How to present an authentic brand voice
Your brand's voice shapes the image you portray as a business – it’s made up of your personality, your mission and your core values, as well as social awareness and continual integrity. This voice must be consistent, and the tone is what conveys your intention without taking away or profiteering from the values you hold.
We commonly refer to businesses without an obvious personality as 'faceless' – something you definitely want to avoid. At best, companies that don't do the work to express who they are and what they stand for appear less than trustworthy. This is because they can more readily get away with acting unethically and breaking promises.
Without feeling a connection to a business, a customer is unlikely to pay attention to them. We’ve all been there, scrolling past adverts and posts from these ‘faceless’ companies to get to the content that shows real personality and speaks to us as consumers.
But once brands do start to make some noise, they need to stand up under scrutiny. If a brand makes a promise, it has to be kept – something that's particularly important to Millennials and Gen Z, who are, by far, the most influential consumer sector.
In the midst of COVID-19 and amazing strides being made by the Black Lives Matter movement, some organisations are showing themselves to be disingenuous under pressure, and people are taking note of their failings as they come to light. Today's consumer is deeply conscious of the ethical integrity of who they buy from. This means they'll only buy from you if their own beliefs are mirrored back to them. It's as simple as that.
The most important thing any brand can do is remain true to the image it creates; it's what will keep you relevant, attractive, and inspire loyalty among customers.
What not to do
Some organisations have recently got things very wrong, the silver lining of which is that it shows other businesses exactly how not to act.
In The Style recently released a Black Lives Matter-themed t-shirt design in response to the murder of George Floyd in the US, with profits going to raise money for Floyd's family. This seems like a kind-hearted move but it doesn't line up with the brand's previous behaviour. In The Style has a history of only using white models and deleting any criticism about that on its Instagram page. So the unveiling of the t-shirt was met with backlash, with many outing the brand as one that doesn't truly care about the cause.
When pressed about this, the CEO even blamed COVID-19 for the lack of diversity across its social media, when he could have tried to protect his brand's integrity by apologising and promising to do better in future.
In short, the brand's messaging has been wildly inconsistent, casting serious doubt on whether it actually cares about the campaign it claims to support.
Thankfully, for every business doing it wrong, there's at least one more being true to its image. TK Maxx, which actively works with a variety of charities and has run a number of campaigns with them, has shown once again that it practises what it preaches when it responded to the UK's lockdown by donating its sizable food stocks to community projects and food banks.
These examples are extreme, because the situation we're currently living in demands it, but they're great representations of the wrong and right ways to be true to your brand. The ones doing it right are securing their future and cementing their reputation as caring, authentic businesses with a heart.
Finding and presenting an authentic voice
You can find your brand voice in who you are as a person, why you launched your business in the first place, and who your audience is. Ask yourself:
What do you stand for?
What do you believe in?
How do you, personally, feel a business should conduct itself publicly?
What kind of people are you speaking to?
And how do the answers to those questions shape your business in a way that can remain consistent?
It all begins with identifying your audience and their beliefs – and how they align with your own – in order to connect with them. “Keep your message and content consistent... to become memorable within a targeted community,” explained VP of tech and partner at Manos Accelerator, Juan Felipe Campos.
Build relationships with your customer base and be explicit about the message you want to portray right from the beginning, using dedicated pages on your website and all across social media, and keep the bar high. This requires a high level of self-awareness, and of collaborative work with the people around you. Be transparent with them; let them know if you're working on your image and would like their help and support with it, as this honesty will endear you to your chosen audience.
If you want to stay relevant during bad times and good, it will require your brand to keep up with the changes. It’s important to continually revisit your company’s internal beliefs, value proposition and the things that set you apart so you can match the needs and perceptions of your audience.
You should:
Tell a story
Remain consistent
Practice what you preach
React appropriately to what's going on in the world around you
Top tip: Be prepared to fail, just in case.
The In The Style example shows us that the reaction to being called out for poor or inconsistent behaviour can change – or, in that brand's case, confirm – a negative perception.
Why now is the time
We are living in an era of social, political and economic upheaval, so identifying your market, humanising your story and your brand persona, and making sure the image you present is an authentic one is vital. This also means investing in your content.
Even prior to the current global situation, consumer trust had plummeted across all industries, and businesses are being held to a much higher standard. If your brand is not authentic then that will soon be unearthed; if it is, you won't just survive, but thrive, during tough times and beyond.