Is your brand voice in the clutches of cultural cringe?
Alex Moore from brand language studio XXVI explains how the generational cycle influences your brand’s tone of voice and how to avoid getting left behind.
Recently, I spotted a great LinkedIn post about the overeagerness of brands to embrace the ‘bestie’ tone of voice. This ‘YourCoolFriend™️’ expression, as the author calls it, comes across as an “HR manager who sends too many GIFs in Slack”.
The negative overtones are clear. But if you’ve been paying attention to the cultural shift against anything millennial, you knew this was coming. The death of the brand as your best friend is entirely predictable because it’s just how these things work.
Brands, just like people, are deeply influenced by cultural shifts. Each generation is defined not only by its shared experiences and attitudes but also by the language they use.
So as new generations usher in the next wave of expression, do brands need to keep up with the shift? Or is the most authentic thing to break free of the cycle and do your own thing for once?
Mirroring generational attitudes
If you study brand voice over the span of several years, an interesting pattern emerges.
The tone of voice a brand adopts acts as a mirror of generational attitudes. And they’re cyclical. In basic terms, what’s cool for one generation is lame for the next. But the one after that – with thanks to nostalgia – looks upon the first generation’s trends positively often embracing or reinterpreting them to fit modern sensibilities.
The millennial brand voice, which started out as rebellious and anti-establishment, but can now be loosely defined as the ‘bestie’ vibe, was born out of the hipster movement.
Culturally, this generation sought to subvert trends from the past. Ironically embracing vintage clothing, milk crates as chairs, rusted fixies, and deconstructed burgers as a form of rebellion against the mass consumerism and shine of the 80s and 90s.
They were the first generation fully online too, resulting in an explosion of meme culture that Gen Z has now subverted themselves.
Brand expression, of course, followed suit. No longer could banks talk like banks. Or clothing retailers sell clothes.
Guys, brands were just like me and you. Fun, relatable, purpose-driven. Full of conversational prose, lighted-hearted fun, and big ideas that smashed the status quo.
But nothing stays the same. The generation cycle has fired up again. And nowhere is that more evident than in the comments section.
Once the holy grail for lols, brands who play in this space like they used to, now find themselves firmly in the clasps of cultural cringe.
See this perfect example after the death announcement of Duolingo’s social media owl character. Second-hand embarrassment in full swing.
On one hand, the pull to follow the trends of Gen Z and Gen Alpha, and to ‘speak their language’, is exciting and new. This next shiny thing is impossible to ignore and for good reason.
With a spectrum that spans serious to silly, there’s plenty of scope for unique brand expression in this Gen Z-focused market. However, it’ll shift again once the cultural dial trends away, capital letters and full stops come back into style, and the commentators dust off their brand voice obituaries for whatever personification the Gen Z tone becomes.
There is nothing wrong with that. It is, after all, how things have always gone. But there is another way.
Stop chasing trends
Perhaps instead of chasing trends, brands should seek to understand their character.
It’s not simple. But in the context of brand expression, character is a revelation.
Instead of defining a voice or personality through traits that capture the cultural tonal zeitgeist, character gets to the heart of your brand.
By exploring your brand’s character, you’re encouraged to think deeply about its values and behaviours, its contradictions and tensions, the good and the not-so-good.
Only through discovering its true character, can you create an expression that endures, across each point in the generational cycle. And because it’s capturing and delivering a genuine representation of your brand, audiences across time will relish in its authenticity. Because that never goes out of style.
Brands embracing character
Bunnings has risen over trend chasing. They’ll never be your ‘bestie’ – it’s just not in their character. They’re helpful and reliable, sure, but there’s no evidence of hyper-personalisation in their expression. In fact, they’re about as personal as the head-nod you give your neighbour three doors down when you pass them in the street. And we like it that way.
Carsales is another that’s bucked the trend. You’d be forgiven for expecting an online brand (one that helps you buy and sell prized personal possessions, no less) to go full millennial. It really is a free kick. But they stay true to their simple, safe vibe. Choosing confidence and capability over the voice equivalent of neon lights and nodding-dog dashboard toys.
So yes, the bestie voice may be dead. And I’m curious to see where we go to from here.
But one thing’s for sure, it’ll be a blend of the best bits we’ve seen in the past. A touch of irreverence, a dash of authenticity and a return of authority.
Now that’s a character I’d like to see.
Alex Moore is an Associate Director at brand language studio XXVI, part of the Principals Group.
