When you’re dealing with a company with a brand voice that’s absolutely crucial to its appeal, it’s often worth the effort to brand to the bone.
If you’ve bothered to cultivate an illusion of camaraderie between your brand and the consumer, bureaucratic-speak can come as an illusion-shattering jolt, forcing a sudden awareness that you are, indeed, just another business with a bottom line.
But by sustaining the beloved brand voice even through bureaucratic text, even the nitty-gritty logistics are fun to be around—and consumers may even come to trust the brand more if its character is consistent no matter what it’s talking about.
The ultimate bonus to all of this trust? Forgiveness. If a brand voice has established trust, the brand can more safely deliver the inevitable not-so-great news.
For example, the charm of the “disclaimer/apology” sent along with touch-up paint to all purchasers of the Ping-Pong Conference Table was successful because Poppin’s workplace savvy was already well established—as was its good nature. Both are apparent in the copy, and the brand is forgiven for this (and any) gaffe—because, after all, it’s only human.
Side Effect: The Pleasure of Reading…
Not only does voice consistency build trust, by engaging consumers in text blocks presumed boring (SEO-savvy product specs, error messages, and disclaimers, for example) shoppers may be inspired to cruise the site just to read around it, prompting impulse buys and repeat visits you just can’t prompt with pop-up ads.
Merrill Feitell 