Brand Strategy

05 / Personality & Tone of Voice

05 / PERSONALITY & TONE OF VOICE

Key question

What is the brand like, and how does it speak?

Brands are perceived just like people: they can come across as friendly or distant, playful or serious. This personality is reflected in design, language, and behaviour.

Learning objective: You are able to describe a brand personality and derive a tone of voice with clear rules from it.

Brands have a character, whether you plan for it or not.

5.1 / Brand personality

Five dimensions describe the character.

Jennifer Aaker described five dimensions of brand personality:

Sincerity

Honest, down-to-earth, warm.

Excitement

Bold, vibrant, imaginative.

Competence

Reliable, intelligent, successful.

sophistication

Elegant, sophisticated, charming.

Robustness

Powerful, connected to nature, resilient.

A brand does not need to fulfil every dimension. What matters is a clear profile that aligns with its positioning.

A distinct profile is better than a balanced one.

5.2 / Archetypes

Familiar characters as a guide.

Archetypes are recurring character types from stories, such as the hero, the sage, the rebel, or the caregiver. In branding, they help make a personality instantly relatable and tangible.

Archetypes are a tool, not a scientific typology. They serve as a starting point, not a template.

An archetype is a starting point, not a template.

5.3 / Tonality

How the brand speaks.

Tone of voice describes how a brand speaks: through its choice of words, sentence length, form of address, and humour. While its core remains the same, it adapts to the situation: an error message sounds different from an advertising billboard.

Clear rules help everyone who writes for the brand: What do we do, what do we avoid? How typography supports tone of voice is shown in Design Psychology, Section 4.4.

Same voice, different mood.

Try it out

Personality slider

Adjust five sliders. The tool describes the profile and derives rules: what the brand does and what it avoids.

factualemotionalclassicmodernquietloudexclusiveaccessibleseriousplayful

The same word, two disciplines: how positioning becomes language and image.

Profile

Our brand is balanced between factual and emotional, modern, quiet, accessible, balanced between serious and playful.

What we do

We appear new, fresh and contemporary.

We convince with restraint.

We are there for everyone and explain simply.

What we avoid

dusty phrasing

exclamation marks and superlatives

jargon and insider knowledge

A brand that sits in the middle of every slider often looks bland. Clear decisions make it recognisable.

Exercise

A voice for the brand

Task: Develop your brand's personality and tone of voice.

STEP 1

Choose a personality dimension and an archetype as a starting point.

STEP 2

Adjust the tonality profile using the sliders.

STEP 3

Write three texts: an advertising slogan, an error message, and a response to a complaint.

STEP 4

Check whether all three sound like the same brand.

Evaluation: Where was it difficult to hold the pitch?

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06 / Architecture & Naming →

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