A brand tone of voice is the way a brand addresses its reader: how formal, how serious, how respectful and how enthusiastic it is. Tone changes with the situation: a reply to a complaint is more restrained than an offer page. The brand voice stays the same in both texts, and the reader recognises the same company. A tone chosen to seem likeable can cost trust: Nielsen Norman Group measured this effect in car insurance in 2016. This article shows how to define your tone, set it and write it into your editorial charter, so that all your writers apply it in the same way.
Tone of voice and brand voice: the difference
Brand voice describes the company’s personality as it comes through in its texts: its values, its character traits, the words it uses and the words it refuses. It rarely changes, and only by decision.
Tone is the way that voice is expressed in a given situation. A bank keeps the same voice when it announces a new service and when it turns down a loan. When it turns down the loan, it adopts a more restrained and more formal tone.
A brand document that describes tone with three adjectives, such as “approachable, expert and dynamic”, leaves each writer to interpret them. Two writers can then write the same text in two different tones.
The four dimensions of tone of voice
In 2016, the American firm Nielsen Norman Group described tone of voice along four dimensions. Each dimension runs between two poles, and a text sits somewhere between them.
| Dimension | What it sets | Question to ask yourself |
|---|---|---|
| Formal or casual | The distance from the reader: contractions, first names, sentence length, everyday or formal vocabulary | Do you write as you would in an official letter, or as you would to a colleague? |
| Serious or funny | How much room humour gets | Can your subject take a touch of wit without losing credibility? |
| Respectful or irreverent | The attitude towards the subject, clients and competitors | Do you allow yourself to challenge the conventions of your sector? |
| Matter-of-fact or enthusiastic | How much emotion shows in the text | Do you describe your offer with facts or with signs of enthusiasm? |
A position on these four dimensions can be checked on a single sentence. A contraction shows that a text is not formal; a joke shows that it is not serious. An adjective such as “expert” offers no test of this kind.
What tone changes for the reader: the Nielsen Norman Group study
In August 2016, Nielsen Norman Group published a study of the effect of tone of voice on how users perceive a brand. One hundred US participants read website copy from four sectors: car insurance, banking, home security and healthcare. For each sector, two versions differed only in tone. Participants rated each version out of 5, in particular on how friendly it seemed, how trustworthy it seemed and how willing they were to recommend the brand.
- In banking, the casual version was rated friendlier than the formal one (+0.7 points) and more trustworthy (+0.3 points).
- In insurance, the playful version was rated friendlier (+0.3 points) but less trustworthy than the serious one (−0.3 points). Participants were no more willing to recommend it.
- Across the study, trustworthiness explains 52% of the variation in willingness to recommend.
In this study, a lighter tone did not have the same effect in banking as in insurance. At the insurer, the friendlier version inspired less trust, and trust accounts for more than half of the variation in willingness to recommend. Choose your tone according to your sector and your readers.
How to define your brand’s tone
Tone follows from brand voice. The Brand Voice Framework sets out the steps in this order:
- Values: three to five convictions the company can prove.
- Character traits: the qualities these values give the brand, for example reliable or bold.
- Traits to avoid: what those qualities become when pushed too far. A brand that wants to sound expert risks sounding arrogant.
- The position on each dimension: it follows from the previous steps. A brand that must inspire trust in a regulated sector sits on the serious, matter-of-fact side.
- The test on sentences: each position is illustrated by one sentence the brand writes and one sentence it does not.
When tone varies from one text to another and the situation does not explain it, the Brand Voice Framework sets an order. First settle the earliest step still open, then derive the tone from it, then rework the sentences.
A case: the tone of a point-of-sale display manufacturer
This case is real and anonymised. An industrial company in the Benelux designs and manufactures displays and point-of-sale materials for brands and retailers. Its readers are product managers, buyers and in-store marketing managers.
Its brand voice rests on three main traits: creative, reliable and responsible. It also names the traits to avoid, including arrogance and excessive jargon. Its positions on the four dimensions follow from these traits:
- a professional register, without stiffness;
- a serious tone, with an occasional touch of wit;
- respect for clients and their projects;
- measured enthusiasm.
The “responsible” trait shows in the vocabulary. At the end of August 2026, the company settled its environmental vocabulary. It banned the word “green” and its French equivalent. A phrase that presents a display as eco-friendly is now used only to explain that no display is entirely eco-friendly, before describing the company’s eco-design work. Absolute promises, such as “100%” or “zero impact”, are excluded. Each of these rules removes a word the company could not prove.
Here are two sentences written for this article. The first follows these rules: “The display assembles in ten minutes, without tools.” The second breaks them: “A 100% eco-friendly display that will revolutionise your shop!” It breaks two vocabulary rules (“100%” and “eco-friendly”), and its enthusiasm is no longer measured.
Writing tone of voice into your charter
For every writer to apply the same tone, the charter describes positions and gives example sentences. Four elements are enough:
- the brand’s position on each of the four dimensions, in one sentence;
- one sentence the brand writes and one it does not, for each dimension;
- adjustments by situation: more formal for a complaint or a legal subject, more direct on social media. Each adjustment stays within the limits set by the voice;
- the words the brand uses and those it refuses, with the reason for each refusal.
These elements belong in the editorial charter, alongside the rules of form. Topics and angles belong to the editorial remit.
Frequently asked questions about tone of voice
What is a brand’s tone of voice?
A brand’s tone of voice is the way it speaks to its reader in a given situation. It is described along four dimensions: formal or casual, serious or funny, respectful or irreverent, matter-of-fact or enthusiastic. It follows from the brand’s values and personality.
Why does tone change when brand voice stays the same?
Brand voice is the company’s personality in its texts, and it is the same everywhere. Tone applies that voice to a situation and varies with it. A company keeps its voice in a reply to a complaint, but takes a more restrained tone there than on an offer page.
How do you adapt tone of voice to different channels?
First set the brand’s position on each of the four dimensions. Then state, for each channel or situation, how far the tone may move from that position: more direct on social media, more formal in a contract. The reader must recognise the same company on every channel.
The Brand Voice Framework sets out how we define a voice and derive its tones for each situation. To apply it to your brand, contact us.