Brand voice vs tone vs personality

How do you differentiate between your brand’s voice, its tone, and its personality? You could think of your brand as a person with human characteristics. 

Your brand’s personality would essentially be its core character as a person, while its voice would be what it’s saying, and its tone would be how the voice delivers its message. 

To get each of these characteristics right, you first need to consider who your brand aims to connect with and how its personality will appeal to them. 

So, what is brand personality?

In other words, what are its core personality traits? Naturally, these will need to be relevant to the nature of your product or service. 

That said, you can still inject a range of nuances into your brand’s personality to make it stand out from its competitors. That is, after all, what marketing is all about.

It’s not hard to see how a perfume brand could be marketed as sophisticated or exciting, a sportswear brand as tough and rugged, or a bank as honest and reliable.

Do your research. Get to know your target audience. Understand their values and what brand personality traits would resonate most with them. 

Ensure that your core traits stay consistent across all customer interactions. This approach makes a brand more relatable, memorable, and helps build customer loyalty. 

What is brand voice?

Brand voice is how you express your brand’s personality. Brand voice is the distinctive way the brand communicates all of its messages across every medium, and it’s a combination of what your brand says, does and looks like.  

In all of these areas, the brand’s voice must maintain the consistent expression of your brand’s personality through the language you use and what you’re actually saying.

These should remain the same across all communication channels, from emails to social media posts, and must reflect your company’s core values and mission, and embody your brand’s unique perspective.

By giving your brand a straightforward and unchanging voice, you help it stand out from competitors and be recognisable to its audience, so they’ll see it as reliable and trustworthy, whatever its core personality.

What is brand tone?

While your brand’s voice is what you say, your brand’s tone is how you say it. The mood or emotion expressed by the voice should adapt to suit the situation, audience, or platform, yet remain consistent with the overall voice. 

That goes for any written and spoken communications, from marketing copy to customer service. For instance, if you’re sending out an email to tell your audience about important changes that you’re making to a product or service, the tone will differ from a social media post trumpeting the launch of an amazing new product.

In other words, your brand can adopt a variety of tones – from friendly and informative, or warm and welcoming, to bold and brave, or cheekily provocative; it will all depend on the target audience, the situation or platform.

You might know who you are and how you want your business to sound, but it’s not just about one person understanding it. It needs to be formalised as part of your brand guidelines and echoed through every area of your business. We can help you create an undeniable source of truth for everything associated with your brand, all in one place that can be shared with new starters and business veterans. Email hello@harrisoncarloss.com if you’d like to find out more.