What’s wrong with most tone of voice in tech?
Truth is, you can't change everything about your brand's tone of voice. Not all in one go, anyway. The big problem we see in tone of voice in tech is that there's too much, erm, tech. Most of your clients aren't as knowledgeable as your CPO. So what should you change...
Communities of Practice for copywriters
What are Communities of Practice? And how can you use them to help your copywriters? Back in 1991, two cognitive anthropologists, Jean Lave and Etienne Wegner, discovered something remarkable. Street gangs don't use agenda. But still they seem to thrive through...
Brand purpose writing
I want to ask CMOs about their brand purpose writing. Is it good enough? This came out of a keynote speech I was asked to give by the Financial Services Forum in London on 16th June 2022. Along with the panel, I was asked whether I thought Purpose contributed to a...
Shouldn’t Your Brand Be More British?
Is this #EndofDays? For 'British' as a desirable value, I mean. Listen to UK radio and it's the woke brigade who's ruined it for everyone else. Two minutes later, there's never been a better time to be British. What's going on? What should brands do? Should you brand...
How to write so bad news doesn’t sound worse.
Started talking about the 'I' word yet? (Hint: 9 letters. Which is equal to the % rate it's now running at.) It's time to relearn how to write those tricky emails to customers. Find a way to talk about price rises. And do it without hurting your brand. Writing can't...
The power of Brand Language: How To Know When You’re In A Cult
Watched WeCrashed yet? It's all about what went on at WeWork. What went on was a lot of language: "the energy of We" "TGIM" "Elevate the world's consciousness" The language which unsettled the investors, drew a willing crowd of believers. It created a cult. Language...
Jacob Rees-Mogg – would tone of voice guidelines help?
Many of you, dear readers, don't know how to write. It's not your fault, of course. But, equally, you are not entirely free from blame. While we can all see that Labour plays a role for failing standards in this country, we all have to do our bit. You will undoubtedly...
The batman
Don't let up. Don't change your mind because the plan isn't working. Change the plan. Don't stop wearing a blue and yellow ribbon because it's getting old. Keep wearing blue and yellow because - because - this situation is getting old. Keep watching the little...
Show your support to Ukraine
I am shocked by what's happened in Ukraine this week. I am watching with horror what's going on there. For the last 14 days, work's seemed trivial. I am coming to the view that if you aren't doing something, however small, to actively support Ukraine, then you are...
How Far Is Your Brand Voice Downstream From Culture?
You know the expression, "Politics is downstream from culture"? It's not true. At least, it's not true for effective campaigners. For them, their campaigns reshape culture. For the other politicians, they're left reacting to what culture does next. It's the same for...
Protected: “Turn up the bass. The in-laws have gone” – How to flex your brand tone of voice
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Can the language of the CEO add value to their business?
Our CEO Chris West asks, is it time CEOs and leaders started to think about their own language? Can they add value to their own business just by crafting their language more carefully? And perhaps just as importantly, can they wipe value off their business, just with...
How much money does a brand lose when its tone of voice is out of date?
The UK's Marketing Society asked our CEO, Chris West, his views on what happens when a brand's tone of voice is out of date. We’re very grateful for the Marketing Society's coverage, please click on the link below to read more:
How your management team should prepare for the zombie apocalypse – review of Sarah Stein Greenberg’s ‘Creative Acts for Curious People’
Management Today, the long established title championing British business, asked Chris West to review the recent book by Stanford University's Sarah Stein Greenberg. One of the fun creativity exercises in the book is to ask your management team how they'd work...
How to be a friend with benefits not a friend with features: Forbes asks Chris West about the power of tone of voice and writing
Forbes asked our Founder, Chris West, to review US Presidential language. Chris points out the power of simple language and always keeping one question in mind: What's in it for the reader? We’re very grateful for Forbes' coverage, please click on the link below to...
What’s the ultimate power of copywriting? Description or creation of value?
What's the ultimate power of writing? Our CEO Chris West asks, are you using this profoundly human skill to describe something that already exists? Or are you using it to create new concepts in the minds of your reader, and give birth to valuable, new ideas? It...
How many of this year’s new words can you decipher?
Our Founder, Chris West, was asked by the The Daily Telegraph for what he thought should be 'The Word of 2021'. We’re very grateful for The Telegraph’s coverage, please click on the link below to read more:
Which Businesses are most successful at using language?
Good language changes people’s thoughts and feelings. When you can shape your businesses language, you shape what people think of you. And now, with more channels than ever before, businesses need to be able to talk directly to their customers at all times. We’re very...
What Do Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, And Steve Jobs All Have In Common?
"...an obvious thing is the huge personal fortunes made from the companies they built. The less obvious thing is how they skilfully used language to build those companies (and those fortunes). Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett had a consistent voice that built consistent...
Talk is cheap, language is valuable: How to measure the ROI of your brand voice
Brand voice can be a financial drag if you’re getting it wrong and a financial success if you’re getting it right. Language is the superpower which allowed homo sapiens to proliferate over other human species. Our ancestors’ brains were smaller, but with language they...
Are you speaking your clients’ language?
In this article, Chris West explains the importance of your brand language when it comes to speaking to your clients or anyone who comes across your company. Discover the 3 levels on which all language is working by clicking the link below:
You can do better than ‘brand voice readability’ scores
Is there such a thing as a 'brand voice readability score'? There are several ways to 'score' your brand's writing. As a tone of voice agency, it's something we look at a lot. In his recent book, Chris West, founder of Verbal Identity, looked at the simple measures of...
What will be the Word of 2022?
[Dec 31st, 2021: What will be the word of 2022?] Quite a few people have written about the new words of 2021 and what they represent about society. Language and new words are always interesting because it represents what society is thinking. But we've not seen anyone...
The best kind of copywriter training?
Smart teams need nourishing. And we all want the best kind of training. Whether that's general training or copywriter training. But what if we don't have all the training budget we want? Buying someone in your department a book often does a lot of the same job. £15...
Easiest way to get your team to follow guidelines?
Most CEOs now spend more than £100,000 creating their brand guidelines. Is the price justified? Do guidelines get followed? In our experience, yes. But 'only just'. And not without some pain: Sometimes the work isn't quite right. Or the...
Protected: A Vision and manifesto for Hunter Boot relaunch
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Think Again – Adam Grant.
How many times have you been convinced you know what to do, then things don't work out how you expected? Apparently, the smarter we are, the more we struggle to update our beliefs. Time to read "Think Again" by Adam Grant. Why read Adam Grant? 4x NYT best-selling...
STRONG LANGUAGE: THE FASTEST SMARTEST CHEAPEST MARKETING TOOL YOU’RE NOT USING BY CHRIS WEST, chapter 41 on brand tone of voice guidelines
When you want to make your brand tone of voice strong, what can you do with your brand voice guidelines? Don't make the guidelines fixed. Put them online and ask people to contribute the work they like. Then allow everyone to vote on it. Chapter 41 deals with how you...
The PA’s role at Verbal Identity
hello Chris West, our CEO, is looking to find someone bright and resourceful to free up his time. The PA will be running: some admin tasks some research email handling booking tickets etc digital marketing admin (e.g. posting via Buffer to sites) other tasks depending...
Strong Language, Chapter 32: Soft costs and hard realism
This is Chapter 32 from the book Strong Language: The Fastest, Smartest, Cheapest Marketing Tool You're Not Using It's a practical guide to creating a valuable tone of voice. It was published on September 28th 2021 and hit #1 on Amazon on September 29th, 2021. The...
Chris West, podcast guest, speaker, now available
Book Press Re lease-Strong language v2
CEO Today recommends STRONG LANGAUGE as a book to read in 2022
What do you read if you want to understand your customers better? According to CEO Today magazine, you should read Chris West's new book about tone of voice: Strong Language. We're very grateful for CEO Today's coverage, please click on the link below to read more:...
Comms Audit | A DIY Guide to Audit Your Brand Language
No one's brand language works as hard as it could. But the question is, Is it worth spending any time changing it? A brand language comms audit answers this by telling you: Where could you get some quick wins? Which channels could work harder for you? What's the best...
The Marketing Society
Available to Marketing Society Members now, publicly available from September 2021. Click here to read the full article.
Experimentation Works (Stefan Thomke) – good for marketing and customer experience leaders?
Does it sometimes feel like you've tried 'everything' smart in your marketing - and the only answer seems to be to spend more? That's fine if you have infinite money (and infinite time) but wouldn't it be great to out-think the competition instead of trying to...
How leaders can talk to their writers (about their writing)
A verbal identity builds your brand in exactly the same ways as a visual identity. That's why growing brands use a tone of voice style guide. But with so many brand channels dependent on language, when the brand voice isn't sharp enough, it's not just the copywriting...
Strong Language – The nun’s manoeuvre
Writing an RFP for a brand tone of voice agency – a quick and easy guide to getting it right
One of the quickest ways to find the right tone of voice agency is to write an RFP. But what questions should you ask? Most CMOs and Brand Directors define a brand’s verbal identity only once or twice in their career. So, choosing the right agency to create the brand...
How to choose a tone of voice agency
8 things to think about when choosing your tone of voice agency Good writing is good for business. And choosing the right tone of voice agency means your brand cuts through, you don't overspend on media and, well, you get to sign off version 2 instead of version 22....
Videos about verbal identity and branding
Find out more about verbal identity and verbal branding with these videos There are some great resources available when you want to learn more about verbal branding and creating a strong brand voice. If you'd like to read more about creating memorable brand language,...
How do you know if your brand’s tone of voice is effective?
An effective brand tone of voice can lift a business. Bad copywriting can drive a CMO crazy. But how do you know if your brand's tone of voice is being effective? What are the metrics you should look at? Previously, we talked about what 3 'input' KPIs your should...
What KPIs should you track for your brand tone of voice?
A strong verbal identity for your brand isn’t a ‘nice to have’. Your brand language is working everywhere, all the time. But sometimes, people focus on their content marketing KPIs and don’t look for how effective their brand voice is. What are the KPIs for a brand...
Why every successful organisation has a guiding narrative.
And how brand storytelling can align the leadership team with yours. The fact that “85% of strategy never gets off the page” isn’t just a waste of resources. It’s a waste of people’s lives. Read how brand storytelling can make a corporate narrative come to life. ...
Verbal Identity’s most popular writer training courses
The most popular writer courses we’ve seen for brands We've often said that you can't hire the best writers: you have to train them. And something that many other people say, is that the best copywriter training courses for copywriters (and non-writers) are run...
Why your brand’s tone of voice is much, much more than just ‘tone of voice’
Give up the idea that your brand’s tone of voice is just a ‘tone of voice’: A brand's tone of voice can drive business results just as much as its visual identity. But in the last 10 years, the number of channels a brand language needs to be in have exploded. It's no...
Writing in Real Life®: how departments can write more copy, more consistently, in less time and stay sane
A lunch-and-learn with Chris West, Founder, Verbal Identity. Do any of the following sound familiar? Your team is so successful that it’s now being asked to write more copy for more channels. The only problem is, there’s no more time and definitely no more...
What Las Vegas teaches us about language and business
The tone of voice guidelines: Story from Las Vegas Visiting Las Vegas is like taking a 72-hour, fully-immersive MBA. According to a recent Economist report1, the city is enjoying record tourism and fast employment growth. It’s easy to see why. Any Ops Director will be...
How a tone of voice agency can stop your brand talking like a friend. And make it talk like a brand.
The most successful brands don't talk like they're your friend. Their brand voice flexes to talk like they're in the background, while you're becoming self-actualised. Here's how a tone of voice agency can help your brand stand out: Language for customer actualisation...
The full stop lives on in Fashionland
A linguists’ stroll down Lamb’s Conduit Street. The full stop is a relic of WhatsApp-free years gone by. Or so it might seem, until you set foot on the achingly hip retail avenue that is London’s Lamb’s Conduit Street, where artfully placed full stops are this...
What’s your brand narrative?
Popular conceptions of brand narrative are fundamentally wrong. But this doesn’t mean some narratives aren’t more enduring than others. Here are our favourites for branding. Previously, we discussed universal narratives (read here). Despite what you may have read,...
Why do brands need narratives?
And how do you give a tangible narrative to an intangible product? So, why do brands need narratives? Simply, brands need narratives because our brains are wired to look for them. We were able to evolve from a chaos of noises, opportunities, over-stimulation...
Problem with “Jane Walker” by Johnnie Walker was brand’s voice clash
What happens when the 3 levels of your brand’s voice clash? You might have noticed that Johnnie Walker recently released a limited edition ‘Jane Walker’ whisky. It’s received mixed reactions. Some people have criticised it as a ‘patronising’ and ‘lazy’...
DIY brand voice audit
Why you should – and how you can – audit your brand’s voice BEFORE YOU CHANGE YOUR BRAND VOICE – MEASURE HOW IT’S DOING. We’re working with brand owners all around the world to make their brand voice more distinctive, more valuable. One thing I always say is...
How to help technical people become storytellers
How do you help exceptional people tell exceptional stories? Here comes the science bit… So It’s odd. Three times in the last month, with three different clients, I’ve been asked the same question: “Our experts keep confusing their audiences with technical...
Understanding the evolution of naming trends in cybersecurity
Finding a name for a changing world As any industry matures, naming becomes a more and more challenging prospect. How do you develop a name creative enough to capture someone’s attention and memorable enough to keep it as consumer needs change rapidly around you?...
Every business needs an elevator pitch
How to make people notice first time around To you, it’s obvious why your offering is going to change lives. But you don’t have time to talk every investor, partner or potential customer through all the reasons why. This is where an business elevator pitch makes all...
Linguistic analysis of the fragrance market and the 98% margin
What the rest of the world can learn from how the luxury fragrance market uses language Linguistic analysis of the fragrance market, showing how younger brands are using new positionings to stretch the market Who doesn’t want a 98% margin? Through linguistic...
Brand language – the magic ingredient in cosmetics?
How smaller cosmetics brands are using language to beat big beauty companies. It’s 7am on Tuesday morning. You’ve just showered. You reach for your moisturizer. It’s an intimate moment between you, the mirror, and the $1billion that L’Oréal spent last year on R&D....
Text analytics for marketing and customer experience
Cold, hard numbers and bright insights from customer comments. Why text analytics? Why now? When customers are freed to express their thoughts in their own words, they reveal more about their motivations: they give marketing and customer insight teams the “Why”...
Luxury Vs. Ultra-luxury
How the world’s most expensive car brands speak and speak differently. After 6 pm, London’s Mayfair is a mini-Monaco. Light bounces off the chrome detailing of supersized ultra-luxury cars, sitting nose-to-pipe outside exclusive members’ clubs. Meanwhile, a...
What happens now that neobanks aren’t new?
How challenger banks can use language to win customers, deepen engagement and survive shakeout There’s a serious threat approaching challenger banks language: they’re starting to sound the same. The neo (‘challenger’) banks are approaching the equivalent of the pop...
Why every successful organisation has a guiding narrative
How can a corporate narrative make sure strategy gets off the page? It aligns an organisation and motivates its employees. Chris explains.
Why you need an elevator pitch
The curse of knowledge: you know what’s special about your offering, but it’s so intuitive, you’re having difficulty explaining it to other people. The fix? An elevator pitch. Learn why you need one and how to make your own.
How do you give your company the best possible start?
Chris’s article ‘A strong Brand Vision is the cornerstone to Start-up Success’, published in Just Entrepreneurs, looks at how a clear Vision right from the start can save fledgeling brands from failure.
Finding a name for a changing world
Naming is a challenge for any brand, but especially when an industry starts to reach maturation. Chris examines different naming types, trends, and processes through the lens of the cybersecurity industry
How to write so that bad news doesn’t sound worse
Strong Language Book – First 3 chapters
Thank you for clicking on the link. Here are the 3 chapters that you can download for free: Chapter 1 - Language moves people Chapter 2 - Language creates identity Chapter 3 - Every brand voice works on three levels
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