Virgin Atlantic's Tone of Voice

In 2018/2019, Virgin Atlantic had a bit of a creative shake up to its look and feel, dabbling in the pink and quirky. Creating a new set of brand guidelines meant there was also an opportunity to take a fresh look at the tone of voice guidelines, which I did - and loved. Then in 2020/2021, Virgin Atlantic adopted a new set of brand pillars. This presented another opportunity to revamp and refresh the TOV guidelines. Developing a brand voice is incredibly important. You need to be able to articulate the personality in a clear way - why does this word or trait reflect Virgin Atlantic, and how does that translate into a tone of voice? You need to create rules that are easy to put into practice and easy to explain, especially to people who work outside the brand team. It's no use having buzz words and developing a brand personality if no one can understand how and why that translates into communications and tone of voice. Having worked on the overall company TOV in 2018, I then began running Learning & Development workshops where people from all over the company could come for an hour's session on understanding the brand voice, how to use it, and why it mattered. I also had the opportunity to run these workshops as part of brand immersions for agencies and external partners.