Brand-Cognito: Taking on a Brand’s Persona

Just as Superman takes on the Clark Kent persona when not in his spandex suit, writers need to take on the brand’s persona when writing for a client. Learning what brand persona is and why it is so important to transform your writing style to fit your client’s style can make a difference when crafting your next written piece.

Not only should you know the message you are expected to write, but you also need to think about how it should be written. We’re not talking about single space vs. double space. We’re talking about brand persona; how the piece should come across to your client’s audience.

Overview of a Brand’s Persona

Imagine you meet your best friend for lunch, and when they arrive, they act and speak differently from what you are used to. Not only are you thrown off by your friend’s personality turnabout, but you are not sure you even want to have lunch with this “new” person. 

The same idea applies to a business and its clients; clients expect their favorite brand to remain the same. Writers need to encompass that idea in their writing; too much change at once can be off-putting. By taking on a brand’s persona as a writer, you can create pieces that the audience can connect with, rather than something that sounds like an imposter or poser.

A brand’s persona is its identity and personality – the personification of the company. It encapsulates how the brand is unique from other companies and how the general public receives the brand. Companies put a lot of time and effort into creating their brand persona, so writers need to understand and respect the carefully crafted persona.

Adopt a Brand’s Persona

As a writer, you have your own style, but to effectively grab your target audience, you need to take on the brand’s persona as your own. This step often involves investigating to understand the brand fully before you put pen to paper.

Get to Know the Brand

If you are already communicating with the company you will write for, ask if they have a style guide you can use. This will tell you a lot about how to write for the brand. If you can’t access a style guide, or if you want to gather more information, examine content the company has previously produced.

You may choose to review the brand’s

• Vision Statement
• Mission Statement
• Press Releases
• Social media posts
• Published content like blogs

Develop Your Voice Using the Brand’s Persona

As you review the brand’s resources, there are several things to pay attention to:

Watch for Repeated Phrases and Ideas

Keeping an eye out for repeated phrases and ideas can let you know what is essential to the company. While it doesn’t dictate the persona, anything that is frequently repeated is a core part of the company and brand and will be reflected in the brand’s persona. These core ideas don’t occur by chance, so it is worth paying attention to them. Consider what they mean for the brand’s communication and written content.

Learn the Brand’s Written Tone and Style

Looking at verbs, sentence length, and structure can help you discover the brand’s persona and written mannerisms. You will learn whether the brand is straightforward, detailed, or action-oriented. Pay attention to who the intended audience is and listen for the voice and tone used. You also want to note whether the brand uses the first or third person and what tense they use most often.

Develop Your Take on the Brand’s Persona

After you’ve looked at previous content, think of a few words that describe the overall way messages are conveyed. Having these descriptive words in mind will help to keep you focused when you write to fit a brand’s persona. While the tone used might change based on the message, the voice will carry through no matter the type of communication.

Practice Writing for Different Brand Personas

Knowing what a persona is and how to discover a specific brand’s persona is great. It’s easier to take on a persona if you know what that means. But knowing what a brand’s persona is and writing in that persona isn’t the same thing. 

Knowing what to do is just the start – now it’s time to put that information into practice. Like anything else, practice is how you will get better at a skill. Here are a few exercises you can do to practice taking on different personas.

Mix and Match

The mix and match exercise is excellent since it forces you to think of different ways that you might share the same message.

1. List a few different brand personas
2. Make another list with different brand messages
3. Pick at random one persona and one brand message
4. Write in that persona to complete the ideal brand message
5. Repeat

For example, wishing people a happy holiday? A simple construction brand and an energetic preschool brand will have different ways of sharing that message. 

Write a Speach

Write a short speech for someone; you can do this for a real person or a fictional character. The actual message doesn’t matter as much as how you deliver the message. Do you follow politics? Write in the style of a particular politician. Have a favorite television show? Pick a character and write a monolog for them.

Writing a speech might seem like a different skill set, but the principles are the same. Remember that a brand’s persona is the personification of a company. If you can write a speech using the mannerisms of your favorite super villain, you can write an article in a brand persona. An advantage of this exercise is that you consolidate all of a brand’s characteristics and speech patterns into a single person.

Ready, Set, Go!

You’ve learned what a brand persona is, why it matters, and how to discover a persona from existing content. You even have a couple of practice exercises. Now it’s your time to shine; pick something you’ve learned and put it into practice. We’d love to see what you create!