand in an instant, just like squinting and pushing out my jaw allows me to do a passable-after-a-few-pints De Niro impression.

That was my brand voice toolbox.

And now, whether I’m writing copy for clients or helping them develop their voice, this is a HUGE part of the process.

It allows us to create a master document of shortcuts into their voice.

Plus, we can use it to punch up “meh” copy or dive right into the brand voice if creativity is running a little low.

And it’s something that you can get to work on too, even if you can only spare 10 minutes.

Open a quick Google Doc, call it Our Brand Voice Toolbox and add the following things:

👉 A quick overview of your brand voice

In a few sentences, outline your brand voice. (Our brand voice is [X] not [Y] statements are the absolute bomb.)

👉 Some examples of pages, descriptions, social media posts or blog posts that are great examples of your brand voice

Not only are these great for any new members of your team to get a grip on your voice and see it in action, but they also act as a source of inspiration.

When you’re struggling from writers’ block, open your toolbox up and you’ll find yourself back in action mode in no time.

👉 Phrases that are on-brand (and that you use over and over again)

Take a look back through those articles/posts/pages you chose and look for phrases that crop up again and again. They’re probably the phrases that are really on-brand.

Write them down. They’re great for punching up copy that feels a little lifeless or light on brand personality.

👉 Your collection of on-brand gifs and emojis.

Gifs and emojis are weird. They’re images, but I consider them a huge part of a brand’s voice. I’m not going to dig into the why of that today, but it’s odd, right?

In my DIY Brand Voice Toolkit, we dive deep on emojis. Like a good 6 worksheets dedicated to emoji-exercises. (Emoji-cises?)

They’re incredibly complex little things. You need to work out which ones are on-brand, which ones aren’t…

Are you a brand that can get away with the ruder emojis? Or do you stick to the safe ones?

Also, which skin tone emojis do you use? Do you play safe with yellow, or use a skin tone that matches your target audience? (But risks alienating other customers?)

Likewise with gifs. Some gifs are safe. (Like this Jonah Hill excited gif that everybody uses.)

But safe isn’t always the best option.

A well-placed gif that’s on-brand and works for your target audience — in a “oh wow, I love that film/show/thing” or “I get that reference” kind of way —  can create an immediate bond between them and your brand AND hit those oh-so-powerful “we’re part of the same tribe” marks.

(Related note: I often write down a list of pop culture references that are on-brand and right for the audience too. This takes a bit more research, but is more than worth it. It can be the difference between an “oh damn, this brand gets me” or a “that’s sort of funny, I guess” reaction.)

👉 Swear words and words for effect

Sometimes, your conversational voice needs a little more oomph.

It’s all well and good to say “my neighbours were really loud last night”, but it lacks pizazz and punch and — erm… — another word beginning with p.

Now, my old English professors would tell me to use words like “deafening” or “ear-splitting” instead.

But they’re a bit too writerly, right(erly)?

Sometimes, you need a well-placed swear word to make that same impact and keep that one-to-one, friendly and — let’s be honest — authentic tone.

As Stephen Fry says:

“When uttered at the right moment, a rude word can bring an otherwise dull and lifeless sentence dramatically to life.”

Just compare “my neighbours were really loud last night” to…

“My neighbours were bloody/f*cking loud last night. Did my head in.”

“My neighbours were hella noisy last night.”

“My shitty neighbours kept me up all night with their goddamn music.”

They all have extra oomph, personality and authenticity. But they’re not all right for all brands.

(Not that any brand would be talking about their neighbours, but you see what I mean…)

Your job is to work out where your brand sits on the sweary scale and write down the acceptable words to use for punching your copy up. Do you use symbols like sh*t or f?!*ing?

(Fun fact: the word for those written bleeps is a grawlix. Cool, eh?)

Here’s a pro tip, though: be careful with the words you choose. I’m a big fan of bold, brave brands that swear, but some words have got sexist, racist or otherwise horrible histories, so be make sure you’re not using those words. EVER. 

(If you’re struggling with this — you want to be bold, but don’t want to go too far — hit me up and let’s talk it through.)

👉 Do you even slang, fam?

Where does your brand sit on the slang scale? Are you 100% Queen’s English or are you hundo p yaaaas kween?

Again, like with swearing, make a list of the slang that feels on-brand and a list of your slang no-nos.

Get these things down in a document and you’ll be off to the races.

There’s more that you can add to your Brand Voice Toolbox — things like house style, sentence length, how to modulate your voice to different situations (angry customers, sales, etc…) — but this if you take half an hour to throw together a document with these things in, you’ll still be miles ahead of the curve.

And once it’s done, don’t forget to share it with your team. (Using your brand voice internally encourages its use externally.)

Plus, it becomes the perfect tool to show new members of the team.

At a glance, they can see what’s acceptable to say, what’s too far and where they can afford to have a little fun with their writing.

And that’s infinitely more useful than having them read 5 abstract words about your voice and having to guess at how to implement them, trust me.