‘Wackaging’ and how to get on-brand tone of voice

Most of us have a love/hate relationship with Innocent’s copywriting. Initially we are drawn in and grin at it and then quickly it feels like it’s trying to hard, we see it everywhere and we start to get sick of it. Our clients often brief us on creating a tone of voice which is friendly and open but not going so far as the Innocent style.

It is difficult to get tone of voice just right. With our clients we start with the internal-facing Brand Promise and Brand Attributes to align everyone’s thinking and then we ‘translate’ this into outward-facing Messaging and Tone of Voice guidelines. This creates a well-defined and recognisable personality for the brand including tone of voice.

So we don’t end up with ‘Wackaging’ – wacky packaging which talks back.

Image credit: Hazel Nicholson CC 2.0