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How To Build a Brand Voice So Premium That Customers Chase You — Transcript

by Joanna Wiebe · 3,401 words · 514 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Disney and Harley Davidson have almost
0:02nothing in common, and yet both are
0:04worth a fortune [music] and people
0:06tattoo their logos onto their skin.
0:09That's not because of the product, their
0:11price point, or even their logo. It's
0:13because of their [music] unique brand
0:15voice. Now, I have built brand voices
0:17for startups and for challenger brands,
0:19and if you [music] are trying to get
0:21noticed, your voice is the first
0:23decision you need to make and the one
0:25that affects every decision that
0:27follows. So, here are the six things you
0:29need to know to find your brand [music]
0:31voice. The first step to finding your
0:33brand voice is to ditch the adjectives.
0:36They [music] are a trap, not a voice. I
0:39ran a messaging workshop for a Fortune
0:41500 company recently. Now, they sent me
0:43their brand guide in the pre-work phase.
0:4560 [music] pages. 59 of those pages
0:48covered the visual brand. The last page
0:50had four words on it. Bold, authentic,
0:53friendly, human. That was the brand
0:55voice guide. That was it. And here's
0:57what happens when you try to use [music]
0:59it. You look at some copy, like a
1:01headline, and you ask yourself, "Is this
1:03bold?" Sure, we can call it bold. "Is it
1:05authentic and human?" Well, it was
1:07written by a human, so yeah. "Is it
1:08friendly?"
1:10Not unfriendly. You convince yourself
1:12you're on brand when you've actually
1:13decided nothing. The only conversation
1:16those four adjectives can ever generate
1:18ends with someone saying, "Well, you
1:20know, we'll know it when we hear it."
1:22Which sounds reasonable until you
1:24realize that sentence [music] is the
1:26sound of your brand voice dying. Take
1:29Mailchimp. Everyone
1:31>> [music]
1:31>> cites them as a voice when what? Go to
1:34their site and strip out the
1:35illustrations. Send better email, sell
1:38more stuff, [music] reach more customers
1:40with SMS, discover new ways to drive
1:41sales, send high-quality content with
1:43ease. If you took the chimp out of the
1:45logo, nothing there would identify it as
1:47uniquely Mailchimp. Mailchimp was once a
1:50challenger brand with a real voice.
1:52Today, it has become white noise and
1:55bland [music] adjectives are what got it
1:57there. Now, Marty Neumeier, one of the
1:59sharpest minds in branding, said it
2:00plainly, "A brand is not your logo. It's
2:03your reputation and it's always moving.
2:05It's the gut feeling someone gets when
2:07they think about [music] you. And that
2:08feeling is built through storytelling,
2:10through the words you choose and how you
2:12put them together." So, brand voice is
2:14not decoration you just layer on at the
2:16end. You don't write a page of copy and
2:18then say, "Okay, cool. Now make it sound
2:20like us." The voice has to come from a
2:21truth at the heart of your brand and
2:24adjectives can't get you there because
2:26they describe nothing and rule out
2:29nothing. Bold, authentic, friendly,
2:31human, every brand on earth could claim
2:34all four and most of them do. Adjectives
2:37fail because they're too easy to bend to
2:39your will, [music] too easy to mean
2:41whatever you need them to mean in the
2:43moment, which means they mean nothing.
2:45And adding more of them won't help. More
2:48adjectives just give you more like mush
2:50to wade through. That is how you become
2:52category wallpaper, unnoticeable,
2:55forgettable, no moat. And that Fortune
2:57500 brand I mentioned, they're sadly
2:59losing share every month they hide
3:01behind weak adjectives and no courage.
3:03So, here's what [music] to do. Pull up
3:05your brand voice guide or whatever you
3:07have that's supposed to tell you how
3:08your brand sounds and burn it. No, okay,
3:11I'm kidding, kind of. But truly, if your
3:13brand voice guide is a short list of
3:15adjectives, ask yourself one question
3:17for each one. Does this actually change
3:19how a sentence gets written? Does it
3:22change the word [music] choice, the
3:24rhythm, the length? If the answer is no,
3:26it's the core. Get rid of it. Then, run
3:30a lineup [music] test. Take a paragraph
3:31of your copy, remove your logo, and drop
3:34it alongside three competitors. [music]
3:36Can anyone pick yours out as yours? That
3:39exercise will show you exactly [music]
3:40what category wallpaper looks like and
3:42whether or not you're already part of
3:44it. Chances are you are. So, if
3:47adjectives are out, what works? It's not
3:49a concept or framework, it's something
3:51much more specific. The second step is
3:53to find your person. Your brand voice
3:56lives in a specific human, not just a
3:59concept. Early in my career, I was
4:01working with the PR lead at Intuit. Her
4:03name was Jen. We were talking about how
4:05the brand voice needed to come to life
4:07across copy, press releases, everything.
4:10Jen said something I have never
4:12forgotten. She said, "It's not a list of
4:14adjectives, [music]
4:15it's Nieas." Nieas was a person on the
4:17project management team, a kind of
4:19cultural ambassador inside the company.
4:22And just like that, [music] Nieas became
4:23shorthand for what Intuit sounded like
4:25publicly. Not four words on a page, not
4:28some idealistic concept, a person. So,
4:31when writers were unsure, the question
4:33wasn't, "Is this bold and human?" It
4:35was, "How would Nieas say this?" You can
4:37see this working in bigger brands, too.
4:39Mint Mobile is owned by Ryan Reynolds.
4:42The voice of their copy is Ryan
4:44Reynolds, a person who, when he speaks,
4:47is things like dry humored, self-aware,
4:50slightly bumbling. Those adjectives are
4:52not the voice. Ryan Reynolds is the
4:54voice. So, when Mint decided not to run
4:57a Super Bowl ad, they ran a print ad
4:59instead. In Ryan Reynolds' voice, it
5:01said, "I'm new to this whole business
5:04thing, but I'm pretty sure that if I
5:06spend $5 million on a Super Bowl ad,
5:08you, the customer, are going to have to
5:10[music] pay for that. So, instead, I'm
5:11running this print ad." Now, you can
5:13hear Ryan Reynolds. That is what a brand
5:16voice actually sounds like, a voice, a
5:18real voice. Here's why this works.
5:20Researchers Reeves and Nass found that
5:22conversational copy, copy that sounds
5:24like a specific human talking to you,
5:27lifts trust over corporate copy every
5:29time. Not surprising. We've seen this
5:31ourselves. We worked with a brand that
5:33helped women find clothes that fit their
5:35body, whatever that [music] body shape
5:37was. The control headline was, "Find
5:39clothes you'll love." No voice, no
5:41person. We tested it against a headline
5:43that read, "Big bum, thick waist,
5:46not-so-perky boobs." And it beat the
5:48control by a landslide because it
5:50sounded like a real person who actually
5:52saw the customer. Now, two things will
5:55kill this. The first, [music] building
5:57your voice by committee. Averaging
5:59everyone's opinion gives you something
6:01neutral, beige, AI-generated, and
6:04forgettable. Same as averaging anything.
6:06The second is picking an [music]
6:08aspirational type instead of an actual
6:10person. We want to sound like a TED Talk
6:12is useless. We want to sound like Simon
6:15Sinek [music] in that first TED Talk.
6:17Okay, now you have something to work
6:18with, but don't summarize it on a page.
6:21Hold an all-hands, watch [music] the TED
6:23Talk together, and have the whole
6:25company come up with and then own how
6:28the brand sounds. Now, the reason
6:30founder-led brands are everywhere right
6:33now is not a trend. It's because a
6:35person is the one thing competitors
6:37cannot copy-paste. Features, fonts,
6:39[music] adjectives, all of that can be
6:41lifted overnight. A human point of view,
6:43a human voice, cannot. If your brand is
6:45in need of a voice people can [music]
6:47actually hear, book a call with us. We
6:50work exclusively with challenger brands
6:52and their founders. The link is in the
6:54description below. Find the person in
6:56your organization who already is [music]
6:58the brand. If you're a founder with a
7:00team of five, it's probably you. Write
7:03three sentences as that person or get
7:05them to write three [music] sentences.
7:07Then, open your current homepage copy up
7:09and hold the two side [music] by side.
7:11If there's a gap, that gap is the work.
7:13And if you're using AI to write copy, do
7:16not feed [music] it a style guide.
7:18Instead, feed it a detailed profile of
7:20that person, who they are, how they
7:22think, [music] what they'd never say.
7:23That's what gets you somewhere. But a
7:25person just standing there is still
7:27boring. The voice ignites when you know
7:29who you're fighting for. The third step
7:31is to find your fight. The spine of your
7:34voice is a who with something to fight
7:37for. When I work with a brand to find
7:39their voice, I always start with the
7:41founder. In most cases, the founder was
7:43the first customer. They saw something
7:45so broken, they were willing to bet
7:48their own money [music] on fixing it.
7:50That conviction is where the voice comes
7:52from. We did this with Wistia. They were
7:54an underdog coming into a crowded video
7:56hosting market. [music]
7:57We said, "Look, you're not an advocate
7:59for the business owner who buys from
8:00you. You are an advocate for the
8:02videographer, the person who's going to
8:04use this every single day and currently
8:06feels unseen. So, get on their [music]
8:08side first." That meant everything they
8:10built pointed at one thing, making a
8:12videographer's life easier. It's not
8:14going to be undercutting competitors on
8:16price, not listing features. [music] The
8:18community they built, the free training,
8:19the workshops, the swag, all of it
8:21oriented around what videographers
8:23actually care about, because that's what
8:25[music] brand advocacy looks like. It's
8:28a decision about who you exist for. Once
8:30you make that decision, the voice
8:32follows. You stop guessing what to say,
8:35how to say it, and you start listening
8:36how they talk, what they're going
8:38through, what [music] they're thinking.
8:40The message underneath everything
8:42becomes, "We're absolutely [music]
8:44fascinated by our customers." And
8:46customers feel that. Eight emails tested
8:49against their existing eight in a proper
8:51AB split test run by the internal growth
8:53team at Wistia, this was the result: a
8:55350% [music]
8:57increase in paid conversions just by
8:59advocating for and sounding [music] like
9:01the customer. That result didn't come
9:03from executing on better copy
9:05necessarily. It came from choosing
9:07someone strategically. And choosing
9:10someone strategically means being
9:11willing [music] to lose someone else.
9:13Now, there's research showing that
9:15polarizing brands, brands with [music] a
9:17clear point of view about who they're
9:18there for, consistently outperform
9:21neutral ones. In a lineup of bottled
9:24waters, all five brands that had a brand
9:26voice or a personality outperformed the
9:29one water that was branded neutrally or
9:31without a voice. The lesson is that it
9:33may not even matter what your voice is
9:35as long as you have one. So, the
9:37customer or even the employee who says,
9:39"I don't get why Wistia is so focused on
9:41videographers. Why not just talk about
9:43hosting costs?" They don't get it. They
9:44won't get it. Let them go. A brand
9:46[music] that's an advocate for someone
9:48will always outlast a brand that's
9:50trying to please everyone because
9:53advocacy has conviction behind it, and
9:55conviction is what gives a voice its
9:57spine. [music] So, finish this line. We
9:59are an advocate for blank against blank.
10:01Okay. For Wistia, it was, "We are an
10:03advocate for videographers against the
10:05tyranny of slow posting platforms built
10:08for documents." [music] For a biomarker
10:10brand like Vital's Vault, it could be,
10:12"We are an advocate for unseen patients
10:14who are told they're imagining things
10:16against doctors who are too [music] busy
10:17to care." For a real estate brand like
10:19Tom Ferry, it could be, "We are an
10:21advocate for ambitious real estate
10:23agents against shotty sales tactics that
10:25hurt person-driven brands." [music] If
10:27you can't complete that line with
10:29specificity, you have foundational work
10:31to do on your brand voice. But, knowing
10:33who you're fighting for is only half of
10:35it. The other half is how you show up.
10:37The fourth step is to find your [music]
10:39conviction, not your volume. I said pick
10:42a fight in the last point, but picking a
10:43fight doesn't mean starting a screaming
10:45match. Take Liquid Death and Virgin.
10:47Both have a voice. Now, Liquid Death
10:49came onto the scene screaming. [music]
10:51That is their mode, their energy, their
10:52whole thing. Virgin is something else
10:55entirely. Cheeky, certain, sexy. It
10:57doesn't raise its voice to prove it
10:59exists. It just shows up every time with
11:01the same underlying conviction. Now,
11:03both brands work, but only one of them
11:05is measuring itself by how loud it can
11:07get. Then, look at a brand like Vital's
11:09Vault again, a challenger in the
11:11biomarker space up against well-funded
11:13competitors. Their founder is different.
11:15Their founder has a conviction that most
11:17brands would be too cautious to say out
11:19loud, that medicine [music] has failed
11:21women. It wasn't until 1993 that
11:24clinical research in the US was required
11:26to include women. The reason women were
11:28excluded for all of medical history?
11:30Women's bodies are too complicated to
11:32study. So, women have been gaslit,
11:34dismissed, told they're imagining
11:36symptoms that are very real. Now, the
11:37conviction is the [music] spine of
11:39everything Vital Voices does going
11:41forward. No screaming required, just a
11:43clear conviction about who has been let
11:45down and why that has to change. There's
11:47a study by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute
11:49showing that distinctiveness and
11:51consistency drive brand memory more than
11:54intensity does. So, a brand that shows
11:56up with conviction every time will
11:59outlast a brand that's trying to be the
12:00loudest thing in the room. The [music]
12:01mistake most brands make here is
12:03confusing conviction with edge. We want
12:06to sound edgy, funny, Gen Z, but edgy is
12:09just another adjective. It's a costume,
12:10it's not a conviction. Conviction is
12:12what you believe in so deeply that it
12:14cannot help but show up in an email the
12:16same [music] way it shows up in a Super
12:18Bowl ad. It doesn't need a volume dial.
12:20It just needs to be real. Now, Patagonia
12:23has built one of the most recognizable
12:25brand voices in the world on exactly
12:27that, a very distinct conviction of the
12:30planet that shows up consistently in
12:32everything they do. And it works whether
12:34you're a law firm, a luxury house, any
12:35of it. The question isn't how loud or
12:38flashy should our brand be. It's what do
12:40we believe in so deeply that it will
12:42resonate loudly everywhere we show up.
12:45If you have a genuine advocate
12:47internally, someone who actually [music]
12:49burns for the customer you're serving,
12:52that answer already exists. The drivers
12:53behind [music] your brand voice are
12:55already there. You just have to name
12:57them. The fifth step is to release your
12:59brand voice, not cage it. Chanel has
13:02been pearls, tweed, and a very specific
13:05idea of sophistication for over 100
13:07years. That [music] brand is ironclad.
13:09And so, when a new executive joins
13:11Chanel, they are required to stay silent
13:13in meetings for 90 days. Three months of
13:17a very clever executive paid very well
13:20just quietly listening, watching how
13:22decisions get made, absorbing the brand
13:23before they're allowed to try try
13:25[music] shape it even a little. That is
13:26what it looks like to guard a voice you
13:28have earned. Once you've got it nailed,
13:30yes, guard it, but that doesn't mean you
13:32lock it in. Chanel didn't lock in always
13:35pearls, always feminine, always the
13:37same. They brought in Kristen Stewart,
13:38[music] a completely different look from
13:40anything in Chanel's past, and she is
13:42entirely on brand. She wears it her way.
13:44She brings it into today. The voice is
13:46still Chanel, but it's a living,
13:48breathing voice. Marty Neumeier's point
13:50is worth coming back to here. Your brand
13:52voice doesn't live in your brand guide,
13:54it [music] lives in your audience's gut.
13:56You can shape it. You can release it,
13:58but you cannot own it outright because
14:00your customers are co-creating it. This
14:02is where most organizations trip and
14:03fall. The voice gets handed through
14:05legal and brand approval processes, and
14:07suddenly nothing moves without a
14:09committee sign-off. [music] Every new
14:10channel becomes a threat. Every piece of
14:12content is a risk, and the voice, which
14:15was supposed to [music] be living and
14:16breathing, starts to suffocate. People
14:18can feel it. A brand being controlled
14:20too tightly reads as stiff, cautious,
14:23inauthentic. The harder you grip, the
14:24faster the voice dies. But the flip side
14:27is also true. Don't lock in anything
14:28before you've tested it. If you've
14:29decided you're an advocate
14:31videographers, but it's landing wrong in
14:33the market, undo it. Use trial reels and
14:35short-form content to try out voices
14:37without much risk. If something feels
14:39very risky, use a service like 5-second
14:42test to validate or invalidate it
14:44quickly with a small private group. Stay
14:46in touch with [music] your audience.
14:47Keep listening. Guard the voice once
14:49you've earned the right to guard it, not
14:51before. Challenger brands [music] in
14:53particular should be experimenting
14:55constantly, not guessing and then
14:56etching that guess in stone. So, once
14:58you build something worth guarding, the
14:59last thing to ask becomes, "Will this
15:01actually work?" The sixth and final
15:03[music] step is to protect what you've
15:04built. Your voice is the one asset
15:06nobody can touch. Disney,
15:08Harley-Davidson, Apple, three brands
15:10that couldn't be more different, and
15:12three brands nobody has ever
15:13successfully copied. Disney's conviction
15:16has always been around childhood and the
15:18magic of it. Harley-Davidson's is
15:20freedom, [music] the outlaw, the open
15:22road, the refusal to be told how to
15:24live. Apple started as a challenger and
15:26that 1984 [music] commercial was its
15:28conviction on full display. We are
15:31challenging the status quo. So are you.
15:33If you took away what any of those
15:35brands sound [music] like, if they all
15:36went flat tomorrow, we might not notice
15:39for a decade. That's what happens with
15:40brands you grow up with. The memory
15:42would hold, but eventually we would
15:44notice because what they've built goes
15:45beyond recognition. It's a feeling
15:47[music] that belongs to people and once
15:49it's gone, it is almost impossible to
15:51rebuild. Most brands de-prioritize voice
15:53because they believe their real moat is
15:55something else. Their technology, their
15:57audience, their unique mechanism. And
15:59yes, those things [music] matter, but
16:01they often have a shelf life. Someone
16:02smarter or better funded will eventually
16:04build what [music] you built faster than
16:07you'd like to believe. The features that
16:08set you apart today are someone else's
16:10road map item for next quarter. A voice
16:12does not work that way. It can't be
16:14lifted from a pitch deck, vibe coded
16:16overnight, or reverse engineered from a
16:17product teardown. And if [music] a
16:18competitor tries to copy it directly,
16:20the market notices. It reads as hollow,
16:23derivative, embarrassing. The original
16:26wins. Which means that while everything
16:28else you built is being studied and
16:30replicated, your brand's voice is the
16:32one thing sitting completely outside of
16:34that equation. It costs nothing to build
16:37and [music] it cannot be bought at any
16:39price. Now, here's the gut check. What
16:41would a competitor have to spend to
16:43rebuild your recognition and loyalty
16:46from zero? Not just your awareness, your
16:48loyalty. That number is what your brand
16:51voice [music] is worth. If the answer is
16:53nothing because you don't have a brand
16:54voice yet, then you know where to start.
16:56If it's a billion, now you've got to
16:58make sure your voice doesn't get lost or
17:00diluted by team members who think it's
17:02just four adjectives in a 60-page guide
17:04on logo treatment. The thing is, your
17:06copywriters are responsible for a lot,
17:09not just brand voice, but they're
17:11largely untrained. It's frustrating for
17:13you and for them and it's leaving
17:14[music] so much growth on the table that
17:16I'm confident you're stressed even
17:18thinking about it. So, put them in
17:20training with me. [music] Not a course,
17:21actual hands-on training. Start with a
17:23copy of my book and then book a call to
17:25discuss the transformation you want in
17:27your copywriters and content
17:29strategists. There are links to both in
17:31the description below. So, those are the
17:33six [music] steps on the path to a
17:34breakthrough brand voice, the one asset
17:36your competitors can never touch. If you
17:39want to go deeper on this, check out the
17:40links below.

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