Is your brand voice clearly defined?

Every time your organization puts out a message, it’s using its voice. Even the simplest communication carries a tone, a style, and a personality:

“Ugly but efficient.” – Volkswagen

Beyond its dazzling creativity, this ad shows that it’s possible—with just one word—to express your brand voice loud and clear. That’s why it’s so important to define it well.

How do you define your voice?

Even if it’s something intangible and abstract, it’s worth trying to define your brand voice as clearly as possible. One practical approach is to set boundaries for each of the attributes or characteristics associated with your business. For example, the tone of a financial services firm could be defined like this:

• Serious, but not bureaucratic
• Confident, but not arrogant
• Bold, but not reckless

This method helps clarify how far you can go in your communications—super helpful for anyone creating content. Defining and documenting your brand voice offers three key benefits:

1. You gain operational efficiency
2. You ensure consistency in messaging, both internally and externally
3. You strengthen the coherence of your brand identity

A model student: Mailchimp

Email campaign platform Mailchimp has done an impressive job in this area. They created an internal style guide for employees and published it to inspire other companies! The Mailchimp Content Style Guide provides detailed instructions on how to approach writing for various types of content. It specifies the tone to use and even the right amount of humor for blog posts, error messages, or legal notices. Simply brilliant!

You don’t need to go that far, but it’s a great example to follow on a smaller scale.

Would a more unmistakable brand voice be beneficial for your organization?

Let’s work on it together!