Brand Tone of Voice:

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16 brand tone of voicewe/usHSBCHSBCyour local branchyour bank accountyour first personal loanyour statementtypographyTalk DirectServicePlusTypetalkred colourour branchesour self-service machinesour/your Basic Bank Accountour buffer zoneour Customer Service CentresFigure 3: Evoking HSBC brandInterestingly, the language used by Orange serves to transform its brand identitythrough use of chains of reference. Through co-reference by pronouns, thebrand becomes identified with the company as a group of people:Orange covers… And you don’t have to take our word for it.The Orange Network Performance Promise means that if we ever lose yourcall…Orange literature gives the impression that there is no machinery involved inmanaging telephone calls, as the network is also run by ‘we’ or the brand:if we ever lose your call in mid conversation, we will…we keep you connectedThis means that chains of reference can alternate between the brand, the people,and the telephone system and its handsets and treat them all as co-referring:Orange… we… our network… the Orange Network PerformancePromise… if we lose your call…Once identity is achieved between the brand, network, handset, and people,connecting customers with this is straightforward, through possessives:call from your Orange phoneyour call
J. Delin 17or through explicit assertion of the relationship:Orange Global Travel Services is your one-stop travel serviceThe only other actor present in the text apart from Orange and the customer isWildfire, a voice recognition ‘virtual personal assistant’. This service is explicitlypersonified with ‘she’: distinct from Orange, but working for them:She can help you make calls, take and sort messages and storecontact details…HSBC, by contrast, uses simple chains of reference that do not repeat the bank’sname. The bank establishes itself at the outset as a kind of global topic byminimal use of its name. To make sense of the text, the reader has to assume theglobal referent of HSBC when encountering expressions such as the followingpronouns (underlined):weour special servicesall our customersLet us help youour branchesLack of repetition of the name assumes that the brand concept is at a very highlevel of activation in the reader’s consciousness. This could be quite a powerfulposition: it forces the reader to adopt the attitude that no other possiblereferent (Barclays bank, for example) can be intended. Less charitably, it isan assumption that may not be warranted – and is not well salvaged by visualevidence such as colour, layout, and typography. It is possible, therefore, thatthe reader could forget which bank they were reading about halfway throughthe document, or at least be left with a very weak impression of the brand.This analysis showed that the differences in referring expression usagesbetween the companies are marked. The highly noticeable presence of Orangeas a brand, and the highly developed way in which it constantly re-evokes thebrand in its language, is in keeping with a ‘Who we are’ position on the brandcontinuum. HSBC’s lack of presence indicates that it does not currently occupya ‘Who we are’ position, but this is negative evidence, rather than positiveevidence for any other positioning.If HSBC’s position is deliberately sought, the background nature of the brand(a ‘supportive presence’ rather than the ‘you’re on our team’ position adoptedby Orange) could account for its reticence in using its name. While there is ageneral assumption that all brand texts would represent attempts to ‘push’ thebrand name, it is a known strategy in branding that this would not suit every
Page 1 and 2: Journal ofAppliedLinguisticsjAL (pr
Page 3 and 4: J. Delin 4, I discuss conclusions,
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Page 11 and 12: J. Delin 11cations. In fact, the ad
Page 13 and 14: J. Delin 13What is important for th
Page 15: J. Delin 15Brand elements are there
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Page 21 and 22: J. Delin 21Orange’s subordinate r
Page 23 and 24: J. Delin 23ProcesstypeMaterial:acti
Page 25 and 26: J. Delin 25Minimiser Action Results
Page 27 and 28: J. Delin 27The crucial point here i
Page 29 and 30: J. Delin 29many of the products and
Page 31 and 32: J. Delin 31And you don’t have to
Page 33 and 34: J. Delin 33relative absence in the
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Page 39 and 40: J. Delin 39general impression. The
Page 41 and 42: J. Delin 41ReferencesAllen, T. and
Page 43 and 44: J. Delin 43John, O. P. (1990) The

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