An interactive, focused workshop 

To help get the creative juices flowing, we facilitated a brand voice workshop with the Options team and their key stakeholders. We welcomed participants from their board, their team and the people they support. 

There were three key beats the workshop covered:

• Sharing inspiring examples – We shared examples from their own industry and complementary brands to help them understand what good looks like. This lively discussion helped participants to articulate what they liked, what they didn’t and how it could be applied to their own brand.
• Values discussion – With a wider conversation happening around their brand and positioning, we slotted this conversation into the brand voice workshop to ensure a cohesive approach. We got under the skin of what Options stood for and how their new personality might reflect their beliefs.
• Defining a personality – Through our fun and interactive brand voice cards, we facilitated multiple discussions on what the new personality could be. Over three tables we had teams choose their four descriptors to describe what Options’ personality could be. Everyone had a chance to contribute and have their voice heard. 

Creating accessibility-first guidelines 

With our workshop insights in hand, we now had the building blocks for some shiny new tone of voice guidelines. It was key that the guidelines were easy-to-understand, accessible to multiple audiences and reflected the new Options personality. 

Our brand voice guidelines take in 10 key areas:

• Mission and vision; What Options stand for in language that feels like them.
• Values; The core beliefs that inform everything Options do.
• Personality; The juicy bit. 4-5 words that define the Options personality so it truly reflects their values and new positioning.
• Use cases; Guidelines are only as useful as their examples; here we create clear cut examples of the voice in action from social media to website copy to how people answer the phone.
• Style Guide; What’s the Options way to refer to things? We defined “swear words” (words to avoid) to make sure we were talking to audiences respectfully.
• Accessibility guidance; A crucial part of the project. How do we refer to different people, what words do we never use and how do we cater to audiences with differing needs? We created guidance for both print and the web to cover all bases.
• General writing tips; Guidance that helps the Options team to feel empowered to write in their new voice.
• Recommended reading; Maybe someone is nerding out on these guidelines and wants to read even more about brand voice (we can but dream), we give our best industry recommendations to help them on their journey.
• Who to ask for help; When something as monumental as a new brand voice lands, there needs to be clear signposting to help. We agreed with Options who would be accountable and how they can be reached. 

Delivering handover training 

With their new guidelines in hand, we then needed to deliver handover training. Our brand voice handover training helps teams to understand how to use their voice, gives them space to try it out and gets the creative juices flowing for future executions. 

Our brand voice handover training included:

• What tone of voice is and why it’s important 
• A walkthrough of the new voice
• Accessibility guidance 
• Using the tone of voice in the real world
• Space for feedback