Brand Tone of Voice:

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and tone of voice2.3 Brand values and brand positionAll kinds of brands, whether product or service, have in common the factthat they are developed to achieve a particular brand position: to appeal to aparticular audience for a particular purpose. To this end, most brands – at leastto their owners – are motivated by some explicit statement of their position:a set of characteristics, traits, or behaviours that expresses what is unique ordistinctive about the brand. Table 1 shows the brand values for TXU Energi 6 ,an electricity company trading in the UK until 2003, when it was mergedwith Powergen. Table 2 gives the brand values of Orange, the global mobiletelecommunications company.TXU Energi valuesStraight TalkingEnergy Experts PlusSwitched OnCustomer ChampionElaborationThey know what they are talking about, speak my language, get tothe point and make things happen.Whatever they do you can trust TXU to get it right and they makeit all so easy.They’re a bright group of people who use their expertise for mybenefit.TXU goes the extra mile for me. They know what I need and deliverit in the way that I want it.Table 1: TXU Energi brand valuesOrange valuesHonestStraightforwardFriendlyRefreshingDynamicElaborationWe are always open and honest. We say what we do and we dowhat we say. We have nothing to hide and we behave responsibly.For us, clarity comes through simplicity. We recognise that we arepeople communicating with other people. We are always direct andeasy to understand.We enjoy working and succeeding together by building closerelationships. While we have a sense of purpose, we also have asense of humour. We consider the needs both of our customers andof each other.We constantly look to do things differently and in a better way. Wegive colour to all that we do. We are ready to push the boundariesand take risks.We want to make a difference to people’s lives. Our optimism iscontagious. We are passionate about what we do and we haveconfidence in ourselves.Table 2: Orange brand values
J. Delin Other brand values that occur frequently in service brands are human, approachable,warm, clear, friendly, professional, expert, and committed. Less frequentlypresent are fun, courageous, vital, agile, and passionate. Not all brand values areadjectives (see TXU’s, above) and not all are single words. Some are mixtures ofdifferent grammatical categories: for example, First Direct (a UK online bank)has respect, right first time, responsive, contribution, openness, and kaizen (thislast being a Japanese word meaning ‘continuous improvement’). The idea ofvalues such as all these is that they govern everything the brand does – not justin communications, but in the way it operates all of its business processes.As an example of the way branding agencies seek to describe, analyse andreposition the brands they work with, Figure 1 shows a diagram of EnterpriseIG’s ‘Brand Analytics’ framework, which is used by the agency to locate brandsalong a continuum stretching from ‘tangible’ on the left to ‘intangible’ on theright (for an overview of this and other descriptive tools in current use byagencies, see Michel and Ettenson, 2005).TangibleIntangibleWhat youWhat you do How you do it Who you are Why you do ithaveinfrastructureproducts andapproach andpeople andpurpose,servicesprocessvaluesmission, causeFigure 1: Enterprise IG’s ‘Brand Analytics’ continuumTangible brands are those whose offer to customers is focused on their owninfrastructure – for a phone company, this could be the coverage of its mobilenetwork; for a bank, it could be the number of branches and ATMs they have.It is clear that this is a very different offer from one at the ‘intangible’ end of thescale, in which the brand’s position is based on a ‘mission’. For example, a phonecompany could attempt to communicate that they are ‘passionate about keepingpeople in touch with each other’; or a bank could try to express a desire to helpcustomers ‘achieve their dreams’. In terms of brand values, brands towards theright of the scale may have more abstract values such as ‘love’ and ‘passion’,while brands on the left of the scale may have more concrete values such asreliability, accessibility, and ease of use. In fact, in their analysis of the brand
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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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