Get A Personality Already: Is Your Company Voiceless?

If every tech reseller scrubbed their name off their website, most of them would be indistinguishable. Same site structure. Same stock phrases. Same tone that reads like it was siphoned through a help desk script and a compliance checklist.

That’s because most companies—especially in the tech channel—treat brand voice like a garnish. A decorative sprinkle of (mostly generic) tone layered on after the fact.

But tone can’t be an afterthought.

It’s the one part of your messaging that can make people feel something before they buy. And in a market where everyone’s competing on specs, discounts, and a “deep engineering bench,” emotional resonance is one of the last real tools you’ve got to stand out.

This is how to find your voice and use it everywhere, from subject lines to support tickets, without losing your signal in the noise.

Brand tone of voice is the way your company sounds across every touchpoint, whether that’s written, spoken, digital, or physical. It’s the clear, consistent personality behind the words that’s aligned with your core values and tells someone they’re hearing from you, even if your logo isn’t in the corner.

A strong brand voice reflects what you stand for, how you want to be perceived, and what kind of connection you’re trying to build with your audience. And when it’s done right, it doesn’t feel like a performance. It feels like a conversation that only your brand could have.

A consistent, authentic tone of voice reinforces what makes your brand worth listening to in the first place. It turns everyday communication into something that moves people.

Enhance Customer Experience and Engagement

People buy products, but more than that, they buy interactions, impressions, and moments. The right tone can make even the most routine touchpoint feel like part of a bigger relationship. It signals that your brand knows who it’s speaking to and that you’re not just talking at them.

Build Recognition, Trust & Loyalty

When your voice is consistent across platforms and teams, it becomes recognizable. Trust builds from that repetition. Loyalty follows from resonance. Your audience starts to know what to expect, and they’ll lean in if what they hear feels grounded and human.

Differentiate Your Brand from Competitors

In the tech channel, especially, differentiation is a constant battle. Product specs can be copied, and prices fluctuate. But your voice is proprietary. When it reflects your values, fits your audience, and doesn’t sound like a warmed-over whitepaper, it becomes one of your most defensible assets.

If tone of voice is how your brand speaks, then archetype is the role it plays in the story.

The 12 brand archetypes are personality blueprints. They help define the emotional territory your brand occupies. When used well, they bring clarity, consistency, and cohesion to every message. These archetypes give your voice an identity, something deeper to draw from than just adjectives.

Here’s a quick look at all 12, with familiar brand examples that live them well:

You don’t need to reinvent your company to find its voice. You just need to surface what’s already there and shape it into something consistent, usable, and real. This framework provides a clear path.

1. Pinpoint Your Core Values

   Start with what you believe in—not the sanitized version written for pitch decks, but the principles that guide how you operate, hire, sell, and show up. Core values are the internal priorities that shape your company’s behavior. These values become the backbone of your voice, helping it stay grounded and aligned across every message.

2. Understand Your Audience

   The best brand voices reflect who you are and who you’re talking to. Build out real audience personas. Get clear on their needs, language, expectations, and emotional drivers. If your tone doesn’t meet them where they are, it won’t matter how well-crafted it is.

3. Audit Existing Communications

   Take inventory of what you’re putting into the world—emails, ads, landing pages, support replies. Where does your tone come across strongly? Where does it fall apart? This step helps you identify gaps and inconsistencies that need cleaning up before anything new gets rolled out.

4. Define Voice Characteristics & Tone

   Use what you’ve learned so far to create a set of tone traits (e.g., “direct,” “helpful,” “approachable”) that support your brand’s archetype and values. Then add nuance: how do those traits flex in different scenarios? Friendly doesn’t always mean casual. Confident doesn’t mean loud.

5. Document a Tone-of-Voice Style Guide

   Put it all in writing. Your tone guide should be concise, clear, and actionable—something anyone, from a designer to a support representative, can use. Include voice traits, do/don’t examples, and notes on how tone shifts across contexts.

6. Train Your Team & Implement Across Channels

   A tone guide doesn’t work unless people use it. Walk teams through it. Build it into onboarding. Reference it during reviews. Most importantly, apply it everywhere—from your hero banner copy to your out-of-office replies. That’s how a voice becomes real.

Here are five standout tones that demonstrate how personality, values, and audience converge to create something distinct and lasting.

Playful & Encouraging — Duolingo
Duolingo has built its brand on lighthearted pressure. It mixes humor with gentle nudges, using a tone that’s fun, slightly chaotic, and always supportive. Whether it’s a push notification from the owl or a social post nudging you back to your lesson, the voice is unmistakably casual, confident, and geared toward progress without punishment.

Bold & Motivational — Nike
Nike’s tone is pure drive. It speaks in sharp, focused statements that rally individual empowerment. From “Just Do It” to campaigns like “You Can’t Stop Us,” Nike’s voice is declarative, high-energy, purposeful, and designed to hit people emotionally and physically.

Approachable & Quirky — Mailchimp
Mailchimp sounds like your friendly, clever coworker who’s good at explaining complicated stuff without making you feel dumb. The tone is casual but smart, with bits of oddball humor baked into everything from onboarding emails to product tooltips. It strikes a balance between creative and clear, especially when helping small businesses get started.

Professional & Inclusive — LinkedIn
LinkedIn maintains a polished, respectful tone across the board, but it’s not stiff. It communicates with confidence and clarity, using language that aims to include professionals across industries, roles, and backgrounds. The voice remains focused on connection, opportunity, and community, without overusing corporate jargon.

Humorous & Light — Old Spice
Old Spice leans hard into absurdity—and it works. From surreal ad campaigns to deadpan product descriptions, the voice is confident, weird, and self-aware. It pokes fun without alienating, using humor as a strategy to disrupt the category and stay top of mind with younger audiences.