A voice guideline that only the strategist can apply is a failed guideline. Ours has to survive being handed to a junior copywriter at 11pm before a deadline — and still sound like the brand.
Principles, not adjectives
'Confident, warm, human' is not a voice — it's a horoscope. We replace adjectives with rules: how the brand opens, how it disagrees, how it apologises, how it sells. Every rule has a do and a don't, both taken from real drafts.
Write the ten hardest surfaces first
- A 40-character push notification
- A refund email nobody wants to write
- A homepage hero that has to work sound-off
- A LinkedIn post from the CEO
- An error state in the product
- A recruitment ad for a role we've never posted
If the voice works in those ten surfaces, it works everywhere. If it only works on the About page, it's decoration.
Governance by example, not by rule
The best voice guidelines we've shipped are 60% examples. Writers copy patterns, not principles. Give them a wall of great sentences and they'll write great sentences.
"A brand voice is a hiring standard, not a style guide."
