Brand Tone of Voice:

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24 brand tone of voiceThese do not show who is doing the showing or withdrawing. There is also agreat deal of listing and use of non-clause grammar, so that nobody is doer, orother participants are left vague:Cash withdrawals with no penalty.Quarterly account statements.Supported by our hassle-free account opening guarantee.The balance between different clause types comes out heavily in favour ofdirectives with the customer as doer. The text, then, is predominantly tellingthe customer what to do.In contrast, Orange uses two kinds of sentence prominently: structures thatlist virtues of the product, and structures that go into more detail to tell thecustomer how to do things. The basic informative sentence ‘frame’ is given inTable 9.Circumstance Enablement Clause kernel Purpose MeansWhen you registerfor x servicewhen you’redoing xwe’ll even helpyouyou can (even) do x so that(advantage)you’ll be able towith an x fromOrangewith Orange’s xwith your OrangexTable 9: Orange informative sentence frameEverything in this structure except the clause kernel is grammatically optional.However, in the actual text, there is always an element included that shows thebenefit to the customer, either a purpose or enablement element. This meansthat the resulting statement is a declarative sentence (We’ll even help you toset up an extra line, so that you can take social and business calls on separatenumbers) rather than an imperative (Set up an extra line).When the customer has to be asked to do an action, the general actionsentence structure is that given in Table 10. The request to do something isnearly always minimised by some statement about how simple it is, and thereis frequently some statement of the benefit to the customer.
J. Delin 25Minimiser Action Resultsimply do x (and (then) do y) your result will happen.justOrange x service makes thiseasy.all you have to do is then/so you can do x.Table 10: Orange directive sentence frameOrange language, therefore, serves to create a link between customer anddesired services, by positioning those services as enabling desired action.When customers are asked to do something, it is described as simple andadvantageous. HSBC language, on the other hand, places the customer inthe position of responsible doer, and the bank as allower of those deeds.The brand is not constructed as apparently offering to reciprocate, and thebenefits offered to readers are often those of withholding penalties (we will notcharge) rather than positive advantages. It is a Tone of Voice that constructsa paternalistic, legislative and withholding/allowing position for the brand,which this analysis suggests is likely to create social distance between the brandand its customers.This short analysis also gives rise to a testable hypothesis for further researchwhich should reveal more about the way brands are constructed in relation toservices, customers, and other participants in the world of the text. If we assumethat this kind of textual construction does indeed have an effect on readers, wecan suggest that the effect might influence both perceptions of the brand, andperceptions of the self in relation to the brand. This proposal, then, is capturedin Hypothesis 2:Hypothesis 2: Participant roles. The reader’s impression of the brand willbe influenced by the type of processes ascribed to the brand and its relatedconcepts. Further, the reader’s construction of their own self-image will beinfluenced by the types of processes ascribed to them in the text. Finally,the reader’s understanding of their own relationship with the brand andits associated concepts will be influenced by the way all these participantsare positioned by association with processes within particular kinds ofsentence frame.The difficulty in testing this hypothesis lies primarily in what we mean byreaders being ‘influenced by’ the construction of them in the text. While thisremains vague, this approach does fit within a tradition of research that assumesthat linguistic means of construction of readers and hearers do influence the
Page 1 and 2: Journal ofAppliedLinguisticsjAL (pr
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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 and 16: J. Delin 15Brand elements are there
Page 17 and 18: J. Delin 17or through explicit asse
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Page 21 and 22: J. Delin 21Orange’s subordinate r
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Page 29 and 30: J. Delin 29many of the products and
Page 31 and 32: J. Delin 31And you don’t have to
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Page 41 and 42: J. Delin 41ReferencesAllen, T. and
Page 43 and 44: J. Delin 43John, O. P. (1990) The

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