Gold CityWealth Brand & Marketing Awards
Gold Transform Awards
Silver DBA Design Effectiveness Awards
Most organisations sound different depending on who is writing. The website sounds one way. The proposals sound another. The emails sound like they were written by a completely different company altogether.
That inconsistency costs you. It confuses people, undermines trust and makes your brand feel smaller than it is. Tone of voice fixes that. Done well, it gives everyone in your organisation a shared language, a way of speaking that feels genuinely yours, that people actually want to use and that makes every piece of communication more effective.
What makes tone of voice succeed
Most tone of voice documents fail because they describe a personality rather than give people tools to write. They tell people to be ‘clear, confident and human’ without showing what that looks like in practice. The document gets filed and forgotten.
We build tone of voice around examples, not adjectives. Every principle comes with a before and after. Writers can see immediately what it means for their own work. That is what makes people actually use it.
We start by understanding what makes your organisation distinctive, not just what you do, but how you think, what you believe and what you want people to feel when they read or hear from you. From that we build a tone of voice that is clear enough to be useful, flexible enough to work across every context and human enough that people will actually adopt it.
When you need a tone of voice
01 / Your communications are inconsistent
Different writers, different channels, different voices. The brand feels fragmented. Clients and prospects get a different impression of the organisation depending on what they read first.
02 / Your copy sounds like everyone else’s
‘Clear, confident and dynamic. Passionate about delivering value.’ If that is your website, it needs work. Generic language is invisible. A distinctive voice is not.
03 / You are rebranding
A new visual identity without a new voice is half a rebrand. The way an organisation speaks is as much a part of its brand as the way it looks. They need to be developed together.
04 / You are growing fast
New people, new markets, new channels. Without a clear voice framework, every new hire writes differently. A tone of voice gives a growing organisation the consistency it needs without stifling individual expression.
What we do
Tone of voice audit
A review of your existing communications across all channels, identifying inconsistencies, strengths and the gap between how you write now and how you want to sound.
Tone of voice principles
A concise set of principles that define how your organisation speaks, each one with before and after examples so they are immediately actionable.
Writing guidelines
Practical guidance on grammar, punctuation, style and formatting, the decisions that writers face every day, made consistently.
Example copy
Rewritten versions of real communications, website pages, email templates, proposals, that show the tone of voice in use from day one.
Training and workshops
Sessions that help your team understand the tone of voice, practise applying it and build the confidence to use it consistently.
AI tone of voice embedding
Your tone of voice built into AI tools, so everything your team generates sounds like you. Working with specialist partners, we turn your principles into prompts, assistants and fine-tuned models ready to use from day one.
The biggest rail network in Great Britain needed a tone of voice that could work across every channel, from the control room to the customer app. Working with Definition, we gave 35,000 employees a shared language built around the needs of the people they serve. ‘Speak Passenger isn’t just a tone of voice. It’s a culture change, and one we’ve needed for years.’
Rank Prize
One of the world’s most significant scientific prizes, virtually unknown beyond the scientific community. The brief included developing a tone of voice that could speak with authority to scientists and institutions while remaining accessible to a wider audience. The tone of voice work was recognised at the Transform Awards, winning in the Best Development of a Brand Voice or Tone of Voice category.
Hunters
A 300-year-old law firm that needed to speak to a new generation of high net worth clients without losing the gravitas of three centuries of practice. We developed a tone of voice that was confident and clear, authoritative without being stuffy, warm without being informal. Part of a rebrand that drove +33% growth and +224% in website enquiries.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between tone of voice and a style guide?
A style guide covers the mechanics of writing, grammar, punctuation, formatting, capitalisation. A tone of voice covers the character of writing, how the organisation sounds, what it says and why. Both are useful. A tone of voice document without style guidance leaves too much to interpretation. Style guidance without tone of voice produces consistent but characterless copy.
How do you make sure people actually use it?
By making it practical rather than aspirational. Every principle in our tone of voice work comes with examples drawn from real communications. We also run training sessions that help people internalise the voice rather than just read about it. A tone of voice that requires constant reference to a guidelines document has not been designed well enough.
How long does a tone of voice project take?
A full tone of voice programme, including voice audit, principles, guidelines, example copy and a training session, typically takes eight to twelve weeks. Lighter programmes focused on principles and key copy can move faster.
Do you write copy as well as guidelines?
Yes. We can write or rewrite any communications, websites, proposals, pitch documents, client letters, in the new tone of voice. Many clients commission us to write the website copy as part of the same programme, so the guidelines and the live copy launch together.
Can you help us use AI in our tone of voice?
Yes. Once your tone of voice is established, we work with specialist partners to build it into AI prompts and tools. That means your team can use AI to write content that sounds like your brand, not like everyone else’s. The tone of voice does the strategic work. The AI does the heavy lifting.
