What is Your Brand’s Verbal Identity, and Why Does it Matter?

Written By

Beutler Ink

This insight post summarizes the original blog post published by Jon Vann Sprecher of Beutler Ink. View the original post: What is Your Brand’s Verbal Identity, and Why Does it Matter. 

When you think of your favorite brand, what comes to mind? Is it their products? What about logos? Maybe you remember a tagline. Hopefully, that brand evokes a feeling. This doesn’t mean that say, Nike should make you feel “happy” or “secure”. But you might associate the Nike brand with “quality” or “reliability”.

If you think of any of these things, it’s not a coincidence. It’s the result of a sophisticated brand strategy. There are a lot of components of a successful brand strategy, but for simplicity’s sake we can say the key ingredients are:

• Visual Identity
• Verbal Identity
• Communication Strategy

Verbal identity is what you say about your brand, how you say it, and who you say it to. It’s the foundation of how you tell your story to the world. Getting clear on it empowers you to communicate confidently, consistently, and coherently.

At a core level, your brand is who you are and what you do. Your branding is how you communicate that. So let’s dive in and learn about what goes into your brand verbal identity.

What is Verbal Identity?

Your brand’s verbal identity is a system for expressing who you are, what you do, who you do it for, and why it matters. It’s a descriptive framework for communicating to both external and internal audiences your mission, your core values, and your value proposition.

It’s also a prescriptive framework for aligning your brand’s goals and aspirations. It’s both a document of where you are AND where you want to be.

And it’s more than a document, as well. Again, successful verbal identity development will yield a system for expressing your brand. This is scalable, repeatable, and canonical.

“Your brand’s verbal identity is a system for expressing who you are, what you do, who you do it for, and why it matters.”

Establishing a verbal identity requires a scaffolded approach; you start from the middle and build outward. Each successive component builds on the previous:

• Mission
• Positioning
• Messaging

Clarity on and documentation of these will inform everything from market and audience identification to communication guidelines. Let’s break down each component.

Want to know more? Get more details on the mission statement, positioning statement, and brand messaging and how these contribute to your verbal identity in the full blog post: What is Your Brand’s Verbal Identity, and Why Does it Matter?

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BeutlerInk is a digital agency that focuses on creating custom marketing solutions that meet core sales and growth objectives. While being an industry leader in Wikipedia strategy, its agency works with global brands like Google, Verizon, Uber, Amazon and more to help them share stories with their online audiences through stunning visuals and clear, concise copywriting.