This document discusses how tone of voice in branding is measured and classified. It describes a model that analyzes over 1.87 million words from 230 brands across 30 sectors to identify typical tone of voice personalities. Eight common patterns are identified: The Sheep, The Strutters, Experts, Leaders, Grey Men, Institutions, Saviours, and The Triers. The document promotes a tone of voice measurement service that helps brands consistently deliver their values through language.

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Eight typical tone of voice personalities

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How do we measure tone of voice?
We’re the first people to have measured tone of voice.
Our tone of voice model is based on the psychological classification of
language.
We listen to brands talking as if they’re a person.
First we measure the sector against our all-business benchmark. It’s
based on 230 brands from 30 different sectors...
…with 1.87m business words. That’s almost exactly double the total words
Shakespeare used in his 39 plays. So it’s pretty chunky.
We’ve actively applied tone of voice measurement and creation across
many brands in different markets.
Here are eight patterns that commonly occur:

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The Sheep: brands with minimal variance from the market generic
tone of voice.

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The Strutters: It’s all about ‘us’ and nothing to do with ‘you’. What
we’ve done, our success and the certain logic delivered coldly and
without clarity. Arrogance personified.

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Experts: Confident about themselves delivering success to you.
Based in the here and now. Big in health and upmarket financial
services.

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Leaders: Strong character showing you what they do for others on
a clear timeline to the future. High levels of thinking, with
tentativeness representing humility.

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Grey Men: Characteristic of talking about things and not
connecting them. Commonly heard with brands having English as a
second language – especially German – and talking in bullet points.

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Institutions: Hiding behind brand name, focus on the past. Often
higher quant thinking. These brands are finding it very difficult to have
a conversation. Often procedures-driven with poor service.

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Saviours: All about the problems of others which they’ll solve.
Collectively socialised, often with personal issues too. Reasons to
take action are warmly delivered. Common in NFP and CR language.

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The Triers: Clear sign the brand has invested in copywriters.
They’ve cleared up the clutter. More ‘you’, warmed up with sensory
language and written clearly. But there’s very little between the ears.

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Tone of voice should be used to deliver brand values day
in day out.
Our model is customisable to client values or archetypes.
It’s backed by software that helps your writers deliver it
consistently.
You can find out more at: www.linguabrand.com
We tweet too: @linguabrand
You can talk to us directly in London: +44 207 608 5077
We work across the world.