Did you know that your brand has a voice, just like you do? It has its own tone, inflections, frequent words, and phrases you completely avoid.

If you’ve been following along, this post is the second in a series about brand copy. Last week we looked at what brand copy is and the different elements that make it.

This week, we’re going to look at three well-known brands and what their unique brand voice is so that you can have an idea of how to think about and develop your own brand voice.

Apple

I’m typing on an Apple computer (MacBook Pro, in case you were wondering), and I’ve used iphones for the last six years. I love their sleek designs and ease of navigation. Everything is minimalist, and designed to be intuitive.

Would you be surprised to learn that the copywriting unique to the Apple brand is exactly the same? When I clicked into their website as I was researching for this blog post, the first copy I saw was advertising an iPad. The copy? Only three words: Loveable. Drawable. Magical. And besides two (equally minimal) call to action buttons, I had to scroll down to find any more words besides the menu at the top.

Apple is designed to be sleek and modern—and their copy reflects that 100%.

In-n-Out

I’m a California girl, and one of the main brands I remember from my childhood is In-n-Out. We loved to go there and get cheeseburgers (plain, because we were picky) and loved their fries that came piping hot, fresh out of the machine that made them. (We loved to watch the employees there run the fry machine.) They still are known for their ordinary, juicy burgers and high quality ingredients.

I almost laughed as I looked at their copywriting. There’s not much of it, in a lot of ways, but what is there is exactly like the rest of the In-n-Out brand. It’s basic, indicates a unique level of quality, and their tagline “Quality You Can Taste,” uses words that feel warm and a little bit like a juicy cheeseburger. Yum.

Brand copy that makes me hungry? I think that indicates some successful copywriting.

BetterHelp

Maybe it’s just the genre of podcasts Marshall and I listen to, or maybe the Tech Gods have sensed that we need counseling, but almost every time we listen to a podcast, we hear an ad for BetterHelp.

I could talk about the copy on their website, but I want to specifically focus on their podcast ads and the way they have made their own clients into their own brand voice.

Occasionally, I’ll hear a BetterHelp ad that seems verbatim of another one I heard, on a different podcast. But almost always, the copy in the ad is somewhat different. It’s brilliant! Better Help is all about providing counseling to different kinds of people in different places and for different reasons. Putting their services in the voices of their own clients makes them easy to connect with, even if not every podcaster talks about it in quite the same way.

(I realize that some other companies do this as well, but BetterHelp is an especially shining example of this.)

What about you?

So, what is your brand voice? As you ponder and develop your brand, think about what you want to communicate to your audience. Is your company sleek, like Apple? Do you provide only the highest quality, like In-n-Out? Do you reach a diversity of clients, like BetterHelp? Whatever it is, take your brand voice seriously! Your brand copy and the voice you use gives you an incredible opportunity to further demonstrate the values and experience of your brand.