Brand voice
A strong brand needs clear messages. The brand voice settles how a company sounds, before the first line is written.
How a missing brand voice shows
The website sounds factual, LinkedIn casual, the newsletter like a third company. New joiners ask how they should write for every piece. And every agency handover restarts the same conversation.
That is a decision problem, not a copywriting problem: nobody ever settled how the brand speaks, so everyone decides again, by instinct. The result is not wrong, but arbitrary. And arbitrary is the opposite of recognisable.
Since AI systems took over a growing share of text production, this weighs more. A language model has no instinct for the brand. It only has what it is given. A defined brand voice has moved from a question of style to an operational prerequisite.
How the brand voice takes shape
Kick-off
Goals, challenges and the current presence. What works, what feels off, where do channels contradict each other?
Sharpen positioning
What does the brand stand for, what does it set itself apart from, what does it promise? Without that answer, tone is a matter of taste.
Understand audiences
Who is listening, and what do they expect linguistically? The same message sounds right differently to procurement, IT and the board.
Define the tone
Worked out in the workshop and tested on real examples: how the brand sounds, how it does not, and how to tell the difference.
Focus the messages
Many possible statements become a few load-bearing ones. What the company always says, whatever the format.
Hand over the concept
A usable result, not a deck to file away. The basis for guidelines, content and campaigns.
The workshop is the first step. What comes out of it is then captured in the document people work with every day: the communication guidelines.
The brand voice describes how a brand speaks. How it looks, meaning logo, colours, typography and imagery, is the work of Brand & Design. Both build on the same positioning; defining only one of them produces a brand that contradicts itself.
Who the workshop is for
Communications and marketing leads, PR teams, social media managers and executives who want to develop their corporate communication. A mixed group works best: whoever will later work to the rules should have been in the room when they were made.
Your contact
Senior Content Strategist
Senior Content Strategist, with netzstrategen since 2024. She came to content strategy from journalism, bringing a passion for deep research and an eye for the bigger picture. Her guiding principle: no execution without strategy first. She develops content concepts for B2B, technology, innovation, health and social media, thinks cross-media from the start and guides clients from strategic idea to cross-channel execution.
What does your company sound like?
In a free 30-minute introductory call, we look at where the communication drifts apart.