It's not just what you say. It's how you say it.

Think about the brands you know and love. Some make you smile. Others make you feel reassured, inspired, understood or excited. And often, you don't even need to see their logo to know who's talking.

That's the power of a distinctive brand tone of voice.

I'm Julian Gratton, an award-winning freelance Creative Director and Copywriter specialising in brand language, tone of voice development and creative communications.

I've worked with some of the UK's best-known brands, alongside smaller businesses and specialist organisations, helping them find their voice and express their personality through words.

But creating a successful tone of voice isn't simply about deciding whether a brand should sound friendly, confident, playful or professional.

It's about understanding what makes that brand different, how it wants people to feel and how its personality should come across in every interaction.

Because when a brand finds its voice, everything it says becomes more recognisable, more consistent and more compelling.

Why does tone of voice matter?

Your visual identity helps people recognise your brand. Your verbal identity helps them get to know it.

A distinctive tone of voice creates consistency across everything from advertising campaigns and website copy to customer emails, social content and internal communications.

It can make complicated information easier to understand, turn everyday messages into memorable moments and help brands build stronger relationships with the people they serve.

And in crowded markets, where products and services can look remarkably similar, the way a brand communicates can become an important point of difference.

But there's another consideration.

A great brand voice needs to work just as well when things go wrong as when everything's going brilliantly.

A promotional campaign and a customer complaint require very different approaches. The personality should remain recognisable, but the tone needs to adapt to the situation.

That's why I believe effective tone of voice guidelines should be more than an inspiring description of a brand's personality. They need to provide practical guidance that people can confidently use in their everyday writing.

Four brands. Four very different voices.

I've been fortunate to work on tone of voice projects for businesses operating in some remarkably different markets.

From retail and entertainment to motoring and public transport, each project has presented its own challenges around personality, consistency, customer expectations and how language can help strengthen a brand.

Here are four examples.

01. Very — Bringing sparkle to everyday communications

Making a major retail brand more playful, expressive and unmistakably itself.

Working in partnership with The Gate Worldwide, I led the copywriting and linguistic direction for the development of Very's tone of voice guidelines.

The challenge was to translate the brand's Sparkle positioning into a distinctive way of speaking that felt energetic, joyful, confident and relevant to its customers.

But this wasn't simply about injecting personality into advertising headlines.

Very communicates with customers across an enormous range of situations, from seasonal promotions and product launches to everyday service messages and more sensitive financial communications.

The voice needed enough personality to make the brand stand out, but also the flexibility to know when to dial that personality up or down.

Working from the brand's agreed personality and positioning, I helped develop tone of voice principles, practical writing guidance, copy examples and a library of language designed to make the voice easier for internal teams to understand and use.

The result was a comprehensive brand writing guide designed to help Very communicate with greater consistency, confidence and, of course, sparkle.

Explore the Very tone of voice project

02. PokerStars — One distinctive voice across a global gaming brand

Creating a brand voice that could travel across products, audiences and international markets.

PokerStars presented a very different tone of voice challenge.

As part of a wider brand programme, the objective was to develop a distinctive global verbal identity that could work across poker, casino and sports betting, while retaining the authenticity and personality associated with the PokerStars brand.

Each of these categories has its own culture, language, audience expectations and communication requirements.

The challenge was to find a consistent voice that could adapt naturally to each environment without becoming generic or losing its character.

My work involved developing a comprehensive tone of voice playbook that translated the wider brand positioning into practical communications guidance.

The project explored how the brand could express its personality across different gaming categories, with principles, illustrative copy treatments and writing guidance designed to help teams apply the voice consistently.

It also addressed the challenge of maintaining a recognisable global identity while allowing for the cultural and linguistic differences of individual markets.

The resulting playbook provided a flexible framework for bringing the PokerStars personality to life across customer communications, marketing activity and multiple international markets.

Explore the PokerStars tone of voice project

03. The AA — Giving an iconic British brand a fresh voice

Making a trusted brand sound more contemporary, human and customer-focused.

Working with global brand design consultancy Elmwood, I led tone of voice development for The AA as part of a wider brand evolution programme.

The AA is one of Britain's most recognisable motoring brands, with an established reputation for expertise, reliability and customer support.

The challenge was to translate its evolving brand positioning into a way of speaking that felt more energetic, approachable and relevant to modern customers, while retaining the trust and authority that make the brand valuable.

The new verbal identity needed to work across a particularly broad range of communications, from marketing and customer acquisition to product information, service messages and everyday customer interactions.

My work involved developing practical tone of voice guidance, demonstrating how the brand personality could translate into real communications and exploring how different situations required different expressions of the same recognisable voice.

An important part of the project was bringing the thinking to life for the people responsible for using it.

I led a series of interactive workshops at The AA's London offices, helping internal teams and agency partners understand the voice and apply it confidently in their everyday writing.

The result was a practical tone of voice approach designed to bring greater consistency, personality and clarity to the brand's communications.

Explore The AA tone of voice project

04. Stagecoach — Helping an entire organisation speak with one voice

Replacing inconsistent corporate language with clearer, warmer and more human communication.

Developed in collaboration with internal teams and brand consultancy Brooklyn Brothers, the Stagecoach tone of voice project involved a challenge that extended far beyond marketing.

As a major national transport operator, Stagecoach communicates with enormous numbers of people across an equally enormous range of situations.

From ticket sales, timetables and customer complaints to recruitment, HR policies, operational updates and internal announcements, its words needed to be clear, consistent and appropriate to the circumstances.

The starting point was a wide variation in writing styles across the organisation. Different teams were communicating in different ways, often using unnecessarily complicated or overly formal language.

The objective was to establish a more unified, approachable and customer-focused voice that could work across the business.

My work involved developing tone of voice principles and practical writing guidance, supported by real examples showing how communications could become clearer, more engaging and easier to understand.

I also led interactive writing workshops across the UK, helping teams put the new principles into practice.

These sessions covered not only the brand's tone of voice but wider writing techniques and practical ways to communicate more effectively.

The project demonstrated something I think is fundamental to successful tone of voice development: the real value comes when people throughout an organisation understand the voice and feel confident using it.

Explore the Stagecoach tone of voice project

More than a tone of voice document

There's little point creating a beautiful set of brand guidelines if nobody knows how to use them.

I believe a successful tone of voice needs to be distinctive enough to give a brand personality, flexible enough to work across different circumstances and practical enough for people to adopt.

Depending on the project, I can help with:

• Brand tone of voice development: Defining the verbal identity and personality that make a business recognisable through its language.
• Tone of voice guidelines and playbooks: Creating practical reference documents with writing principles, examples and guidance for consistent communication.
• Brand writing and copywriting: Translating a tone of voice into website content, advertising, social communications, customer messaging and other brand touchpoints.
• Tone of voice workshops and training: Helping internal writers, marketing teams, customer service teams and agency partners understand and confidently adopt a brand's voice.
• Reviewing and evolving existing brand voices: Refreshing established guidelines, improving consistency or helping a brand adapt its language to new audiences, markets and channels.

I can work independently or alongside brand consultancies, creative agencies, marketing departments and internal communications teams.

And because I come from a creative copywriting background, I'm just as interested in how a tone of voice works on the page as I am in how it reads in a strategy document.

From brand guidelines to everyday writing

One of the most rewarding aspects of tone of voice development is helping people become better, more confident writers.

Good guidelines should make writing easier, not harder.

They should help people understand how to express a brand's personality, communicate information clearly and make the right choices for different audiences and situations.

That's why workshops and practical examples often play such an important part in the work I do.

Whether it's improving a customer service email, making internal communications more engaging or helping a marketing team develop stronger headlines, I enjoy turning the principles of good brand writing into something people can put to work immediately.

You can find out more about my approach to creative and copywriting workshops.

And if your business is still working out what makes its offering different and how best to communicate that value, I can also help with value proposition and messaging development.

Tone of voice development: frequently asked questions

What's the difference between brand voice and tone of voice?

Your brand voice is the consistent personality that comes through in your communications. Your tone is how that personality adapts to different audiences, situations and channels.

For example, a brand might always be warm, confident and approachable, but it should express those qualities differently in a celebratory campaign and a response to a customer complaint.

What should tone of voice guidelines include?

Effective guidelines typically explain the brand's verbal personality, how it should be expressed through writing and how the tone should adapt to different communication needs.

Practical examples, writing guidance and real-world applications are particularly valuable in helping teams turn those principles into consistent communications.

Can you update an existing tone of voice?

Absolutely. Sometimes a brand already has a strong personality but its guidelines have become outdated, inconsistent or difficult to apply.

A refresh can help make the voice more relevant, distinctive and practical without losing what makes the brand recognisable.

Do you offer tone of voice workshops?

Yes. I've developed and delivered interactive tone of voice and writing workshops for organisations with very different communication needs.

These can help teams understand new guidelines, improve their writing skills and gain confidence in applying a consistent brand voice across their work.

Let's find your brand's voice.

Got a brand with something to say? Let's make sure people recognise who's saying it.

If you're developing a new tone of voice, refreshing an established verbal identity or struggling to get everyone in your organisation communicating consistently, I'd love to hear about it.

The four projects featured here are just a selection of the brand voice work I've undertaken.

While I can't make every full tone of voice document publicly available because of client confidentiality and project agreements, I'm happy to discuss the work in more detail and, where permissions allow, share selected documents or walk through examples privately via screen share.

More importantly, we can talk about your own business, the challenges you're facing and what a tone of voice development project could look like for you.

Get in touch and let's get your brand talking.