Brand voice examples, and how to write rules AI can follow
Learn from seven published voice guides, then turn their useful habits into rules, examples and tone instructions for your own agents.
TL;DR
Learn from how published voice guides turn a brand's voice into instructions: clear limits, preferred wording, paired examples and tone that fits the situation. Choose rules for your own audience, and make them specific enough that an agent can apply them and a reviewer can check the result.
Seven published voice guides
Study the instructions behind the copy. Each of these public guides turns a trait into a writing decision an agent can follow.
| Guide and audience | Rule and application |
|---|---|
| Mailchimp, its content | Clarity takes priority over humour. Freddie, its mascot, never speaks. Name the priority when traits conflict, and give explicit limits. |
| GOV.UK, government content | Use familiar words and explain specialist terms. Its replacement list preserves technical exceptions. Give replacements and exceptions together. “Deploy”, for example, remains useful in software and military contexts. |
| Microsoft, products and content | Replace “Invalid ID” with “You need an ID that looks like this: someone@example.com”. Show an actual edit and explain the improvement: here, the required input becomes clear. |
| Google, developer documentation | Place a recommended sentence between versions that are too informal and too formal. Show the acceptable range for traits such as “conversational”. |
| Atlassian, interfaces | Vary tone by audience and message type; a flourish can become annoying when repeated. Specify different treatment for repeated errors and one-time completion messages. |
| Shopify, admin apps | Confirm a routine action with “Product saved”. Explain the impact and next steps for serious problems. Choose tone from the observable situation, without assuming the reader's mood. |
| Monzo, bank communications | Its channel table sets warm wit to “None” for operational communications and customer service. State the level by channel, then show examples of what each level means. |
Keep the guide's audience in mind. A rule for an error message does not show how a whole article should develop. If you use named traits, explain them too: Monzo's “everyday magic” means a welcome touch in the experience, rather than magical vocabulary.
Resolve conflicting rules for your audience
These guides disagree on useful details:
- Google recommends “don't”, because a scanning reader can miss a separate “not”.
- GOV.UK avoids negative contractions, because readers can misread them.
- Microsoft includes “let's” in its recommended contractions; Google's tone guide discourages it.
Choose the rule that serves your readers and record the reason. Copying all the rules would give an agent conflicting instructions.
Turn an example into your own instruction
For one rule from your own guide, fill this record. Anthropic's prompting guidance recommends relevant, varied examples and the reason behind an instruction.
Source rule and link:
Audience and message type:
Writing decision this rule settles:
Reason for the choice:
Approved copy showing the rule:
Earlier draft and the edit it needed:
Facts the next task must supply:
Use approved copy and explain the edit. If the source gives only a trait, test a proposed instruction before adopting it. Keep changing facts separate so an old example does not supply a new message's diagnosis, price or date.
Ask an agent to identify the gaps:
Read our brand voice guide. For each trait, identify its scope, practical rules, reasons, examples and any priority when rules conflict. Quote the source passage for each finding. Flag adjectives that still leave the writing decision open. Draft proposed additions separately, using our own approved copy where available. Do not treat a proposed example as an existing brand fact or change the maintained guide yet.Keep the source and the rule together
Keep each rule linked to its source and your own example. Rainbrand maintains brand context that connected agents can use:
- New brand: add the guide as a source and wait until the brand is ready.
- Existing brand: prepare an edit, inspect and refine the proposed changes, then apply or discard them.
Once the brand is ready, or after applying an update, request a new Brief, the guidance and files for a task. Name its audience, channel and situation so the relevant tone rules can be selected.
Start with one recurring disagreement and record its rule, reason and near-miss. The voice-guide tutorial shows how to build and test the rest.
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