{"id":70164,"date":"2016-09-27T14:35:59","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T13:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.strattoncraig.com\/insight\/eck-lad-tailoring-copy-town-benefit-brand\/"},"modified":"2025-03-07T17:29:04","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T17:29:04","slug":"eck-lad-tailoring-copy-town-benefit-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.strattoncraig.com\/us\/insight\/eck-lad-tailoring-copy-town-benefit-brand\/","title":{"rendered":"By \u2018eck lad \u2013 how tailoring your copy by town could benefit your brand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re used to the biggest brands having a tone of voice these days, but we\u2019re less used to them having accents. Are they missing a trick?<br \/>\nAs copywriters we\u2019re regularly working to (or creating) instructions about brands\u2019 tones of voice, but working in the written mediums means we rarely think about the accent of the brand.<br \/>\nYou only have to listen to a TV advert to realise that many consumer brands like supermarkets have one, though; Waitrose\u2019s \u2018BBC English\u2019 is decidedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PVbPdU1Vds0\">middle class and aspirational<\/a>, while ASDA\u2019s voiceovers are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ilzhaPrOzyY\">unfailingly regional<\/a>\u00a0in accent, make them feel more approachable and warm. It\u2019s a simple marketing trick, making brands more accessible by recognising that shoppers are drawn to the familiar.<br \/>\nAny writer worth their salt knows that accents are notoriously difficult to communicate (although <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ronnoclligam\/status\/632495544431194112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">Scottish Twitter<\/a> is an hilarious exception), so employing local dialects can be an effective way to communicate an accent instead.<br \/>\nIt would be disingenuous for a brand whose geographical origin is a large part of its identity (say, Yorkshire Tea or Foster\u2019s lager) to start advertising its products with anything other than its own regional accent. But for other brands \u2013 especially national FMCGs with a conversational tone of voice \u2013 there\u2019s an opportunity to speak on a level with customers.<br \/>\nImagine Kleenex advertising their tissues around Northern England under the headline \u201cFor when you need a good skrike\u201d, around Scotland with \u201cFor when you need a greet\u201d, and in the West Midlands with \u201cFor when you need a good blart\u201d; these all being regional terms for crying.<br \/>\nTraditionally, tailoring your campaign on a regional basis like this was potentially expensive expensive and ran the risk of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eveningtimes.co.uk\/news\/13337778.Glasgow_lad_s_cheeky_tweet_about_cricket_in_the_East_End_lands_him__starring__role_in_Microsoft_advert\/\">saying things<\/a> that paint your brand as out-of-touch. But digital billboards and geo-targeted banner ads offer brands the opportunity to do this more cheaply and quicker than ever before.<br \/>\nAviva have been doing this for years in their TV adverts with the help of actor Paul Whitehouse. While it\u2019s true that a single ad has gone out nationally at any one time, each advert in the series has used a different accent. Whitehouse has, at points, played characters from Scotland, Plymouth, South Wales and the West Midlands \u2013 among many others. It\u2019s not without pitfalls, though. Accents and dialects are sensitive subjects, and crow-barring an outdated clich\u00e9 or pastiche accent into your brand\u2019s ad <a href=\"http:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/news\/midlands-news\/brummies-blast-hotels4u-advert-over-6521055\">could backfire<\/a>.<br \/>\nIt pays to engage and consult with writers local to your target markets, or an agency like Stratton Craig that has a freelance network stretching to every corner of the UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re used to the biggest brands having a tone of voice these days, but we\u2019re less used to them having accents. Are they missing a trick? As copywriters we\u2019re regularly working to (or creating) instructions about brands\u2019 tones of voice, but working in the written mediums means we rarely think about the accent of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[305,314,448],"tags":[576,596,598],"class_list":["post-70164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-content-strategy-us","category-copywriting-us","category-digital-copywriting-us","tag-content-2017-us","tag-content-trends-us","tag-content-trends-2017-us"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>By \u2018eck lad \u2013 how tailoring your copy by town could benefit your brand<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.strattoncraig.com\/us\/insight\/eck-lad-tailoring-copy-town-benefit-brand\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"By \u2018eck lad \u2013 how tailoring your copy by town could benefit your brand\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We\u2019re used to the biggest brands having a tone of voice these days, but we\u2019re less used to them having accents. 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