Brand Tone of Voice:

More documents

Recommendations

Info

18 brand tone of voicebrand position. Brands seeking a more subliminal presence might be betterreinforced by typography, layout, image, and colour.This preliminary survey of referring expressions suggests that further systematicresearch would be useful in revealing the relationship between patterns oflexical cohesion and brand position. We can suggest, then, our first hypothesis,testable with consumers:Hypothesis 1: Brand strength. The strength of the reader’s impression ofthe brand will vary depending on the number and strength of referringexpressions that activate the brand or brand-related concepts.Testing this hypothesis will, of course, require a clear notion of what ‘strengthof impression’ might be in cognitive terms, and how to measure it.3.2 Participant rolesThe second technique for correlating language use with brand position isthe analysis of participant roles and the processes they are associated with inclauses. What kinds of processes is the brand associated with, particularly asagent or doer? What kinds of roles are left to or ascribed to readers? What otherparticipants are there in the processes reported in the text?This kind of study is related to what Fairclough (1989: 202) has called ‘buildingrelations’ between the producer/advertiser and the consumer, ‘buildingimages’ of products (in our case, brands), and ‘building consumers’ themselvesby associating them with ideal ‘subject positions’ in which they might be likelyto accept or reject the product and their relationship with it. We can captureits manifestation in language through applying the framework for looking atclause structure offered by Systemic Functional Grammar (Halliday, 1994:101ff). This framework categorises verbs (known in the framework as processes)not through their form, but through their meaning, so that we can look at theeffect certain kinds of verbs have on the meaning of the text.The technique of looking at process types and their doers and done-tos hasbeen used successfully to analyse bias in newspaper reporting (Fowler et al.,1979), in the apportioning of blame in the reporting of crime of domesticviolence (Clark, 1992), and in an analysis of presumption of innocence or guiltin the Tracey Andrews ‘road rage’ murder (Delin, 2000: 28ff). Vestergaard andSchroder (1985: 27ff) have a useful discussion of the application of a similarapproach to an advertising text. A clear introduction to the categories of analysis(a useful supplement to Halliday) is given by Thompson (1996: 78ff).We can start our analysis with mental processes – those processes that areconcerned with mental states. Because mental processes are only available to
J. Delin 19animate objects, we would expect these to be associated closely with ‘personified’brands – i.e. those that are aimed at the rightmost, least tangible, positionon the Brand Analytics continuum. However, it does not seem from this thatOrange as a brand occupies this position: in the document examined, Orangeactually gives itself only two mental processes:Orange believes…We know…Apart from these, Orange does not then have any other thoughts or feelings, atleast as a brand. There is no we think, we feel and so on. These might be expectedfrom a brand on a mission. Interestingly, though, while the brand itself is notprojected as having a rich mental life, its handsets and services are:your Orange phonebook remembers your numbers for youWildfire… learns about how you want her to helpWhen it comes to doing, most Orange sentences in my sample have the customeras doer. Orange is not a doer in many clauses at all: in fact, its servicesand handsets are doers more than the brand itself is. The following representsa brief survey of the clauses in Orange’s customer guide ‘What do you want todo?’. Table 4 below summarises the kinds of processes that Orange customersare involved in.Process typeMaterial:action verbsMental:thinking verbsVerbal:sayingverbsRelational:being andconnectingverbsOrange customersget through topeoplecall backfind anotherprovidercallenter (names)save (to memory)get the messagelisten to messagesreturn (call)listenrecord (a greeting)change (greeting)selecttake someone’sword forsomething*need to*need to trackdownworry*forgetrespond have (aphone)rely on*be connected* asterisked processes = negativesTable 4: Processes ascribed to Orange customers
Page 1 and 2: Journal ofAppliedLinguisticsjAL (pr
Page 3 and 4: J. Delin 4, I discuss conclusions,
Page 5 and 6: J. Delin positions do, or could, in
Page 7 and 8: J. Delin they cannot keep control o
Page 9 and 10: J. Delin Other brand values that oc
Page 11 and 12: J. Delin 11cations. In fact, the ad
Page 13 and 14: J. Delin 13What is important for th
Page 15 and 16: J. Delin 15Brand elements are there
Page 17: J. Delin 17or through explicit asse
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
Page 35 and 36: J. Delin 35be part of brand positio
Page 37 and 38: J. Delin 37clients to further their
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

Brand Tone of Voice:

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?