Brand Tone of Voice:

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38 brand tone of voiceas coming from academic research in the field. The development of ‘brandedlanguage’ or ‘Tone of Voice’ is a much more recent phenomenon, developingonly perhaps since 2000, and only two agencies in the UK, Enterprise IGand Linguistic Landscapes, have applied to it any techniques, approaches, orknowledge from linguistics.Fairclough (1989: 211–23 et seq) has characterised the use of explicit languageknowledge to produce specific effects as a ‘technologization of discourse’,in which ‘everyday’ orders of discourse become increasingly regulated byresearchers, designers, and trainers, and that the resulting styles of discourse‘simulate’ elements of private discourse in the public sphere (Fairclough, 1992:215ff). It is important to note that few of the genres through which brandsare communicated are easily describable as ‘everyday’ in the sense that theyare the site of personal identity work for the individuals and groups thatproduce them, with the exception of spontaneous speech (e.g. face-to-faceand telephone interactions). While the notion of ‘discourse technologist’can imply a negative view of the use of language knowledge in commercialcontexts and to serve commercial aims, there are positive benefits to the presenceof knowledgeable practitioners who use linguistic insights to improvethe coherence, consistency, brevity, clarity, appropriateness and interest – andtherefore the effectiveness – of the communications that companies use.Research informed by knowledge about language can, for example, find outthe specific request forms that customers prefer when they are being askedto do something, or find out whether the ‘Plain Language’ that is being usedis in fact over-simple and condescending for some customer groups. It seemsclear that knowledgeable practitioners working in commercial contexts can beinfluential in providing linguistically-enlightened advice – such as counsellingagainst the use of call centre scripting – when it is otherwise doubtful thatcompanies would ever come into contact with, let alone be influenced by,academic views on the subject.This is not to say that the application of linguistic theory in commercialcontexts is without its practical problems. Applying linguistics to commercialcommunications still needs to be further developed if companies and organisationsare to feel fully comfortable with it. Such development will need toovercome at least the following challenges:1. Using linguistics potentially adds a costly and time-consuming stepto the process of understanding a brand’s communication needs andcurrent patterns, which is something that could conceivably be done‘by eye’, using a linguist, copywriter, or other language-aware professionalwho would simply read or listen to communications to gain a
J. Delin 39general impression. The linguistic approach will undoubtedly producean analysis at a level of detail that the client company will rarely wantto see.2. Even when a satisfactory linguistic description of a desired Tone of Voicehas been completed, it is difficult to express it in terms that the peoplewho need to use it will understand. This is because few of the adult workingpopulation in the UK have any background in grammar and relatedconcepts. While my own experience has shown it to be possible todiscuss passives and reflexive verbs with the branding team of a Spanishbank, I have not encountered a British client with such a well-developedunderstanding of grammar. Interestingly, design specialists have theirown technical vocabulary, and are happy to talk about reverse blocks,half-tones, picas, and call-outs, but communications specialists in theindustry appear content to manage without a metalanguage at any similarlevel of specificity.However, if these challenges can be overcome, there are also advantages thatcan be gained from the application of linguistic frameworks in the planning andproduction of commercial texts. Firstly, systematic linguistic analysis exposespatterns that are not casually visible ‘by eye’, and can yield genuinely newinsights into the ways commercial texts work. Secondly, because branding isbased on the idea that brands need to be distinctive from one another, it is surelyimportant to brand owners to have some reliable way of describing what isdistinctive about a brand’s language. Linguistic analysis provides for an explicitdescription of language patterns, and hence for such an explicit statement, inplace of the rather vaguer statements currently extant. Thirdly, an explicit,linguistically-sound understanding of a language style is both potentially communicablefor training and information within the company, and usable fordetecting (and planning) shifts in the brand’s language across time. Fourthly,experience suggests that companies are often grateful for evidence, rather thanjust opinion, about the best language to use to communicate their brands – tosettle internal arguments about what is, and what is not, ‘on brand’, if nothingelse. Finally, it is important for any organisation with global aspirations tothink about how its communications might work in other languages. Explicitstatements about Tone of Voice in the source language can help translators tosee what kind of ‘feel’ they might need to create in communications in targetlanguages. Ideally, a Tone of Voice would be worked out independently for eachlanguage of application, and specified at a level of linguistic detail that enabledtranslators to use it for guidance on their written style.
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Page 17 and 18: J. Delin 17or through explicit asse
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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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