Brand Tone of Voice:

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26 brand tone of voiceconstruction of mental worlds – the ‘relational values’ (cf. Fairclough, 1989:179) that are created through lexical and grammatical choices.3.3 Presupposition and assumptionAs Vestergaard and Schroder (1985: 24) note, presupposition is ‘an extremelyfrequent feature’ of advertising texts. Also in relation to advertising, Cook(2001: 178) suggests that ‘any text must make assumptions about the knowledgeof its readers, and it is sometimes very informative to spell out exactlywhat this may be.’ While this process can lead to the infinite expansion of atext, both Cook (2001) and Fairclough (1989: 78ff) concur that it is ‘what isomitted in discourse, the gaps within it, which constitute the shared ideologyof the participants’ (Cook, 2001: 179). As with all texts, the use of presuppositionand assumption can be a convenient means of recruiting genuine sharedknowledge as an aid to economy of explanation. However, texts can also usethese resources to attribute to readers apparent ‘shared knowledge’ that is infact newly constructed in the process of interpretation.To see how this ‘shared knowledge’ is constructed, we can look first at whatis explicitly asserted in the texts. The HSBC texts make claims for the bank’scoverage and size, which would suggest its placement in the ‘what we have’ areaof the Brand Analytics continuum:…one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organisationswith more than 6,500 offices in 78 countries and territorieswe offer 1,700 branches in the UK, and in-store branches at someMorrison’s supermarketsHowever, the Orange literature also makes similar claims for coverage of thebrand:Orange now covers over 99% of the UK populationmore transmitters than any other UK networkEarlier, we looked in at the kinds of ‘brand elements’ that were associated withOrange: these were mainly characterised in terms of Orange services withexplicit branding (the Orange Answer Phone, for example). We saw then that theHSBC name was not used in this way, with possessive inferrables (our service,your self-service machines) appearing instead. This means that the servicesare not securely tied to the brand, as this was only weakly established at theoutset, while the Orange texts positioned the Orange brand, its network, andits services as interchangeable.
J. Delin 27The crucial point here is the means of introduction of the services: HSBCtexts refer to them using possessives without introducing them earlier (notwe have a service… our service but simply our service). What the and our havein common is that they are both presuppositional: they both linguisticallypresuppose, require, or force the reader to infer the existence of their referentswithout these things having been introduced beforehand. In the case of Orange,however, these things are presupposed as belonging to the Orange brand, whichhas been positioned as belonging equally to the customer and the company. Asa result, there is a sense of shared ownership of these referents. HSBC language,on the other hand, introduces many services for the first time using possessivesthat describe the services as belonging to the brand alone. This, together withthe position of authority it has constructed, may encourage customers to feelthat they can take advantage of these services only if HSBC lets them.Table 11 summarises HSBC’s presupposed services, etc. in terms of the brandcontinuum. There is a strong concentration of what is presupposed aboutthe brand in the central area of the continuum: products and services, andapproaches and processes.Infrastructure Products and services Approaches andprocessesIntangiblesour self-servicemachinesour service(s)our Instant AccessSavings accountour Individual ServiceReviewour Bank Accountour Cardholder PaymentProtection Insuranceour 24-hour automatedtelephone bankingserviceour Basic Bank Accountour Telephone, TV orInternet bankingour special fee-freecredit-card interest rateofferthe services of the HSBCgroupour hassle-free accountopening guaranteeour buffer zoneour unauthorisedoverdraft feeour personal terms andconditionsour paid-up capital andreservesour securityour discretionTable 11: Presuppositions about what HSBC hasIt is also interesting to look at the assumptions that texts from both companiesmake about their customers. Both, understandably, make assumptionsthat their customers have things that have to do with banking and phoning
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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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