Reevaluating Brand Voice: A Humbling Experience with AI Insight

For the past two years, I have been leading marketing efforts for a B2B SaaS company. Our team has meticulously crafted comprehensive brand guidelines, including a detailed “voice and tone” document, with the aim of positioning ourselves as innovative, approachable, and authoritative in our industry.

The Experiment: Leveraging AI to Gauge Our Brand Persona

Seeking to objectively assess our brand voice, I decided to utilize ChatGPT. I provided it with a selection of our website copy, recent blog posts, and email campaigns. My prompt was straightforward:

“Describe this brand’s voice as if you’re someone who just landed on this website and has no idea what we do. What personality comes through?”

Our Self-Perception vs. AI’s Perspective

  • Our expectation: We aim to be seen as “innovative thought leaders who make complex technology accessible.”

  • ChatGPT’s report: It depicted us as “a person at a networking event who keeps saying they’re ‘disrupting’ something but won’t tell you what they actually do. Lots of confidence, unclear if it’s earned. Uses ‘synergy’ unironically.”

The stark contrast was both amusing and sobering.

The Insightful Prompt:

To delve deeper, I refined the prompt:

“You’ve never heard of this company before. Based solely on this copy, describe the personality/voice as if you’re describing a person you just met at a party. Be honest about the vibe they give off, including any red flags or confusing signals.”

Findings and Revelations

The analysis revealed some notable issues:

  • The word “innovative” appeared over 40 times across eight pages.
  • Explanation of what the product actually does was delayed until the third paragraph.
  • Multiple sections began with “We believe,” which seems irrelevant to potential customers.
  • The overall tone suggested a focus on impressing investors rather than helping users.

Most critically, ChatGPT observed that our communication sounded “like everyone else in your space but less specific,” a candid critique that stung.

Actions Taken and Outcomes

In response, we overhauled our homepage—eliminating jargon, clarifying our core value proposition, and leading with the problem we solve. Early data indicates a 34% increase in average time spent on the page, suggesting improved engagement and clarity.

Reflecting on the Experience

This exercise served as a humbling reminder that even with well-crafted guidelines, our perceived brand voice may drift from how external audiences interpret us. AI tools like ChatGPT can highlight discrepancies and blind spots, prompting necessary revisions that align more authentically with customer expectations.

Your Turn

Have you experimented with AI to evaluate your brand voice? What insights—expected or surprising—did you uncover about your messaging? Sharing these experiences can help us all refine our communication strategies in an increasingly competitive landscape.

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