Brand Tone of Voice:

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