Brand Voice: It’s Not Just What You Say, It’s How You Say It

Language is how we communicate, educate, comfort, confront and everything in between. Even a tiny change in phrasing can move a sentence from kind to condescending, or change its meaning entirely.

(“Have you eaten, Grandma?” vs. “Have you eaten Grandma?” is the go-to grammarian example).

For that reason, voice can be difficult to pin down. It can get pushed aside even as part of a wider branding exercise, especially in industries where things have always been done (or said!) a certain way.

But the old saying is true: it’s not just what you say, but how you say it.

First, what do we mean by brand voice?

Imagine you send a piece of work to your boss. If they respond “OK” instead of “Great, thanks!”, you might start to worry, even if both messages are intended to mean the same thing.

We pick up on these tiny language choices all the time, and brands create the same impressions.

Your brand voice is the personality that comes through in how you communicate: the words you choose, how formal you sound, whether you use humour, even how you use punctuation. Together, those choices shape how people perceive and recognise your brand.

Is everyone starting to sound the same?

Like any good content writer, I pay a lot of attention to language and how it’s changing. My background in linguistics definitely helps, and is actually how I got into marketing in the first place – more on that later.

That said, it doesn’t take an expert to spot the same patterns and phrases popping up all over LinkedIn.

Since generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude went mainstream, anyone can produce copy at the press of a button. It can be grammatically perfect, more-or-less accurate to your prompt, and might even throw in a few emojis for personality.

The problem, funnily enough, is that unedited AI-generated text is often too polished.

LLMs learn patterns from huge amounts of language. Without much direction, they can fall back on familiar words and writing conventions. You’ve probably spotted a few: delve, elevate and foster, variations of “it’s not just x, it’s y” and, of course, em dashes.

And those habits might be rubbing off on us. AI-favoured words are appearing more often in human-written texts and spontaneous speech too. Morning Brew has a really interesting piece on this.

That doesn’t mean avoiding AI – we use it at Vida, and it can be a great tool. But if everyone has access to the same tools, you need a clear idea of how you want to sound and a careful eye on what comes out the other end.

But can B2B have a personality?

B2B has a head start when it comes to sounding the same. There’s an idea that marketing to professionals means communicating in a certain way.

It doesn’t help that B2B products and services are usually more complicated. When you’re concentrating on explaining what you do, personality can get edited out.

Bluntly, B2Bs often think they need to be boring. I’m here to argue the opposite.

The person reading your copy wants to understand what you do, see that you know your stuff and decide whether they want to work with you.

You might not want to make jokes or jump on every internet trend, but you can have a personality while doing all of that.

A few brands that get it right

Duolingo

Duolingo is famous for going all-in on personality. It was also the subject of my linguistics dissertation, where I looked at how its language changed across social platforms and audiences. Anyone with an interest in linguistics can give that a read.

Instagram and TikTok lean heavily into Gen Z humour and memes. On LinkedIn, the memes largely disappear. It still sounds like Duolingo, but adapts to where – and who – it’s talking to.

Apple

Apple takes a different approach. Its copy is minimal, assured and rarely over-explains. It sounds like a brand that knows exactly what it’s selling and trusts the product to do the talking.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp uses conversational language and dry humour in a fairly functional B2B category. Its public voice and tone guide describes the brand as a ‘translator’ of complicated B2B language, with clarity taking priority over entertainment.

HubSpot

HubSpot shows how a B2B brand can loosen up without losing its authority. Its social content mixes memes and cultural references with useful guides and product content.

Finding your brand voice

You don’t need to sound like any of the brands above. In fact, please don’t.

Work out who you are

Start by imagining your brand as a person. How would you describe them?

You might land on confident, warm, curious or expert. Adding boundaries makes it clearer: confident, never arrogant; fun, but still professional; expert, without sounding academic.

Then look at your values. If collaboration is important to your business, does your language feel open and inclusive? Or if your business is challenging conventions, a safe, corporate voice isn’t going to fit.

Turn personality into writing choices

Now decide what those traits mean on the page.

A confident brand might cut phrases like ‘we aim to’ and make clearer statements. An expert brand might use technical terminology when it helps, but explain it when it doesn’t.

Think about vocabulary, sentence length, humour, jargon and even punctuation. These are the choices that make a voice usable.

Listen to how you already speak

Pay attention to how people explain the business when they’re not trying to write marketing copy. There might be a phrase your founder always uses, or a good way your sales team explains a complicated service.

Some of the most distinctive language disappears as soon as someone sits down and tries to ‘sound professional’. Keep the bits that already sound like you.

Know when to dial things up or down

Different platforms and situations call for different language. Duolingo can lean into memes on TikTok and Instagram, then dial it back on LinkedIn without becoming a different brand.

Those conventions change too. Language that felt current three years ago can quickly sound like you’re trying too hard to be ‘cool’. Revisit your voice as your business, audience and language change.

Put it somewhere people can actually use it

Once you know how you want to sound, document it. Include your traits and boundaries alongside real examples, preferred language and things you avoid.

That’s especially useful when several people write for the brand – or AI does some of the groundwork. ‘Write this in our tone of voice’ gives an AI tool very little to work with. Give it useful guidance, then edit the result against it.

One final test: remove your company and product names from a piece of copy and put it next to a few competitors.

Could someone tell which one was yours?

Ready to add some personality?

If your brand sounds a little too much like everyone else in your industry, we can help you work out what makes it distinctive – and turn that into a tone of voice guide your whole team can actually use.