4 March 2022
In this age of ‘authenticity’ being the watchword for many people involved in marketing, being the real you is not something we encourage amongst our staff.
But before you lambast this seemingly tyrannical behaviour, let me explain and provide a bit of context.
Of course, we want people to be themselves in and around the office, be relaxed and happy in what they do.
But when it comes to writing an article, a blog or some other copy for a client, they need to do it in the personality of the client. They need to adapt the client’s tone of voice, the words that best work for them and the level of formality that suits the client’s brand.
And that personality, tone and style changes as they move from working on one client’s work to another. It’s not exactly split personalities, it’s more sort of getting into character as an actor might, but an actor who is playing a writer.
If you’ve ever tried to write a speech for an individual, you’ll know how hard it is to get their tone of voice right, how they might phrase things or how what you write suits their style of delivery.
It’s the same writing for client organisations, albeit the organisation doesn’t actually have a voice you can hear. In all cases it will have a brand (sometimes well defined, sometimes not), a certain style and a distinct way of presenting itself.
It’s our job to fit into this brand identity, to understand where it’s coming from and to be the client when we are writing our stuff. The extra bit that we provide is to do all of this while producing copy that is designed to maximise the impact of our messages with the target audience or, indeed, convince an editor that it is worthy to be included in their publication.
It’s authentic, but client authentic.
