There’s a word for that – brand language that makes a difference.

I was introduced last week to a genuinely fabulous organisation called Free Word. Their mission is both worthy and joyous – to promote and protect the written and spoken word.

We spent an outstanding evening in Farringdon in the company of some of the country’s finest young poets, including the current Young Poet Laureate for London Aisling Fahey, DJ James Massiah, and polymath Mark Rylance, whose ability to soothe, cajole & excite simultaneously through speech, whether writing or performing, is simply remarkable.

That evening I learned that our language houses a word for the state of finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning: ‘dysania’. Look it up if you don’t believe me.

We also own a word to describe your hesitation when introducing someone whose name has temporarily deserted you: ‘tartle’. And what a fine word it is too.

I left inspired by the wonder of language, and wondering why so few brands ever use its power and range to genuinely attempt to stimulate emotions and to differentiate. 

We’re all taught one or more languages from a young age. Most of us then shuffle our vocabulary like Scrabble pieces throughout our lives, here and there picking up a new word to drop periodically into our familiar speech patterns. As we saw in last month’s blog, the same is true for whole categories of brands.

If this sounds familiar and you work in branding you’ll find yourself at a distinct disadvantage. For whilst the visual impact of any branded experience has immense and instant power to persuade, it is the sound of a brand that lingers long afterwards.

This is because we access and communicate our thoughts and feelings using words. Which means that the words we use to describe our brands have the potential for greater long-term persuasive impact than what it looks like.

As a brand owner, perhaps spend a little more time crafting the sound of your brands, rather than the logo, for the simple reason that you can create a longer lasting impact on the brands’ performance and that of your business.

So this afternoon, why not follow the Twitter hashtag #freewordoftheday for some verbal inspiration instead of striding around as though you’re busy even though you’re not. Yup, there’s a word for that too...

Brand language: it all sounds the same.

Some years ago I took my new wife to our first ever gig, a now commonplace comeback of a band of my youth.  Child number 1 was imminent and it looked like the last opportunity for a DINKY night out for before life changed forever.

In advance I thought it wise to prepare my eager but musically inexperienced partner for the evening’s entertainment.  I played her the band’s greatest hits, confident that she’d fall in love with the mellifluous tones and waves of dynamic variety and of wryly-observed insights about life in my youth.  

Except she didn’t.  “It all sounds the same” she confessed.  And, disappointingly, she was right.  The key, rhythm, timbre, structure, subject matter and idiosyncratic quirkiness that made the debut single so engaging had been repeated so faithfully and repetitively that it wasn’t clear where one song ended and another began.  It also quickly became very dull.

Whole brand categories fall into this trap.  A player creates a new and different category and others plough in to enjoy the growth. They do everything right except create or describe anything different, therefore offering consumers no reason to choose them.

For example, here is the language used on the websites of the top 8 UK gyms and health clubs last month.  It reveals the generic language of the category.

And here’s the language used by one of the follower brands.

So, how does this slavishly imitated language help prospective customers to choose this brand?

Of course, it doesn’t, which leaves price as one of the main drivers of choice.  And typically this means these prices are forced downwards as customers don’t know what extra brand value to pay for.  This removes financial value from the sector, making it harder to compete.

So if your brand language sounds the same as the rest of the category you need to plan for margins to be squeezed.  Alternatively, surprise yourselves and your customers by singing a different tune.