I expect you'd have trouble choosing—until I told you that Model A was a Corvette, Model B was an Alfa Romeo, and Model C was a Porsche. With that information alone, most of us would choose one of the cars immediately—who cares about the torque ratios, the widget factor, or the number of what-have-yous in the thingy. (Personally, I'd take the Alfa).

Whatever it is that enables us to decide which car to buy as soon as we know the names of the manufacturers is the brand—the intangible thing that influences our buying decision so much more than the product specifications and performance criteria.

The key point about building and maintaining a brand is alignment. This point was made by McKinsey & Company in the quote above: "… a company needs to … align what it says about its brand in advertising and marketing with what it actually delivers." That's true, otherwise, all that advertising and marketing is undone when the customer's or client's expectation is not met by the reality of the product or service. So alignment and delivery are the key to a successful brand.

One aspect of an organization's activities that needs to be aligned with its marketing and advertising to create a successful brand is the organization's documents. Because the documents an organization produces, or relies on, form the "voice of its brand".

8.3 Voice of the brand

The people who create written communications for an organization are creating the "voice of their organization’s brand"—whether they work for the organization or as one of its advisers.

The voice of the brand is vital to the success of some organizations ¾particularly those that provide intangibles. Their communications may be the only thing of any substance that the customer (or potential customer) has to go on when, for example:

• they are deciding whether to buy in the first place;

• they are deciding whether to continue using the service;

• they are working out how to use the product; or

• they are trying to understand and apply some professional advice they've received.

Consequently, each time someone reads an organization's document they connect with the organization's brand. Too often, that moment of truth is sour: the document is formal, impersonal, and awkward. It fails to live up to the values that are the foundation of the organization's brand.