Tone of voice. Sometimes people credit me with inventing this monster. But, as we’ve all come to realise, credit is a suspect word.
My concerns about tone of voice are that it’s become another off-the-shelf branding technique. Clients step up to the counter and ask for a tone of voice. The consultant shows the book marked TOV. “Here you are, sir, we’ve given you values. Use this daily and you’ll soon sound a bit like innocent.” It’s all become a bit too generic. If I see another brand that describes its tone of voice as “clear, warm and fresh” (or minor variants) I’ll scream.
So that was one of my reasons for inviting 26 fruits to come up with descriptions of their fruits – that could then be used to define that particular fruit’s tone of voice. I knew we would get 26 different descriptions of writing style, heavily influenced by the particular writer’s loves and hates. A tone of voice that’s different from the average.
Also, and I’ll return to this at some point, it’s a use of metaphor. I always think metaphors have a better chance of connecting emotionally than abstract descriptions of ‘values’.
I think the fruits have proved the point.
