A tone to pick

Too preachy and you'll put people's backs up; too light-hearted and you'll undermine the seriousness of your campaign - tone can be a minefield. Here's some expert advice to guide you through the word bombs.

Nik Done from Unity gave us this simple way of understanding what tone is:

Its all about understanding the audience and then matching tone to them - you speak differently to your bank manager than you would to your friends in the pub or your family.

Here are online consultant Michelle Acton-Bond's invaluable pearls on campaign tone:

  • Your tone needs to come from your campaign identity
  • Remember the power of emotion; it’s how we make decisions every day!
  • Thoughts are never free of emotions and emotions are never free of thoughts!
  • Think about how you feel when you are talking about your campaign, picture the scene you want to create and then give it a voice.
  • People buy into human emotion and people, not business, that’s why you need a human voice!
  • Our brain uses something called the Reticular Activating System – R.A.S, it takes in what we value and what we fear. Your tone of voice needs to hit what we value!
  • The tone of how you speak gives people insight into you and allows their understanding of you to grow deeper.
  • In your tone always: Be consistent. Be safe and then bring in style. Never leave your core.