The Slogan Trap: Why It Fails
I can’t count how many times a brand’s first move is to hand over their slogan and call it their voice. "We’re disruptive! We’re bold!" Congrats, so is every startup with an about page. A slogan is decoration—window dressing. Real voice lives in the choices you make line by line, not in some over-massaged tagline you paid a consultant six figures for.
Hell, I’ve had clients introduce themselves with three different taglines in one meeting, like that’s the point. Remember what happened with RadioShack? They sunk millions into rebranding as "The Shack." Did anyone ever call them that? In thirty years, I’ve never heard a single person say, "Let’s go grab batteries at The Shack." Slogans aren’t identity. They’re the cherry on an ice cream sundae—fun, maybe memorable, but not the thing you actually eat.
Voice Happens in the Details
You ever notice how brands with a true voice let it slip into everything—product copy, customer service emails, heck, even error messages? That’s not an accident. Southwest Airlines joking about “peanuts” on your snack tray, or Oatly writing instructions on their cartons like your friend texting you—those are voice in the wild. Too many companies put all their energy into the headline and forget about the small stuff, as if people only notice the big, splashy moments.
Last year, we worked with a DTC shoe company—let’s call them FootForge. FootForge wanted "playful, empowering, distinctly urban." Their website? Generic as dry toast. Nothing playful, nothing urban. Their emails sounded like bank statements. The fix? Start with the way the brand answers customer questions on social: ditch the script, write human. The real voice came out the minute they stopped worrying about sounding "on brand" and actually tried talking to real people.
Consistency Over Copycatting
Here’s something I don’t think gets said enough: chasing a competitor’s style usually backfires. If Wendy’s roasts people on Twitter, you’re not obligated to sass your customers to stay relevant. You want voice? That means consistency—using the same vibe whether you’re apologizing for a late delivery or celebrating a product launch.
Remember that collaboration we did with the indie sunscreen company, Palms Up? The founder’s a surfer, and the brand’s voice was effortless chill, never forced. Their error page literally said, "Looks like the sun’s hiding today—so’s your page." That’s a long way from "Page Not Found." Guess which people remembered?
And keep your voice alive past the launch. The number of brand campaigns that sound one way for three weeks, then drop back into corporate robot-speak, is wild. If your team writes one punchy video and then ghosts the rest of your channels, nobody’s fooled. That disconnect? That’s the quickest way to kill credibility.
Get Real, Get Personal
Want your brand’s voice to matter? Stop pretending you’re Apple (unless you actually are, in which case, thanks for reading). People spot BS a mile away. Real voice reflects the faces, attitudes, and weird quirks of whoever’s actually involved. It’s why local coffee shops can beat Starbucks for loyalty—because they sound like locals, not like an ad agency faking slang.
Here’s something controversial: it’s okay if your voice turns some people off. If every single stranger loves your messaging, it means you’ve sanded off anything interesting. Remember that time when a SaaS startup we shot with had their whole onboarding sequence written in pirate puns for Talk Like a Pirate Day? Most users loved it, a few rolled their eyes—but they remembered it. (And those open rates? Spiked.)
Brand voice isn’t about pleasing the masses or finding the formula that guarantees viral. It’s about being real, everywhere—not just where the key stakeholders can see.