Are tone of voice guidelines dead?
Are TOV guidelines really dead? Or could there be another use for them?
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Meet Toney, the tone checking tool
Guidelines are so last decade.
The best way to get everyone in your organisation using that tone of voice you spent so much time and money on is Toney.
It’s a tool that sits in Microsoft Word, Outlook and PowerPoint and checks your people’s writing as they write, giving relevant advice at the exact moment people need it.
And we designed and built it based on our combined million or so years coming up with tones of voice for the likes of Aldi, Avon, ZOE and Zurich.
Give us a shoutHere’s Toney in action
Getting the most out of Toney
There are readability checkers out there, but they’re mostly based on generic writing rules. Toney’s bespoke to your tone of voice, so everything will start sounding much more on-brand from the get-go.
For a tone of voice to live and breathe, everybody has to use it. Toney’s a piece of software, so you can install it on as many people’s computers as you like – getting tone of voice on everyone’s radar in one fell swoop.
People learn by making mistakes and getting feedback. Toney’s like a constant coach, stepping in with relevant advice as and when people need it.
Every piece of writing gets an overall score. So you can see which teams are doing best, and which might need a little extra help. (Did we mention we do tone of voice training too?)
Add your style guide, D&I guide, glossaries, and basically any writing advice you’ve got. Toney’s not fussy.
“Toney’s a real game-changer for us. It’s the easiest and most effective way to get our tone of voice in front of the 40,000 people across our organisation.”
Davinia White, Senior Brand Manager at Network Rail
And the rest
How long does it take to build?
It varies, but from briefing to scoping to developing to testing to honing to launching we’re talking two or three months.
Is there anything else like this out there?
There’s Grammarly for Business, but it’s way less bespoke. It lets you choose from a set list of ‘tones’, whereas Toney is built around your tone and your tone alone.
Our tone of voice is quite out-there. Can Toney really capture it all?
Maybe not! If your tone is all about telling jokes, or having opinions, or something similarly creative and mysterious, Toney probably won’t be able to capture all of that. But let’s talk – there might be another way to tackle it.
Will Toney single-handedly help us change the way we write?
We’d always recommend tone of voice training too. And there are loads more ways to get your tone of voice living and breathing. Get in touch and we’ll talk you through them.
Let's talk ToneySome other useful pages
3 tone of voice traps brands need to avoid
Your brand’s tone of voice is as important to get right as the logo or look and feel – so you need to be able to spot when it’s going wrong.
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Why a flexible tone of voice is a waste of your time and money
There are a few questions tone of voice agencies get asked a lot. But there’s one that comes up way more than the rest: how do we build flex into our tone of voice?
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