On the off chance you’re not an entrepreneur
here's what it's like.
Most of the time, being an entrepreneur is like inventing the lightbulb.
It’s having an absolute banger of what you’re convinced is an original thought,
working tirelessly to turn that thought into a business…
…and then finding out that someone else in another corner of the internet has already invented the lightbulb.
And then finding out that The Lightbulb™️ is actually for sale as a mastermind, a membership, and a digital product. 😅
Way back when Lexicon Copy Co. was barely a twinkle in the California Secretary of State database, I had a lightbulb idea.
I held my breath, and looked around, waiting to see who had already invented my lightbulb.
And as incredible as it seems? So far, nobody has.
My lightbulb idea starts with
An absolutely asinine phrase:
“Cutting through the noise.”
We copywriters looooove to cut through noise.
(Myself included. This phrase is definitely on my About page.)
Cutting through noise is our favorite hobby. We love it so much that we’ll even tell YOU we can cut through YOUR noise.
It’s a great mental picture: a copywriter with a pen in each hand, slicing through the babble of your competitors like a samurai carving a path through an enemy army.
But… like… how, exactly?
How precisely does one make a brand muscle its way past everyone else in your industry, stand in the front, and talk loud enough that it drowns everyone else out?
The answer to that question? That’s my lightbulb.
Have you ever heard of the band Greta Van Fleet?
If not, here, listen to a track.
Now tell me, who do they sound like?
There’s only one correct answer, and that answer is Led Zeppelin.
In fact, at one point my husband put on a Led Zeppelin track I hadn’t heard before, and (to my everlasting shame) I asked which Greta Van Fleet song it was.
Even though we like them
I didn’t think they’d be around for very long.
After all, a band that sounds THAT similar to a much bigger, much more famous band doesn’t seem like a band with a lot of staying power.
Then, we went to see them in concert.
Thirty seconds after the opening strains of “Highway Tune,” out strode a tiny, sweet-faced man in bare feet, wearing a white, jewel-encrusted, deep-v spandex jumpsuit. And instantly, I got it.
The voice of Robert Plant.The fashion sense of David Bowie.The face of “the sensitive one” in every 90’s boy band.
Before I knew it, there I was: $20 stadium-sized Michelada in hand, leather jacket knotted around my waist, screaming like a banshee while perfectly timed balls of flame erupted behind the most talented hobbit of a man I’d ever seen.
Greta Van Fleet has literally cut through the noise in an extremely saturated industry.
But do they sound different? No.
And they’re not the only ones.
Think about how we first described almost every single musical artist
who is now overwhelmingly popular.
“Noah Kahan — he’s like, the Lumineers but for Gen Z.”
“Chappell Roan, think Kate Bush but with Carnivale fashion.”
“Oh, the Weeknd is totally channeling Michael Jackson.”
Take a second to read the Spotify notes for any artist. You won’t see anything new. Instead, you’ll see familiar things combined in novel ways.
“Cutting through the noise”
is about designing a brand personality with elements that are familiar to your audience, but novel for your industry.
Once that lightbulb turns on, you’ll see it everywhere.
The movie that’s basically Dances with Wolves but in space.
The way Bridgerton plays violin covers of pop music in the background of high-stakes scenes.
Artists have always known what marketers took a while to figure out: if you want to attract an audience, you’ll put something familiar in a fresh context.
Lucky for you, I was an artist long before I was a copywriter.
So let’s figure out what that means for your brand.
Brand Persona
WHAT IT IS
At Lexicon Copy Co., Brand Persona is the part of your messaging strategy when we decide whose unique voices we’re going to channel into your brand’s verbal identity.
It’s where your brand finally becomes a distinctive, fully-embodied character that your ideal clients desperately want in their lives.
This is the where the verbal differentiation happens.
By pulling elements from the voices of big brands, fictional characters, and pop culture figures, we get a unique blend every time.
Imagine a travel company with the serenity of the Dalai Llama and the polish of Emirates Airlines.
An art brand who writes as poetically as Walt Whitman but sounds as kind as Bob Ross.
Or a fashion brand that’s Blake Lively girl-next-door friendly but unapologetically artisanal like Mode Operandi.
Actually, you don’t have to imagine it. These are all Lexicon Copy Co. clients. 😎
When we pull someone else’s voice as source material, we’re like that one biology teacher you had who couldn’t wait for dissection week.
We pull a brand voice apart into three specific aspects.
Tone
This is as close as a professional writer in a professional brand voice guide will get to saying “Vibe.”
A tone is all about how someone’s speech makes you feel, or the impression they give you.
Communication style
A person’s communication style consists of the things they choose to talk about, and how they handle subject matter.
If you’re interested, I just so happened to write an entire blog post on this topic.
Word choice
This is the most actionable aspect. By analyzing someone’s word choice, we pay attention to the specific vocabulary they use and adopt some of that into our own brand.
Massive disclaimer that this is not an excuse to plagiarize.
But there are only so many words in the English language, and it’s just fine to emulate how someone chooses to use theirs.
Specificity is key.
When you say you want to sound like Apple
Do you mean you like the way they make complex things simple (communication style), or that you want their casual, brilliant-but-techy friend vibe (tone)?
If you’re channeling Michelle Obama
Do you like the way she handles sensitive topics (communication style) , or a specific evocative way she told a story about her young adult years (word choice)?
We are very anti-hack in this corner of the internet, but there’s no arguing with the fact that when you channel the voice of someone from far outside your industry into your messaging, you bring something fresh and distinctive.
Your clients will be able to pick you out of a crowd, and they’ll bring friends.
Dare I say? That’s the noise >> cut through.
