Thursday 4 August 2016

Let advertising direct your tone of voice

Any tone of voice guidelines should look to the brand’s advertising for direction. Most don’t and their TOV suffers for it.


Let me state two true observations. Then see if you can spot the glaring inconsistency they reveal.

  • One: any brand’s advertising campaign is the highest profile communications a brand has. It therefore sets the tone of the brand’s voice as it’s the thing most consumers think of when they think of the brand.
  • Two: most tone of voice guidelines are not written by the advertising agency and do not significantly influence the creative direction of the brand’s advertising.

The disconnect between these two statements struck me last week when I was asked to create a tone of voice guide that stipulated the advertising headline style and structure – very precisely. Wow, I thought, the ad agency isn’t going to like this! We’re telling them what their next campaign will look like. More than that: we are telling them what all their future campaigns will look like.