A brand can know exactly what it stands for. It can have the strategy. The purpose. The positioning. The beautifully designed deck. And still not sound like itself. That is where tone of voice comes in.
I was brought in by The Gate Worldwide to lead the copywriting and linguistic direction for Very’s new tone of voice. The job was to take its Sparkle brand positioning and turn it into something practical: a distinctive brand voice that could work across campaigns, customer communications, product copy, social media, internal communications and everything in between.
Not simply a few nice adjectives. Not a long list of words people were forbidden from using. And definitely not a weighty brand rulebook destined to spend the rest of its natural life gathering digital dust. The aim was to create useful guardrails that helped everyone writing for Very make better decisions.
First, understand what Sparkle actually means
“Sparkle” could easily have become superficial. Glitter. Glamour. Parties. Exclamation marks everywhere. But that was never the idea.
For Very, Sparkle was the difference between good and Very good. It was about vitality, confidence, energy and making everyday moments brighter. It could contain a little glamour, but it was not about being permanently dressed for a Christmas party.
Just as importantly, the tone of voice document defined what Sparkle was not. It was not shouty extroversion. It was not empty flamboyance. It was not about turning every customer message into a disco ball.
Drawing these boundaries mattered. A useful brand tone of voice does not simply tell writers what to add. It helps them understand when to hold back.
Turn personality into principles
The next step was to translate the wider brand personality into a small number of memorable tone of voice principles.
We arrived at four:
Confident, but never arrogant.
Celebratory, but never insensitive.
Empathetic, but never patronising.
Playful, but never silly.
The second half of each principle is as important as the first.
“Confident” sounds positive. But without a boundary, it can become boastful.
“Playful” feels distinctive. But pushed too far, it can make a serious message sound flippant.
That is why I prefer balanced principles. They give writers direction without pretending every communication should sound exactly the same.
The document then brought each principle to life with explanations and examples. Not abstract brand waffle. Actual copy. Writers could see what confidence looked like, where celebration became insensitive and how empathy could slide into patronising language.
A tone of voice needs a volume control
Brands do not communicate in one emotional register.
A summer fashion campaign is not the same as an account arrears letter.
A product launch is not the same as a service failure.
A recruitment advert is not the same as explaining how customer data is used.
Very’s brand voice therefore needed to flex.
For launches, new ranges and offers, the full Sparkle could come out. The writing could feel energetic, celebratory and playful.
For everyday retail communications and product listings, the voice could remain warm and recognisably Very without trying quite so hard to steal the show.
For missed payments, account closures or vulnerable customer communications, empathy and clarity took priority. The Sparkle did not disappear. It simply became quieter and more reassuring.
That ability to turn the voice up or down is one of my core tone of voice beliefs.
Consistency does not mean uniformity.
It means people can recognise the same personality behaving appropriately in different situations.
Give people practical ways to write
Once the strategic foundations were established, the document moved into a practical writing guide.
Again, the objective was not to create arbitrary rules. It was to provide techniques that could improve the work.
Rhyme with reason.
A well-judged rhyme can make campaign copy memorable. But clarity always comes first. Nobody needs twelve rhymes fighting for attention in a product email.
Use the power of the familiar.
Good brand copy often uses language that feels natural and recognisable. The kind of words people actually say. Warm, human language can make even technical or functional communications feel more approachable.
Keep it focused on you.
Customers are generally more interested in what something means for them than in how fascinating a business finds itself. Using “you” helps bring the benefit forward and keeps the writing personal.
Create melody in the words.
Good copy has rhythm. Short sentences. Longer ones. A pause at the right moment. Perhaps a little alliteration where it helps rather than where the writer wants applause for noticing the letter B.
And above all:
Write with Sparkle and sass.
That did not mean decorating every sentence. It meant bringing confidence, energy and a recognisable Very attitude to the places where it genuinely improved the message.
Show the sweet spot
One of the most useful sections of the tone of voice guide was the examples library.
Each scenario showed different levels of execution:
Plain.
Sparkle.
Too much.
That final column was crucial.
Most people can identify lifeless copy. It is harder to recognise when a brand voice has been overdone.
The examples covered retail campaigns, beauty, technology, air fryers, television guides, service issues, financial difficulties, recruitment advertising, internal learning opportunities, cookies and email subject lines.
That range helped prove that this was not just a campaign voice. It was a complete retail tone of voice capable of working across the customer journey.
Writers could compare the options and begin to develop their own judgement.
Because the aim of a strong tone of voice framework is not to make people dependent on the document.
It is to help them internalise the thinking.
Guardrails, not a rulebook
Ultimately, a brand voice only works when people use it.
The finished framework gave Very’s internal writers clear principles, practical writing techniques, a style checklist, phrase libraries and a broad collection of real-world examples. It helped people create communications that felt consistently Very while still giving them enough freedom to write naturally.
That is the kind of tone of voice work I do as a freelance Creative Director and freelance tone of voice copywriter.
I help businesses define how they should sound.
Then I turn that thinking into practical principles, tools, examples and training that people can genuinely use.
Sometimes that is for a global multinational.
Sometimes it is for an ambitious small or medium-sized business that has grown beyond the voice it started with.
The scale may change.
The challenge is often remarkably similar.
A brand knows who it is.
It just needs the words to prove it.
You can take a glimpse at the Very tone of voice project and selected pages from the guide on my website:
https://juliangratton.onfabrik.com/portfolio/very-tone-of-voice
To see more of the full document, or to discuss a brand tone of voice, retail copywriting or wider brand voice project, get in touch.
Whether you need a freelance copywriter for a focused assignment or a freelance tone of voice copywriter to build a complete verbal identity, I would be happy to talk.