Warc, 6 May 2014
LONDON: A majority of brands lack a distinctive voice,
frequently using generic words and ideas to the extent that they can appear
boring and leave consumers unsure as to what they're talking about.
Alastair Herbert and Dr Ali Goode of Linguabrand reached
this conclusion after putting four million brand words through software to
measure brand agendas. Writing in the latest issue of Admap they said that 54%
of brand language was generic and that brands were investing more in saying the
same as competitors than in trying to say something unique.
While a degree of generic language was unavoidable, the
authors suggested this should account for only up to 34% of a brand's agenda,
or what it was talking about. (For more, including how brands can 'own' the
words they put in the minds of their consumers, read the Admap article: Mind
your brand.)
An extreme example of a brand that had failed to find its
own voice was Reebok. Two years ago an analysis of the way sports brands think
had found that Reebok's thinking was 95% generic.
Who's going to pay a premium for something you can get
everywhere, the authors asked. "Reebok appeared to have lost its reason
for existing," they said, adding it was only a matter of time before sales
were affected. The brand, they noted, had written off €265m at the end of 2012
and reported "double-digit decline in wholesale revenues".
The importance of language was further illustrated in their
contention that brands had little literal meaning but were just symbols
standing for something else. "Understanding that 'something else',"
argued Herbert and Goode, "is at the heart of good branding."
The use of language analytics, they suggested, could help
bring words under a brand's control, give them a competitive advantage and
enable them to make better use of their budgets.
Brands were also guilty of over-complicating their language,
as the authors noted that the UK population's average reading age was 13.5, the
equivalent of The Sun newspaper. The likes of Sir Martin Sorrell, head of WPP,
communicated complex ideas at a reading age of 15.2 while the Financial Times
pitched its content at a reading age of 16.1.
The average reading age of brand websites, however, was
17.5.
Data sourced from Admap
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