The Loss of Brand Voice

Photo by Vasily Koloda on Unsplash

Or, “Why Do So Many Brands Sound the Same? Maybe It’s Because Many Brands Believe in So Little at All.”

As today’s brand voices increasingly sound the same, AI-automated voice tools catch plenty of blame. Yet the source of all that droning runs far deeper. Those voices have little to say in the first place.

When brands squarely focus on what sounds right rather than saying what is right, you can feel the emptiness. The lack of stance. The lack of belief.

Thus, you get the sameness.

Standout expression stems from the root of brand belief, a brand’s reason for existing. A conviction. A worldview. A headspace. An unmistakable, essential sense of what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and who you’re doing it for. Brand belief captures them all. And it guides all manners of expression, from what you write and design to what you promise and how you make good on it.

Or it should, when developed properly. And that’s the problem. Consistently, brand beliefs get left undeveloped in brand platforms. If they get developed at all, which leaves them searching for something meaningful to say.

Voice as Veneer

Too many brands treat voice like a veneer. As if a set of four to six “agency adjectives” remixed from the same thesaurus shortlist can define a brand voice. True brand voice transcends adjectives. True brand voice conveys a way of seeing the world as part of a greater belief system. It polarizes. As it should, because not every brand is for everybody.

Agency adjectives have left brands with underdeveloped platforms for ages. Think back to any number of overwrought decks packed with words seemingly for the sake of words. Yep, one of those decks, the kind that left you saying, “Yeah, so what?” They lacked conviction, focus. A true point of view. Meanwhile, they made sure that the brand voice came across as “Human.”

As opposed to what, “Elfin?”

“Am I saying the right thing?”

So yeah, voice as veneer. It’s an old problem. Now it happens at scale, where automated platforms inject trite adjectives into bodies of copy like some transformative reagent—and cough up trite content as a result.

Meanwhile, a brand built on belief transforms your thinking from “Am I saying this the right way?” to “Am I saying the right thing?”

A belief system implies judgment, opportunities to make a statement, and even taste. You know, deeper qualities people sense and get on board with. The ones that make them feel, “Yeah, these people get me.”

So absolutely, use tools to ensure consistency. I’ve used them plenty, and they save writers and reviewers all kinds of time. But lean on tools so that the entirety of your expression stands out from its inception? So that it has something meaningful to say in the first place? No.

That calls for a belief system.

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Pete’s Sidebar:

This article references “brand voice,” which I use as a shorthand for voice and tone—two different, complementary elements of writing. All too often, voice and tone get muddled, merged, flipped, and conflated, even as they’re meant to work together.

With that, two definitions …

Brand voice is your unique sound … the words you use, the way you turn a phrase, and even the length and structure of your sentences.

Brand tone is your attitude about what’s being said … whether that’s light and humorous or formal and serious. It conveys a distinct point of view about the ideas presented.