Get AI talking your brand language in minutes

Gone are the days where creating a digital campaign might take days or weeks.

AI tools like Jasper let you create copy for every aspect of a digital campaign in minutes - social posts, landing page, nurture email flow, newsletter, google text ads, and more.

The hardest part is ensuring all material is in your brand tone of voice.

And the good news is, it's not hard.

All you need is a clear and simple understanding of your brand voice and a single AI prompt, as outlined below.

Do it once and its easy to adapt to any future copy elements you might want to create down the line.

In the case of Jasper.ai, after training the tool once, you can set it to apply your brand voice to all outputs by default.

A simple tone-of-voice prompt recipe - point 4 is key:

A tone-of-voice-based prompt should include:

1. Who will be speaking on behalf of your brand (professional role, or famous personality that typifies your brand)

2. Who they will be talking to (a description of your audience)

3. What the desired format is (e.g., video script, sales pitch, landing page)

4. How to talk to your audience (tone, style, and manner)

5. The key message/s you want to get across to your audience

6. Why the subject matters to your audience (the benefits it offers them)

7. What you want your audience to do (e.g., comment, contact us, shop now)

The above elements may vary by brand or application, but the list serves as a solid foundation.

Try the tone-of-voice prompt you create with a few variations in, say, ChatGPT-3.5 and/or GPT-4.

Then select the sentences and paragraphs that most resonate with your brand and put them together in a way that tells your story best.

Finally, check all facts and use of slang or other esoteric language or terms to ensure they're correct.

Example of tone-of-voice prompt application

BEFORE COPY OPTIMIZATION: Copy in requested tone of voice written entirely by ChatGPT and uploaded directly to Synthesia (a great tool to demo tone of voice application at low cost). While not perfect, one can only be impressed by what ChatGPT delivered here.

AFTER COPY OPTIMIZATION: Copy shorter and punchier with minor corrections and, importantly, manually paced to feel more natural. (A real voice is always best, budget allowing, although AI tools like elevenlabs can deliver near perfect voice performances.)

The prompt used to generate the copy for the above videos is:

Act as an insurance salesperson.

Create a sales pitch for a medical insurance plan aimed at gen z women living in New York.

The insurance plan includes cover for a wide range of in-patient and day-care treatments as well as an optional level of cover such as out-patient, dental, and maternity benefits. It is also cost-effective and tailored to the lifestyle and needs to gen z women - so they can focus on living their best life, without worrying about medical cover. Or even thinking about it again until they need it.

Use the tone of voice of a 25-year-old generation z woman and include generation z slang such as: W, Big yikes, basic, cap, drip, hits different, fire, NPC, periodt, rizz, suss, girlboss, vibe check. Use words that inform, inspire and call to action. Vary sentence length to create rhythm and interest. And use the active voice.

There is another way to go - but is it better?

The rate of change in AI continues at a mind-bending pace.

It seems brand tone-of-voice AI applications are no exception.

In early May 2023 Jasper.ai, the marketing-focused AI platform based on GPT, launched an upgrade to its tone-of-voice capability.

A little pricier than GPT-4, (at approx. $90 month for a 3-seat Team plan ), Jasper trains itself on your brand tone of voice based on URLs you supply or reference content you paste into its system.

It allows you to save and store "Memories" as tone-of-voice context for use in the generation of future content. You can select specific "Memories" as and when you need them.

Also convenient is that you can set the brand voice you build into the system as the default for all communication you create for your brand.

And again, it lets you create entire digital campains off a single prompt.

Screenshot of Jasper's new Brand Voice training tool

I gave the new Jasper Brand Voice a try by training it on copy in the OG Medical Health Plan videos above. And made another high speed video on Synthesia to demo the results.

So how does Jasper compare to chat GPT?

I didn’t find Jasper quite as good as ChatGPT when it came to tone of voice application, despite the fact Jasper had copy from ChatGPT-generated content loaded into it as a brand tone-of-voice reference.

And Jasper was nowhere near as effective when I relied on the tone-of-voice I loaded into the system alone, rather than including it in the prompt.

I concede this may be due to user error as it was my first attempt at using the new Brand Voice tool, but I did try it a few times, to little effect.

When all is said and done, I prefer the simplicity and flexibility of the single-prompt model, with all necessary info included. This seems to work reasonably well on both AI platforms.

But, again, ChatGPT did seem a little better.

The best approach is to experiment with both and see what works for you.

Further considerations related to your brand voice

Is it better for your brand to speak as a “peer” or an “expert”?

The video avatar speaks in the voice of a near-peer who also has relative expertise in that she has personal experience of the product.

People are often more likely to be influenced by near-peers who are a step of two ahead of them in solving a given life problem than by someone who is “an expert.”

Using a spokesperson from the target group who speaks from personal experience in the language of the audience is both credible and relatable.

But there are certainly brands for which taking an expert approach would be more appropriate.

Whether a given brand should speak more as a peer or expert is covered in detail here.

Why bother with tone of voice?

A clear and unique verbal identity adds huge value to a brand by:

1. Connecting with your band audiences in an authentic, relatable manner

2. Strengthening relationships by revealing a brand personality that customers and staff identify with

3. Ensuring you sound the same across all channels over time – consistency builds trust

4. Setting your brand apart from competitors

5. Providing meaning, motivation, and momentum for employees – through clearly communicated purpose

6. Anchoring your organization and customers around a distinct set of values

7. Creating “pride of belonging” among employees and customers

8. Getting all your brand custodians on the same page as to how your brand communicates

9. Ensuring you always communicate in a clear, easily understandable way – clarity is the soul of effective communication

What if you don’t yet have a brand tone of voice?

Designing a distinctive tone of voice for your brand is a specialized activity best undertaken by branding experts. AI is not yet at the point where it can build a well thought out verbal identity from strategy through to execution all on its own.

The specialists you work with will likely begin by taking your brand purpose, brand values, and brand personality into consideration, or help formulate them if they are not yet in place.

Once these elements are decided, they will indicate the language, style, tone and manner of your brand’s voice.

Should your require assistance with any of these aspects or updating your existing brand strategy or visual identity, I can help.

I partner with brand growth specialists that work globally from hubs in London and Berlin and would be happy to introduce you to them.

Together, we provide complete identity solutions, including strategy, visual identity, and verbal identity. To learn more or discuss your requirements get in touch.

Note: In the unlikely event you didn't immediately guess as much, the brand used in the example above is made up. The OG Plan from EG Co. is a fictional brand from an imaginary medical health insurance company created for illustrative purposes. The medical insurance plan is named the “OG Plan” for the “original girlboss” who is in control of her life. “OG” is also gen z slang that implies something is a “true original”.