# Voice Attributes How to define, document, and validate the 3-5 voice attributes that anchor TONE.md. Voice is the brand's fixed personality — it does **not** change across channels. Tone modulates per situation; voice does not. --- ## Table of contents - [The "X but never Y" pattern](#the-x-but-never-y-pattern) - [Attribute documentation template](#attribute-documentation-template) - [NN/g 4 dimensions](#nng-4-dimensions) - [Jung's 12 archetypes](#jungs-12-archetypes) - [BrandSort / message architecture](#brandsort--message-architecture) - [Brand-as-person exercise](#brand-as-person-exercise) - [Frameworks compared](#frameworks-compared) --- ## The "X but never Y" pattern The single most useful documentation device in the discipline. Slack's published voice: > _"Confident (never cocky), Witty (but never silly), Conversational (but always appropriate and respectful), Intelligent (but not arrogant), Friendly (but not ingratiating), Helpful (never overbearing), Clear, concise and human."_ Why it works: every attribute carries its own anti-attribute. Writers learn what to do AND what to avoid in the same memorable phrase. Without the "never Y" half, "confident" reads as a synonym for "cocky" to half the team. For each attribute, produce **three** "we are X but we are not Y" statements during the BrandSort exercise. The triplet forces specificity — by the third statement, generic phrasing collapses and concrete language emerges. **Bad** (generic, won't survive use): - "We are friendly." - "We are professional." **Good** (specific, falsifiable): - "Confident, never cocky." - "Plainspoken, not patronising." - "Warm, but never saccharine." --- ## Attribute documentation template Each attribute in TONE.md follows this exact structure (downstream skills parse on it): ``` ### N. **Definition:** **Sounds like:** "" **Does not sound like:** "" **Do:** - - - **Don't:** - - - **Anti-example from past content:** "" ``` **Why anti-examples from past content matter:** abstract anti-examples ("don't be too formal") fail to bite. Anti-examples sourced from the brand's own historical copy bite because writers recognise them — "oh, I wrote that exact sentence last quarter." This is where the guide stops being theatre and starts shaping behaviour. --- ## Worked attribute example Drawn from a B2B SaaS context — adapt for the brand at hand. ``` ### 1. Plainspoken **Definition:** We say what we mean in the fewest credible words. **Sounds like:** "Your invoice failed. Update your card to keep your subscription." **Does not sound like:** "Unfortunately, we were unable to process the transaction at this time." **Do:** - Use active voice — name who does what. - Lead with the most important fact. - Use one idea per sentence. **Don't:** - Hedge ("perhaps", "potentially"). - Use insurance-language passives ("an error has occurred"). - Stack qualifiers ("we are currently unable to potentially process..."). **Anti-example from past content:** "It has come to our attention that, in some cases, certain customers may have experienced..." ``` --- ## NN/g 4 dimensions Nielsen Norman Group's measurement layer for voice. Four spectra, each a 3-point scale (or 5-point if you want finer granularity): | Dimension | One end | Other end | Default for most brands | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Funny ↔ Serious | Funny | Serious | Lean serious; reserve funny for moments of relief | | Formal ↔ Casual | Formal | Casual | Most modern brands lean casual | | Respectful ↔ Irreverent | Respectful | Irreverent | Respectful unless the brand is Outlaw archetype | | Enthusiastic ↔ Matter-of-fact | Enthusiastic | Matter-of-fact | Matter-of-fact for B2B trust; enthusiastic for D2C | **Use case:** plot the brand on all four dimensions. Plot 3-5 competitors on the same chart. Look for clustering — if you're at the same coordinates as two competitors, your voice is not differentiating. Move at least one dimension. **Anti-pattern:** clustering near the midpoint on all four dimensions. Per Quasa.io's diagnosis: _"teams defaulting to mid-range scores (4-7), result in bland, forgettable voices."_ If three dimensions are at midpoint, the brand has no voice. **Empirically grounded:** NN/g research shows tone of voice measurably affects perceived friendliness, trustworthiness, and desirability. On average, **52% of the variability in desirability scores is explained by trustworthiness** — meaning trust-building tone dimensions (matter-of-fact, plainspoken, respectful) pay more than charm. --- ## Jung's 12 archetypes Strategic personality alignment with audience psychology. Each archetype maps to a core motivation — pick the one whose audience your buyer most resembles. | Archetype | Core motivation | Example brands | | --- | --- | --- | | **Innocent** | Safety, simplicity, optimism | Coca-Cola, Dove | | **Sage** | Truth, knowledge, mastery | Stripe (docs), Harvard, BBC | | **Explorer** | Freedom, discovery, autonomy | Patagonia, Jeep, REI | | **Outlaw / Rebel** | Disruption, freedom, revolution | Harley-Davidson, Liquid Death, Oatly | | **Magician** | Vision, transformation | Apple, Disney, Tesla | | **Hero** | Mastery, courage, achievement | Nike, FedEx, Patagonia (also) | | **Lover** | Intimacy, beauty, pleasure | Chanel, Godiva, Häagen-Dazs | | **Jester** | Joy, play, mischief | Old Spice, Mailchimp, Duolingo (TikTok) | | **Everyman** | Belonging, realism, equality | IKEA, Target, Budweiser | | **Caregiver** | Service, compassion, protection | Johnson & Johnson, Volvo, charity: water | | **Ruler** | Control, leadership, prosperity | Rolex, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft (enterprise) | | **Creator** | Self-expression, craft, innovation | Lego, Apple (also), Adobe | **Use caveats:** 1. Most brands lead with one archetype and borrow from one adjacent (e.g. Apple = Magician primary, Creator secondary). 2. Archetype is a positioning shortcut, not a voice solution. Two "Hero" brands can sound completely different (Nike vs FedEx). Don't stop at the archetype label — derive concrete voice attributes from it. 3. Brands that lean too hard on archetype end up in cosplay. The archetype should inform decisions, not become a costume. --- ## BrandSort / message architecture Margot Bloomstein's exercise (_Content Strategy at Work_, Morgan Kaufmann, 2012) for surfacing brand attributes through a card-sort: 1. Use a deck of ~100 brand-attribute adjective cards (or generate a list). 2. Sort each card into one of three piles: **who we are now**, **who we'd like to be**, **who we are not**. 3. Narrow the "who we'd like to be" pile to ~9 cards. 4. Group those 9 into three clusters of three; pick the strongest from each cluster. 5. The top 3 are the message architecture and the seed for voice attributes. **Run with a cross-functional group of 6-10 people**: leadership, marketing, sales, customer success, product writing, support, HR. The disagreements between groups are diagnostic — surface them explicitly rather than averaging them out. **Reconcile** by running BrandSort three times: 1. Once with leadership 2. Once with the writing team 3. Once with sales / customer success (who hear how customers actually talk) Differences between the three runs reveal where the brand's self-image diverges from its operational reality. Force a decision in the room rather than letting it persist as ambiguity in the guide. --- ## Brand-as-person exercise A forcing function for concreteness. If the brand were a person at a dinner party: - Job, age range, hobbies? - What do they read? - Who do they admire? - How do they introduce themselves? - What do they refuse to talk about? - What do they wear? For B2B brands, substitute "ideal colleague" or "celebrity spokesperson" — Slack explicitly aims to be _"an ideal colleague"_. This frames voice as a relationship the brand has with the reader, not an abstract personality. **Output:** one paragraph describing this person. Then check: does the brand actually sound like this person in its current content? If not, that gap is what TONE.md is for. --- ## Frameworks compared | Framework | What it gives you | Where it falls short | | --- | --- | --- | | **NN/g 4 dimensions** | Measurable axes; comparable profiles; falsifiable decisions | Misses culture and lexicon; can produce average outputs if everyone clusters near midpoint | | **Mailchimp voice/tone** | Cleanest articulation of voice/tone distinction; mature documentation pattern | Specific to a SaaS context; not a discovery method | | **Jung's 12 archetypes** | Strategic personality alignment; audience psychology link | Often used too literally; archetypes become cosplay | | **"We are / We are not"** | Forces specificity; produces usable do/don't pairs | Easy to write trivially ("we are friendly but not unfriendly") if not facilitated | | **Voice attributes with do/don't tables** | The operational atom of any modern guide | Without examples, becomes abstract | | **Tone spectrums** (Builtvisible / Adobe Spectrum) | Channel-by-channel modulation made visible | Maintenance burden if too many spectrums | | **Margot Bloomstein's BrandSort** | Stakeholder alignment; prioritised attributes; basis for content audit | Outputs are inputs; still need lexicon, examples, modulation matrix | | **GV Brand Sprint (3 Circles)** | Speed; useful for early-stage startups | Lightweight; not a substitute for the full method | **No single framework is sufficient.** Combine: BrandSort for stakeholder alignment, NN/g 4 dimensions for differentiation, "X but never Y" for documentation, archetype as positioning shortcut. Each addresses a different stage of the work.