Why does a brand need a voice?

First of all, you might be familiar with the term “brand voice” which is basically a brand’s personality and how that brand makes you feel through their communications. It is including the language and word choice used to portray the brand’s personality and image via marketing activities. Additionally, it is a requirement that brand voice needs to be consistent across all communication channels, such as, advertisement, website, product description, content, social media, email, and more.

Why is it so important?

Let’s start with some examples of Starbucks, Uber, and Harley-Davidson…

Do you think those brands have the same “brand voice”?
The answer is absolutely not! By the reason that they are communicating to different target groups and they stand for different things.

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Starbucks has an expressive voice, which is very passionate about coffee. That voice has approachable personality, which makes their customers and audience feel relevant and relatable to their coffee stories.

For Uber, since their service is to provide rides from point A to point B, the feeling that “they will be there for you” is the key to reinforce their customers to choose their service. Thus, Uber’s voice is very considerate and consistent.

On the other hand, Harley-Davidson has different target customers of rugged and confident men. That is why their voice is strong, aggressive and challenging. Their aim of communication is to resonate the brand personality with the targets’ personality, which are rough, rebellious, fierce, and independent.

Now…you see that each brand has different kind of brand voice. Not only in terms of brands in different industries, Brand voice is more significant to differentiate one brand from another, especially from other brands in the SAME industry. Just like when we meet some one new, the way they speak can help us interpret what kind of person they are, and make our minds…should we hang out with them or not?

Not only that..the research data from Sprout Social shows that 33% of consumers think what distinguish a brand from another is distinct personality and 40% of them say that it is memorable content. Do you think that your brand can have a unique personality and be memorable without having consistent brand voice? The answer is NO.

Plus, the same data also reflected that 45% of customers who follow brands on social media channels mentioned that they would unfollow the brand that post irrelevant content. Thus, having a distinctive brand voice is not enough, you have to know your target customer persona and try your best to talk the way your targets talk and make all of your communication and content approachable, relevant, and relatable to them.

Another important reason to be highlighted is that…we, human are longing for connections with other humans, I found this interesting topic from the book “Fanocracy” by David and Reiko Scott. Especially when we are in the present world where everything is digitalized, what people need the most is the genuine and authentic interactions. I have an experience of talking to one brand about their service problem and guess what? They sounded super ROBOTIC, which frustrated me even more. But it is worse what you have to talk to an automate assistant who could not really understand your problems and sent you to the same loop of links, over and over again.

Have you ever wonder why brands nowadays started to involve the NAME of the personnel or representative who you are communicating with, in one-on-one conversation? They want to emphasize that YOU ARE TALKING TO ANOTHER HUMAN BEING who are there to listen to you and truly understand you and your problem, so that your problem will be solve in the best way possible. Seeing the name Susan at the end of the responded email makes me feel way better, not only towards Susan, but especially towards that particular brand, as well.

Trust me..those brands that have established their brand voices and communicated in a humanized way have far better brand recognition and image in the eyes of customers. Plus, it is more effective, in terms of influence the brand’s existence in the hearts and minds of customers. The most successful point of brand voice is when your customers ready your content and know exactly what your brand is, without seeing the brand’s name and logo.