Tone of Voice in Information Design by Shiho Asada

Tone of Voice in Information Design

Shiho Asada

The Master of Arts in Information Design, University of Reading, 2014

Introduction These days, companies can communicate with customers in more and more various ways as technologies are improving: products, advertising in both printed and digital ways, web sites, applications or even sounds and fragrance. However, some ways of interacting with customers do not work effectively due to the complexity of the presentation of conveying their messages. In order to be selected by customers in wider range of choices, every company and organisation should create its vivid brand identity and convey its message to its audience in both visual and linguistic communication ways. With a focus on the linguistic approach to branding, controlling ‘tone of voice’ might be a successful tool. According to Davis (2009), the tone of voice means ‘the “vocabulary” and style for a brand, which also plays into the brand’s style’. Forming the tone of voice as simple as possible is able to create a coherent image of a company and clear message to customers. As Delin, Searle-Jones and Waller (2006) indicate, it needs to organise and simplify all the visual and written elements, so that information designers can manage the tone of voice by improving the quality of information presentation. Therefore, this essay will firstly define the tone of voice and the relevant terms. Secondly, it will describe how the tone of voice emerged in the context of the brand and branding history from ancient times to today. Thirdly, it will clarify how simplicity and complexity affect on the tone of voice. Next, it will mention how the tone of voice should be utilised in information design by referring to case studies of bill design in the UK. Finally, it will discuss how the tone of voice should be used in future branding.

Definition ‘Brand’ and ‘Branding’ The meanings of ‘brand’ and ‘branding’ are different even though they are used in everyday vocabulary. The word ‘brand’ is often used to associate with remarkable products and logos of large

brands such as Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and H&M (Delin et al. 2006). However, a brand is equal to a symbol of the complete personality of the company (Davis 2009). Moreover, as Davis indicates, a brand plays an important role as an interface between a company and its audience. All of the tangible and intangible brand communication that the audience see and hear can be an interface. A brand has relevance to a person, a country, or even an indistinct idea such as George Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ or Britain’s short-lived ‘Cool Britania’ in the 1990s as well as a business (Davis 2009). A brand contains all the products, services, people of the organisation and the ways of communication of the organisation with its audience. On the other hand, as it is mentioned by Davis, ‘branding’ is often used in a marketing context; for example, the general marketing of a product, naming a product, or designing a logo. Branding makes a brand strategy and enhances a brand value with a deep understanding of how the business, organisation or person can be handled in the market. Also, branding process determines a position of the company in its market and a direction and a vision creates a basic of the business (Davis 2009). Now, branding techniques are essential for every organisation such as universities, charities and the arts as well as companies. ‘Look and Feel’ and ‘Tone of Voice’ A brand communicates with its audience both visually and linguistically. Delin et al. (2006) define this way of communication as ‘branding language’ that consists of ’look and feel’ and ’tone of voice’. According to Davis, ‘look and feel’ is ’the visual style of a brand which encompasses the brand mark, colours, font and images’. The look and feel produces a visual identity of the brand, and it is utilised in the commercial world. In contrast, ’tone of voice’ means how a company expresses its brand concept or value to its customers linguistically. Delin et al. describe that the tone of voice is a coherence style of vocabulary of the brand beyond just plain English, which also forms the brand identity. According to Siegel and Etzkorn (2013), the coherence tone of voice should be included in every piece of touchpoints

between brands and customers. When it is used properly, it can assist the audience in shaping the vivid brand image. Information designers can deal with branding by forming the tone of voice. Therefore, the tone of voice should be a core of branding process which can be seen in every touchpoint between the brand and its audience. It might be said that information designers can contribute to convey the brand message by tidying up the tone of voice from little piece of touchpoints to writing copy in advertising.

Background Early Concepts of Brand and Branding How has the concept of ’tone of voice’ emerged? To clarify this, it may be necessary to see the history of the concepts of brand and branding. According to Bastos and Levy (2012), all the branding activity originated from ‘the human desire to be someone of consequence, to create a personal and social identity, to present oneself as both like other people (e.g. to belong) and unlike other people (e.g. to stand out), and to have a good reputation’. In this context, a similar concept of today’s brand emerged as a symbol of ownership and reputation by naming or numbering slaves, prisoners, or animals in ancient times. For example, the ancient Greeks and Romans branded its livestock and slaves. Also, decorating a human body such as tattooing or piercing has been used to emphasise differences of a tribe from others all over the world. Thus, the concepts of brand and branding have emerged in human history as various visual forms to identify the group and its belongings and stress its ownership and personality (Bastos and Levy 2012). Branding in Commercial World The modern concept of brand and branding in commercial world were brought by the Industrial Revolution at the end of the nineteenth century (Davis 2009). In a case of Phillips, Dutch home electronic brand, it began as a lighting business that was operated by the one family in 1891. After the Industrial Revolution,

it developed into a global manufacturer of electronics (Davis 2009). Around 1920s and 1930s, as growing competition between companies, the early days of branding started as psychological theories, insights, and methods to deepen marketing thinking and research (Bastos and Levy 2012). These marketing and research methods applied to make advertising and the design of trademarks or labels to survive in the mass market. Bastos and Levy (2012) mention that the Second World War also promoted this competitive situation in the marketplace so that the companies realised the importance of the branding. As a result, branding became a common technique in business in the middle of the twentieth century. In the 1980s, in order to appeal the middle class consumers, various advertising including tv commercials or campaign was driven by agencies as the part of branding, as it can be seen in the traditional customer experience flow (Fig. 1). Therefore, making the visual identity of the brand, ‘look and feel’ had been considered to be the core of brand language rather than linguistic communication from the origin of the branding to the end of twentieth century.

Figure 1. Traditional brand experience with general visual communication Delin, Judy; Abi Searle-Jones and Rob Waller (2006). “Branding and Relationship Communications: The Evolution of Utility Bills in the UK,” in Information and Document Design: Varieties on Recent Research, edited by Saul Carliner, Jan Piet Verckens and Cathy de Waele, pp. 27–59. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins

Deep Branding However, as it is explained by Delin et al. (2006), the questions on the prioritisation of look and feel arose in the beginning of twentyfirst century because customers were no longer attracted by one brand. Customers’ interests easily switched to other brands when new brands appeared with attractive visual. In order to avoid the unnecessary waste of advertising and marketing and keep

customers’ attention to the brand, brand language that depended on the visual and ignored customer communications, such as bills or emails started to be revised. Delin et al. define this idea as ‘deep branding’ (Fig. 2). The tone of voice is applied to the deep branding in every touchpoint related to written language, for instance, statements, emails, forms and also copies in advertising (Delin et al. 2006 ; Davis 2009). As it is mentioned above in this essay, the tone of voice appeared as more impressive way than visual communications to have stronger relationship between brand and its audience. To define the tone of voice may need simplification of brand identity, value and message and organise these information.

Figure 2. ‘Deeply branded’ communications with more touchpoints Delin, Judy; Abi Searle-Jones and Rob Waller (2006). “Branding and Relationship Communications: The Evolution of Utility Bills in the UK,” in Information and Document Design: Varieties on Recent Research, edited by Saul Carliner, Jan Piet Verckens and Cathy de Waele, pp. 27–59. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins

Necessity of Simplification in Business ’Simplicity’ and ‘Complexity’ in Business According to Siegel and Etzkorn (2013), ’simplicity’ is a crucial key for an organisation who needs to reconsider its branding and manage the tone of voice. Siegel and Etzkorn (2013) define the simplicity as a combination of convenience, clarity, usability, timeless, or beauty and indicate the brand language should be clarified as simple as possible. Simplifying content can lead to positive results in both the company and its customers. However, there is complexity everywhere in brand and branding process. Most of chief executive officers (ceo) cannot manage complexity; as shown in ibm research, more than fifteen hundred ceos feel that a big increase in complexity in business is the most massive problem (Siegel and Etzkorn 2013). Companies often waste time and money due to the complexity in internal communication.

The customers also have faced complexity in their daily lives. In today’s world, it has got harder and harder to choose one product from the large number of brands and services by comparing with all the functions and options. Even after buying one product, people spend a lot of time on reading and understanding the complex instructions or statements. Moreover, people sometimes lose their money because some banks, credit card companies, insurers, and other types of businesses make the complex fine prints or ‘terms and conditions’ intentionally (Siegel and Etzkorn 2013). Solutions to Complexity, from Top to Down The solutions to complexity in business should be implemented from the top to down of the company. The executive team should simplify the brand value based on understanding of the customer needs and clarify the appropriate brand language (Siegel and Etzkorn 2013). Delin et al. (2006) highlight that the tone of voice ought to be outcome of the creative development of the principles, texts, and key vocabulary and the analysis of the brand features, values and customers. The language features of the tone of voice are, for example, formality, evaluating language, transitivity, or brand prominence (Delin et al. 2006). In addition, as it is described by Davis, the brand language should be shared by all the employee of the company, especially the creative team. The designers and copywriters have the responsibility to treat both the visual and verbal explanations equally based on the brand language. Simplified Language in Tone of Voice In terms of expression in the tone of voice, it should be demonstrated with common words that people use in daily lives. Siegel and Etzkorn (2013) suggest that the use of jargon should be avoided because it sometimes affects badly on delivering organisation’s messages to the audience. When jargon are used in internal contexts of companies, it can make their communication with themselves faster; on the other hand, if internal jargon are used to interact with public, some misunderstanding or will occur. For example, in a field of real estate, there are some ambiguous words such as ‘agent’ and ‘broker’ that most of people outside the field do not distinguish the differences of the two. Also,

there are abbreviations which indicate eight types of real estate professionals: cbr, ceba or gri etc. These kinds of abbreviations become just random combinations of alphabets and make no sense to most people (Siegel and Etzkorn 2013). Though insiders may prefer to use jargon in their business for showing their knowledge, insider terminology could not be understandable to outsiders. As a result, important messages cannot reach customers. To sum up, complexity that can be found in the internal and external company may have negative effects on both of the businesses and customers. It should be solved for keeping customers’ loyalties to the brand. In the process of simplifying the brand and branding as previously mentioned, information designers can deal with it by improving the quality of information with the tone of voice (Delin et al. 2006).

Tone of Voice in Information Design Changes of Bills Design in the UK How the tone of voice should be reflected in information design in a part of branding? Delin et al. (2006) explain it referring to their research on how bill design in the UK has transitioned in one of the brand’s touchpoint. From their report, there are changes between early phone bills and deeply branded bills. In the beginning, bills were produced by the Information Technology (it) department. Brand identity existed only in the topright hand corner usually as logos (Fig. 3). At that time, bills were just the collection of the data rather than information. In the next stage, bill design developed into a communication tool between customers and brand. The marketing department produced the message parts of bills to advertise the service, but still the it department operated numerical data (Fig. 4). As a result, message parts and data parts were clearly divided like territories. This meant that the document had multi characters (Delin et al. 2006).

In these days, the deep branding method is commonly applied to deignining bills. There are no longer different types of features and functions (Fig. 5). As using the same tone of voice both for data and advertising message, all of the presented information has become easy to access for the customers (Delin et al. 2006). Overall, in bill design, even though numerical data is provided by the it section, the data ought to be treated as information design as well as advertising or advice from the brand. It can make more fluent customer experience and enhance further relationship between the customers and the brand.

Figure 3. The data driven bill, brand identity existed only at the top of right corner Delin, Judy; Abi Searle-Jones and Rob Waller (2006). “Branding and Relationship Communications: The Evolution of Utility Bills in the UK,” in Information and Document Design: Varieties on Recent Research, edited by Saul Carliner, Jan Piet Verckens and Cathy de Waele, pp. 27–59. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins

Figure 4. Format example of late territorial bill, and Barclay card bill Delin, Judy; Abi Searle-Jones and Rob Waller (2006). “Branding and Relationship Communications: The Evolution of Utility Bills in the UK,” in Information and Document Design: Varieties on Recent Research, edited by Saul Carliner, Jan Piet Verckens and Cathy de Waele, pp. 27–59. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins

Figure 5. Deep branded bill Delin, Judy; Abi Searle-Jones and Rob Waller (2006). “Branding and Relationship Communications: The Evolution of Utility Bills in the UK,” in Information and Document Design: Varieties on Recent Research, edited by Saul Carliner, Jan Piet Verckens and Cathy de Waele, pp. 27–59. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins

Case Study of Virgin Homephone Bill Another example Delin et al. (2006) present is the deep branding of Virgin Homephone. This case shows how a phone bill as the brand identity works at the different phases in a general customer communication. Virgin Homephone was a new service of Virgin Energy, which sells energy globally competing with other two nationwide companies. The Virgin Group desired Enterprise ig Information Design to create the bill design of Virgin Homephone which is more understandable than others. At the same time, the key terms of the Virgin brand values, human, value, smart and simple were needed to be conveyed in the design to be the same image as the Virgin brand. Enterprise ig Information Design resulted in the clear and humanised bill (Fig. 6) as the solutions. Format With regard to the structure of the bill, all of the necessary information such as numerical data, advertising message and the contact address is arranged into one page. Besides it, some parts of information are pre-sorted: for example, the top five highest calls are summarised simply. Another feature is, this document consists of the simple questions which can assure the customers (Delin et al. 2006). The reflection of the target research for the service can be seen in the bill. Typography In terms of the design for detail, the typography plays a significant role in demonstrating Virgin brand image, smart and human. The headings are larger and bolder than the text. Enterprise ig Information Design tried to decrease the number of the headings to make the document simple based on the Virgin’s customer research. Language In terms of the vocabulary use, the remarkable feature is irony. It is appealing the disengaged young customers. ‘The language used makes reference to worlds outside itself by using idioms from other fields (your vital statistics, the math)’, Delin et al. analyse. Furthermore, the expressions include the Virgin brand values

Figure 6. Virgin Homephone bill, with clear use of the tone of voice Delin, Judy; Abi Searle-Jones and Rob Waller (2006). “Branding and Relationship Communications: The Evolution of Utility Bills in the UK,” in Information and Document Design: Varieties on Recent Research, edited by Saul Carliner, Jan Piet Verckens and Cathy de Waele, pp. 27–59. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins

that are previously mentioned. For example, some emotional phrase ‘oops!’ and ‘sorry’ show the humour and gentleness (human); likewise, some highlighted words ‘your calls were £3.12 cheaper than bt’ appeal the advantage of the brand (value). This sophisticated approach of the language use can keep customers’ attention to the document. As can be seen in the case study of Virgin Homephone, the tone of voice should be visualised through the format, typography and language use. Therefore, the role of information designers must be organising, emphasising and visualising the tone of voice. Siegel and Etzkorn (2013) mention that besides sorting information logically and putting it in order and making a strong visual hierarchy may be the most important thing. If information designers achieve all those tasks and simplify the tone of voice with clear visual, the brand image and value can convey to the customers and the relationship between the brand and customers may be stronger.

Conclusion In conclusion, the tone of voice in information design can be manageable by simplifying, humanising, and visualising. Therefore, information designers’ responsibilities to deal with the tone of voice must be challenging. However, in today’s world of full of complexity and choices, brands need to keep their customers’ attention to their products by providing more comfortable customer experience not only the visual attractiveness even though the origin of brand and branding started from the visual aspects. A brand should clarify the brand value and covey it in every touchpoint to its customers using the tone of voice. If the customers reap the benefit from the brand through touchpoints, they will continue to owe their loyalties the product. Future prediction of the tone of voice in global market It can be predicted that brands should correspond to the new

consumer markets around the world as expanding the markets in Eastern and central Europe, China, India and Latin America (Davis 2009). This trend will require the global brands to make their brand language that correspond to each language and culture without losing the brand image. Hence, information designers will need to tackle with multi-lingual tasks to convey the same brand message to its customers in every area. It might be tough to make the same tone for each area. However, if it works well, the brand can succeed in getting into new global markets and attracting new customers.

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