7 Best Brand Tone of Voice Examples to Inspire You [Follow Their Success]

Not defining your brand’s tone of voice (TOV) can have serious consequences. 

Customer-facing teams risk coming off as inconsistent in their messaging or customer communications as they’ll have no clear direction for communicating with customers. 

Your brand may fail to stand out in the market. That’s because it’s your brand’s TOV that defines its unique personality and voice. 

Without a TOV, the customer experience will also suffer and can even damage your reputation.

Way before you create your first marketing collateral or engage with customers, you need to establish a clear and consistent TOV that reflects your brand's values, personality, and goals.

To help you define your TOV, I analyzed dozens of brands that are crushing it with their tone of voice, after which I prepared a list of the seven best. 

But before we dive into these examples, let’s first understand what a brand’s TOV is.

What is a brand tone of voice?

A brand’s tone of voice is the style they use to communicate with their audience through messaging and customer interactions. It reflects a brand’s core values, personality, and goals. 

Defining your TOV lets you deliver a consistent and resonant experience across all platforms, campaigns, and channels. This can further help them stand out from their competitors and build their unique identity. 

And it’s not just limited to customer interactions. 

Defining your TOV can play a major role in determining how employees communicate internally. 

It can also impact the hiring process, as you can clearly define what you want your employees to sound like. 

Your TOV isn’t just about the words used but also the rhythm, emotion, and context in which they are delivered.

For example, Nike’s TOV is inspiring, confident, empowering and bold. They are known for their motivational messaging that encourages their audience to take action and overcome their challenges. 

Here’s one of their product description that reflects their TOV (read the description):

Kiran Shahid, a B2B SaaS content marketing specialist, highlights the importance of TOV in one of her LinkedIn posts.

Setting your brand’s TOV is extremely important, especially in today’s market, where customers have short attention spans and are bombarded with marketing messages from every direction.

That being said, let’s look at examples of brands crushing it with their TOV.

7 examples of brands crushing it with their tone of voice [+ why we like it]

There’s no better way to define a killer brand TOV than by looking at real-world examples of brands crushing it with their TOV. 

For every example in this section, I’ve clearly defined what I like about each brand's TOV.

Let’s dive in.

1. Notion - Clear, Approachable, and Empowering

Notion, a widely popular project management software, is a perfect example of how a brand should communicate complex ideas in a digestible and easy-to-understand manner. 

Notion caters to a wide audience, from individual users to large enterprises. 

If their TOV were enterprise-focused, they might have alienated individual users or smaller teams. Instead, one of the main characteristics of their TOV is being clear, helping them strike a perfect balance, and making them accessible to both ends of the spectrum. 

Also, their casual and conversational tone makes their users feel comfortable about using Notion. 

Even the illustrations on their website serve the same purpose. These illustrations have an approachable and friendly style, helping the company create an engaging experience and encouraging more people to sign up.

Lastly, Notion empowers users by providing them with essential tools and resources that they can use to make their lives easier. 

Their TOV reflects this empowerment by highlighting how they can use these tools to take control and organize their work. 

This TOV reflects in all their customer touchpoints, be it their blog posts, sales collaterals, website copy, or social media posts. 

What I like about Notion’s Tone of Voice:

Notion’s tone of voice works because it perfectly aligns with their mission and values. Their tools help users simplify complex tasks, and this simplicity clearly reflects in their TOV. 

By being clear, approachable, and empowering, they make users feel supported and capable, regardless of their experience level. 

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2. Scrub Daddy - Enthusiastic, Clear and Friendly

Scrub Daddy specializes in building high-performance cleaning products. These products include scrubbers and sponges; among others. 

What’s so good about Scrub Daddy’s TOV is its near-perfect implementation - not only do their website content and social media posts reflect their TOV but also their products.

Just look at how positive and enthusiastic their product branding is:

Also, Scrub Daddy communicates with its audience in a clear and approachable manner. This makes them feel comfortable exploring the brand. 

Scrub Daddy uses happy words like "sparkling," "smiling," and "shine" to talk about cleaning and their products. These words make cleaning sound fun and exciting. They even have scrubbers that look like they're smiling, which adds to the cheerful feeling. 

What I like about Scrub Daddy’s Tone of Voice:

Scrub Daddy sells cleaning products, and it’s not easy to make cleaning sound fun. But their tone of voice does just that. 

By using cheerful words and being positive + approachable, they turn a mundane task into something enjoyable, which is something that’s really hard to achieve.

And it’s not just me. 

Keagan Perlette, a freelance writer for B2B brands, is so much in love with Scrub Daddy’s branding efforts and how their TOV reflects in these efforts.

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3. Netflix - Entertaining, Bold, Engaging and Approachable

Netflix, a popular OTT platform, serves one big purpose. That’s to entertain people all across the world with their vast library of movies and TV shows. Their target audience is everyone who enjoys visual entertainment, and their TOV perfectly reflects all of that.

One of many things that sets Netflix apart is their bold approach to just about anything - from their marketing campaigns to promotional trailers. They’re not afraid to take risks. They’re also not afraid to be humorous for the purpose of entertaining and engaging their audience.

They regularly share posts like this one to engage or entertain their audience on their socials:

Also, their billboards and website visuals are clearly meant to engage their audience. While doing so, they also make their users feel comfortable and come back again.

Netflix communicates with its users in an approachable and relatable manner. Even their social posts feel like a conversation with a friend rather than a corporate message. 

This has helped them build an emotional connection with their audience.

What I like about Netflix’s Tone of Voice:

Netflix is all about entertainment. 

And their TOV helps them stand out in today’s crowded market. 

Even though Netflix was the first mover, the market is extremely competitive right now. 

In this competitive market, Netflix retains and attracts customers by being engaging, bold, approachable, and entertaining.

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4. Monzo - Clear, Empowering, and Approachable

Finance is complicated, at least for folks who aren’t a part of the industry. But Monzo, a financial technology company, has made it their mission to simplify banking for everyone. And their TOV is a perfect reflection of this mission.

Monzo’s TOV is designed to be easily understood by just about everyone. They break down complex financial concepts into simple terms, making banking easily accessible to everyone. All their marketing and sales collaterals reflect this clarity, with clean and informative graphics and straightforward language.

Other than making banking simple for everyone, Monzo also makes it empowering. They provide the required tools and resources that enable users to take control of their finances. These tools include real-time spending notifications to keep the users’ spend in control, automatic savings, and budgeting tools to give users the confidence to manage their money smartly.

One of the main characteristics of Monzo’s TOV is being approachable. They use words like “easy” and “confidence” to create a supportive atmosphere. They clearly highlight people’s financial problems in a non-aggressive manner and then offer solutions in a friendly and reassuring tone.

What I like about Monzo’s tone of voice:

Monzo’s clear, empowering, and approachable TOV is a breath of fresh air in the financial industry. 

They make banking accessible and less intimidating for a wide range of users, which perfectly reflects in their TOV. 

They have smartly turned a subject that’s often considered complex, dry, and dull into something engaging and relatable. Hats off to that!

Other than Monzo, many other financial companies are adopting a similar TOV. And Monzo is leading the way in this transformation.

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5. Dollar Shave Club - Confident, Direct & Relatable.

Who can forget Dollar Shave Club’s YouTube video that made rounds on the internet and took the grooming industry by storm? As of this writing, this video has garnered 28M views, 153k likes, and more than 9,000 comments.

This video perfectly reflects Dollar Shave Club’s confident, direct, and relatable TOV. So does their website and all marketing and sales collaterals. 

For those who don’t know much about Dollar Shave Club, the brand sells and delivers grooming and shaving products to their customers by mail. They also run a subscription-based model. These are a few things that have helped them stand out in a competitive market.

Dollar Shave Club, across all customer touchpoints, talk like they know they’re the best. Their TOV helps them convey to their customers that their products are great without beating around the bush. They’re also not shy about saying that they are the top choice for shaving needs. This confidence has helped them build a strong identity. 

Also, they keep things simple and direct. They don’t use fancy words to describe their products. Instead, they get straight to the point about what their products are and why customers need them. When you check them out, you know what you’re getting with them. 

Despite being confident and direct, they don’t come off as aggressive or arrogant. Their relatable TOV also helps them with that. This relatable tone helps them with their target audience. 

What I like about Dollar Shave’s tone of voice:

Dollar Shave Club’s way of talking is refreshing. Sounding confident and direct without coming off as aggressive is a skill that Dollar Shave Club has mastered. 

They make you feel like they know what they're doing, and talk to you like a friend. 

Their TOV is a big part of why they've been so successful, and it's something that other brands can learn from.

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6. Frida Baby - Empathetic, Practical, and Playful.

Frida Baby sells baby and mom products to make the lives of parents and babies easier. Their products include nasal aspirators, postpartum recovery essentials, and gas relief tools.  

Frida Baby’s empathetic, practical, and playful TOV perfectly aligns with their mission of simplifying parenting. 

First of all, parenting is tough. And even though their TOV is playful and a bit humorous, they don’t shy away from addressing the real challenges that parents face.

Frida Baby’s products are designed with real-life parenting problems in mind. And their communication reflects this understanding. Also, they’re practical. They don’t beat around the bush. They get to the point quickly and explain how their products can solve specific problems.

But while doing so, Frida Baby adds a touch of humor and playfulness to their communication to lighten up the mood. This helps them seem approachable and relatable, especially to new parents who might be feeling overwhelmed. 

Terms like “Babymaking, simplified” and “Buh, bye, boogers” on their website can make you smile. Also, their product names reflect this humor. Some product names include “The Snotsucker,” and “The Gaspasser.”

What I like about Frida Baby's tone of voice:

What I like the most about Frida Baby’s tone of voice is that it helps them communicate with their target audience that they understand parenting is hard. 

But while doing so, they don’t go all-serious like many other brands in the parenting space. 

Instead, they add a touch of humor and playfulness to make parents, especially ones with newborns, feel at ease.

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7. Slack - Friendly, Direct & Innovative.

Slack is an instant messaging platform for professional and organizational communications. Their mission is to make work simpler and more productive. And their friendly, direct, and innovative TOV helps them with their mission. 

First of all, Slack’s TOV is just so friendly. From website copy to sales deck to just about any customer touchpoint or collateral, they use conversational language that makes users feel like they're engaging with a colleague rather than a faceless corporation. 

This friendliness also extends to their product design, where user-friendly interfaces and helpful tooltips guide users through the platform.

Slack’s TOV is also characterized by its directness. They don’t make professional communication seem complicated. Instead, they get straight to the point by explaining features and tools without any unnecessary fluff. Also, they clearly state how teams can use Slack through the use of visuals that are direct and on-point.

Slack also frequently highlights its new features and integrations that demonstrate their dedication to providing cutting-edge solutions. This innovation also reflects in their blog posts where they share insights and trends about the future of work and collaboration.

What I like about Slack’s tone of voice:

Slack's friendly, direct, and innovative TOV perfectly reflects their brand's mission and values. 

By speaking to users in an approachable and clear manner, they make complex collaboration tools feel accessible and easy to use. 

Also, they are direct about what they’re saying rather than having unnecessary fluff in their communication. 

That being said, let’s learn how you can define your brand’s TOV.

How to define your brand tone of voice

You can define your brand’s tone of voice in a few simple steps:

1. Determine the “Why” behind your company

Ask yourself: 

• Why does our company exist? 
• What is our mission? 
• What are our core values? 

Defining your brand’s mission, vision, and core values can play a major role in helping brands define their tone of voice.

Slack’s mission is to make lives easier. And this perfectly reflects in their TOV. 

Similarly, you need to define your brand mission, vision, and core values first, if they are not already in place.

Wordtune’s Spices feature can help you with that.

We used our editor to craft our company's mission statement, vision statement, and core values. 

For the mission statement, we provided Wordtune Editor with the following prompt:

Once we wrote our prompt, we clicked “Continue,” and Wordtune automatically gave us suggestions (which you look at by clicking “Another Suggestion.”)

Here’s one we liked:

You can further fine-tune this mission statement, depending on your unique requirements.

Here’s our vision statement:

Similarly, you can use Wordtune to write your core values.

2. Define your target audience.

Once you’ve determined the “why” behind your company, the next step is to define who your target audience is. This step is extremely important as it helps you understand who you are communicating with and, thus, how you should communicate.

This involves knowing their demographics, psychographics, needs, preferences, and pain points.

For instance, if your target audience is young and tech-savvy, they’d likely love a casual and innovative TOV. On the other hand, if your audience is more corporate and professional, a formal and authoritative tone might be suitable.

Let’s take the same real estate SaaS example as above.

In that case, your target audience would likely be:

3. Finally, define your brand’s TOV.

Now you need to take your target audience’s information into consideration, along with your brand’s mission and vision statements along with core values, to determine your brand’s TOV. 

Your TOV should cater to just about every customer persona (or at least the most important ones), rather than focusing on just one segment. It should also reflect your brand’s personality and values. 

For the same SaaS real estate example, we’d define the TOV as clear, efficient, and trustworthy. Positioning ourselves as humorous or overly casual might not align with how serious the real estate industry is and the needs of the target audience.

So, keeping our TOV as clear, efficient, and trustworthy is the best way to go. 

You can also use Wordtune’s Spices feature to determine what’d be the best TOV for your brand.

Just head over to the Wordtune Editor, type in your:

1. Mission statement.
2. Vision statement.
3. Core values.
4. Target audience information.

As soon as you do, click “Spices” and request it to create a tone of voice for you.

In no moment, Wordtune picked the best TOV for our brand.

Similarly, you can use Wordtune to define your brand’s TOV efficiently. 

Conclusion

Defining your brand’s TOV is an important step in the branding process. 

Otherwise, your customer-facing teams will never know how to communicate with customers. 

Your brand’s TOV acts as a guide for everyone in your company. 

It’s not what you say but how you say it. 

Your brand’s TOV helps you define the “how.”

Using Wordtune’s Editor, you can also develop a clear style guide and switch between tones so that every message you put out there aligns with your brand’s TOV.