Why your brand should be writing like a fat lad

We're delighted to continue our Expert Partnership Series, where we’ll tap into the wisdom and insights of industry experts.

Our next guest contributor is Graham Pugh, Founder of Brand Voice Agency; a collective of senior copywriters and marketing strategists, skilled in creating the voice of a brand from scratch.

“Before you write any piece of marketing – a social media post, an email, an ad, a page on the website, how do you know how to? Are you writing from your brand’s unique perspective or just writing?”

That’s why your brand voice is so crucial. Once it’s established and understood, writing anything from a webpage to an email to a TV commercial is easier.

A great example of consistent tone of voice is Fat Lad At The Back (otherwise known as FLAB). This is a cycling brand for people who aren’t too po-faced about cycling – and their comms reflect that. Their ads are funny, like this one ‘Don’t dress like a badly packaged sausage!’.

And their website delivers on the same personality. One of the key pieces of navigation when you click through to the site is ‘Spare Tyre’, their XL clothing range. It’s a nice cycling pun and another example of the fun tone.

Click through to their About page and you find that their mission is “not just about making the finest cycling clobber”. “Clobber” – what a fantastic word – and definitely not one you’ll find on the serious biking sites.

Meanwhile on YouTube their mountain-biking shorts are advertised with the hilarious slogan “Mind the Crack”. This truly is a brand that knows itself and where each element is beautifully joined up.

Meanwhile a brand that doesn’t feel unified at all is KIA UK cars. I suspect this is partly to do with their use of international assets, paired with locally produced content. Nevertheless, there’s a huge disconnect between their very bland advertising (I see it every time I go to the cinema with its super-forgettable and meaningless strapline, ‘Movement that inspires’) …

And their Facebook presence. On social media they’re very approachable and youthful and so much less bland.

Visit the UK website, however, and you’re back to personality-free gloss. Here, it feels to me like a lack of confidence in the product and a desire to look ‘good enough’ to people worried about a Korean brand compared to something, say, German.

The About page looks promising with its opening paragraph, “Get to know us a little better and what makes us tick by reading our history, checking out our news, upcoming developments and more.”

But unfortunately, it doesn’t deliver on anything near as entertaining as it suggests. The ‘history’ content is a dull list of events:

However, the News section is actually quite entertaining – the most recent story being an interesting idea of ‘The Top 10 Most-Luxurious Service Stations in the UK’. This is snappy and editorial and very likeable.

It’s just a shame that their email comms don’t feature this tone of voice, but instead opt for neutrality and blandness again, like this example from last month.

The overall effect is a brand that fails to connect (with this reader, at least). I can’t really tell who they are: friendly and youthful, bland and international, or witty and knowing (all three flavours are available).

So why is all of this important? Well, a consistent brand voice ensures:

• Your brand is differentiated in the market

• Anyone who writes for the brand, whatever the medium, has a clear idea of what does and doesn’t sound right

• The customer’s journey to purchase feels joined up

• Potential customers can develop a sense of affinity with the brand – as if it were a person

Ultimately, if you want to connect, be remembered, and create distinctiveness, my advice is to be less Kia and more Fat Lad.

Graham is a strategist and copywriter who has spent over 30 years in marketing, on both agency and client sides. After being asked to develop brand language for many clients (from The National Trust to Waitrose!), he founded Brand Voice Agency; a collective of senior copywriters and marketing strategists, skilled in creating the voice of a brand from scratch or as an evolution.