The latest Apple commercials are great examples of a company that places itself and its reputation at the center of its communications. They present themselves and their chief competitor, Microsoft, literally as people. The Apple person is likeable and the sort of person you might want to hang out with; friendly, confident, cool and relaxed. The Microsoft person is less impressive. He’s nervous, defensive and gives the impression he’d rather not be there at all.
The commercials give no real detail about Apple’s products or services. Instead, they promote a long-term message that Apple is good people, that we can feel good about keeping their company, and that the quality of their products goes without question. In contrast, their competitor has only the questionable quality of its products to offer, and those flaws are embodied by an actor who happens to remind us of Microsoft’s most famous employee. In this way one corporation becomes a flawed character we wouldn’t want to associate or be associated with, while we poke fun and share jokes about it with our friend, the other.
Keeping the Brand ‘In Mind’
Raw information, technical detail, rational argument – no matter how well reasoned and clearly presented – is by nature anonymous, characterless, utilitarian, orphaned from any source, and ultimately forgettable. It doesn’t help keep a company or its brand ‘in mind’.
What does help is when we think of Corporations as people, not entities. One relatively recent way to achieve this is to embrace social networking (Facebook, Twitter) in order to win the loyalty and forgiveness that’s reserved for our friends, and avoid the suspicion and distrust that may accompany an approach by strangers.
But expensive and infrequent commercials, perky tweets, or the camaraderie of a Facebook fan are not the only means available to add personality, stay in mind, and convince customers that they’re in good company.
Voicing Communications
Convention sometimes holds that the best writing model for conveying information is transparent, opinionless and apparently authorless – the perfect journalistic style.
I would argue instead that effective and memorable corporate communications, and not only external ones, should feature a specific corporate identity or ‘voice’. Key to developing and maintaining voice is making the notion of the character of the source, and the emotional appeal of the message, central principles. This not only helps customers ‘read’ information, it makes their task easier, makes the company memorable, and helps associate that positive experience with a brand.
Personality and Consistency
The danger for a company is that it writes itself or its brand out of its communications, when its goal should be the opposite: to be recognized and recalled whenever it communicates.
Among those things that help determine a recognizable voice in corporate communications are:
- Facts tempered with experiences. In a feature-list for a new notebook computer, it’s common to find a LED-backlit 1920*1080 pixel display. But in Apple’s case, the display is variously brilliant, stunning, beautiful, and ideal for watching HD movies. These are terms that may then come to mind when we see the computer or think of the brand.
- Elements imported from a conversational style. Writing that ‘speaks’ to customers probably isn’t written by a lawyer, so communications should be more like conversations than legalese.
- Consistency. You may not recognize a person who looks completely different every time you see them. Publications need consistent cues too if readers are to recognize a common and unifying authorial voice.
- Repetition of form, structure, and vocabulary helps too.
- Resisted temptation to let the subject dictate the style. Complex subjects don’t need tougher prose; technical detail is not by necessity dry and anonymous.
- Efficiency sacrificed for readability. Casual chit-chat may be one of the least efficient means of communication; mathematical notation one of the most dense. Good communications aim for somewhere in between!
- Fifteen pages of lists with a half dozen supporting tables may be ‘optimal’, but context-setting and a paragraph here and there reminds us that we’re in a conversation with the author, collaborating in the writing and reading process, and not merely taking instruction from a robot.
- Strong editing, especially where communications are compiled from multiple sources.
- Editing that refuses to allow topic complexity or audience specialization to excuse bland or incoherent voice.
- Strong sense of “I” and “You”. Strong characters are self-aware, and strong writing is positive, active, and unafraid to identify who is speaking and who else is in the conversation. Not “The manufacturer will replace a defective widget”, but “Widgetmaster will promptly replace your failed widget.”
When Deadpan Rational is Still Best
Of course, there are situations where a controlled style and vocabulary may be required. Air traffic control communications, drug administration instructions, and legal contracts are specifically intended to assume a single voice common to their specialized domain. These documents do not conjure the image of recognized and trusted friend. They are not intended to do anything but convey information as formally and accurately as the language will allow, and so use rigid conventions and contexts that must be understood before they are read.
But don’t write like that unless you have to.
Try to give readers of all types a memorable experience by developing a recognizable and repeatable authorial voice. Put the corp, not the corpse, back into corporate communications.
This article discusses corporate approaches to personalizing communications. But the same principles apply to individuals who are writing for colleagues, staff or managers within their organizations. There will be more on voice and narrative in non-fiction writing in an upcoming edition of the rewrite newsletter.