Three stories
I can’t tell you all the details of my past projects, but I can tell you some case stories. I’d love to share my full roster of clients, but I can’t do that publicly and still respect confidentiality. I can tell you that I’ve worked with over fifty clients, and there aren’t many industries I haven’t touched. In particular, I’ve done a lot of work in:
financial services: think banks, fintech, and credit cards
fast-moving consumer goods: from toothpaste to face masks to laundry detergent
tech and telcos: both sprawling network giants and niche brands
So instead of three case studies, here are three stories.
Teaching an old bank new tricks
A heritage bank delves into the world of naming.
A rebrand finale: naming guidelines.
Think of your bank. Maybe it’s modern, or has a couple hundred years under its belt. Now go back a couple hundred more years, and you’ve got the right era for this bank’s founding. Despite being historic, it’s not stodgy. When I stepped in to do this project, they’d just done a modern rebrand – they had a sleek new visual identity and a lively tone of voice.
And now they wanted to learn how to name. While they didn’t necessarily need to name very often, they had both basic retail products and some more niche offerings, and wanted to make sure everything worked as a set.
Naming guidelines are only as good as they are useable.
If they’re confusing or irrelevant, you may as well not have them. (Honestly, that’s true of any kind of guidelines.) The bank needed enough flexibility to reflect the business, but firm rules to help them make decisions. So I created parameters for them to name more descriptively or evocatively, depending on how complex the product is, and how much extra time and space they have to explain what it does. Nothing black and white, but a spectrum, complete with lots of questions to ask about where you should sit, and tips and tricks for each end of the scale.
I also gave them classic advice – like generating more names than you think you’ll need and be willing to kill off your favourites – and reminded them of their tone of voice principles.
Everyone loves a fake brief.
People learn by doing, so there’s nothing quite like trying something out. When it came to training, I structured the session around hands-on exercises: we learned some principles and tips, then immediately gave them a try with a fake brief. I had people interrogate the brief, come up with names, and present them. I even acted as cruel and capricious legal, and rejected some of their best ideas for ‘trademark reasons’.
Putting myself out of a job.
The bittersweet sign of a successful naming system is that the client doesn’t need me anymore. In this case, they’ve successfully named their new products on their own – and rarely, if ever, need outside help. They also said that learning how to name firmed up their confidence in tone of voice, because they had to focus on every word choice so much more.
You’re already great at tone. How do you get even better?
A fintech brand wanted some tone of voice help – with a twist.
A happy challenge: capturing a strong tone of voice, and making it teachable.
Usually brands either need to create a tone of voice from scratch, or they need to flesh out some rough beginnings. Not so with this fintech brand. They already had a noteworthy tone that was flexible and relatable (and full of memes). But importantly, it was never cringe or untrustworthy – they’re handling your money, after all. They didn’t have a lot of rules; they knew the right tone when they saw it. That had worked for them so far. But now, they needed to teach new starters how to write for them, and settle some boundaries between fun and flippant.
To start, codify what’s going right.
A fellow writer and I took a look at all their writing to see what makes it tick. Then we matched it up to the existing guidelines to see where we needed to give a bit more direction. We also held an input workshop to hear it straight from the people who would be using the new guidelines.
Then give it a hook…
We remember stories way better than a list of commands. So we gave the guidelines a hook: describing tone of voice as a night out, from planning the outing to making sure we all get home safe. They were already nailing the basics of good writing, so this was about infusing personality, going beyond finetch to what fintech makes happen: telling the anecdotes that will resonate with their customers.
Draw the line, round it out, and practice till it’s perfect.
Guidelines are always going to be a bit subjective – that’s in the nature of writing. But it’s easier to make choices when you have more specifics. So we ironed out what ‘not enough’ and ‘too far’ felt like in things like slang, emojis, memes, and gave several concrete examples for each. We also created new before and afters, and marked them up to show what tricks we used in each spot.
Then we practiced every big principle in the new guidelines on real pieces of writing. We did small, in-person training sessions to make sure everyone could ask questions and get live feedback.
Ready to go, with some lovely feedback.
The result? Everyone left confident in the guidelines, and ready to write. I was rated a perfect five stars as a trainer (with reviews that made me blush), and our overall session got a near-perfect net promoter score.
Midwifing a new baby formula
Concepts for today, skills for tomorrow.
It was a classic brand dilemma.
A popular, rigorously scientific brand of baby milks was going organic. And they were faced with a challenge many had tackled before: how to keep their strong foundation while branching out into a new space. They had the new formulas and the research to back it all up. Now, they needed a concept to tie it all together, and some tips for writing and refining. So a colleague and I joined the fray – an on-site workshop with the brand team and their agencies.
Give a person a concept, they’ll have a great brand…
Brand concepts are short and sweet, and that makes them incredibly hard to agree on. They underpin the whole brand: it says what makes the brand tick and what sets it apart. A strong concept nails the right angle, and every word works hard (even more so than usual).
For this brand, I spent the day honing concepts for their small working groups. I listened to everyone tease out what sounded authentic, and what was a bridge too far. We talked about both content and specific word choices – like how much science to mix in, and how much organic lifestyle feeling to borrow. Then we took a few versions away and played with them on paper.
… Teach a person to write concepts, they’ll keep the brand healthy.
We honed one concept until everyone was happy – victory indeed. But I wanted to make sure they had the tools to evolve the concept in the future, or write something fresh. I co-ran a short training session on how to create concepts, from generating ideas to putting the final touches on a piece. We also taught people how to spot common problems, like vague language, or making a distinction without a difference.
A successful delivery.
A few months later, the organic line launched without a hitch. And the clients were so happy they invited us back for three more workshops for different brands. A repeat invitation is the highest form of flattery!