The Voice Of Your Brand

In addition to visual stimuli, brands also do a fair amount of communicating through language. Using both the written and the spoken word, brands need to engage in dialog with their markets. Of course, brands should mostly be listening. But, on occasion, they’ll need to answer a question or impart some important information. When that happens, it’s important for the brand to affect the correct demeanor — the right voice — so as to elicit a positive response from the market. The potential voices to choose from range from austere to zany. These days, as America, grows more casual, corporate voices are trending away from the deadly serious end of the scale. The most serious national, brand spokesman I could find is Dennis Haysbert for Allstate Insurance. And even he delivers his lines with a wry smile and a twinkle in his eye. I guess, in these troubling times, nobody wants to be the voice that tells you, in no uncertain terms, that you have to eat your vegetables. Consumers won’t stand for it. So how does one determine the proper voice for one’s brand? And how does one formalize it? Read more.