Playbook replay
Tone of voice guide
Three adjectives converted into rules a writer can be marked against, then proved on a real sentence.
Run for Lumira, a demo brand we invented for this page. No customer data. Nothing here runs against a live account.
Every session here was run once and saved, against a demo brand or public data. On your own account Naise works from your brand voice, your campaigns and your connected channels, so it reasons about your data instead of a stand-in.
A voice guide is only real if a writer can be told they broke it. Every rule below is one an editor could mark in a document without arguing about taste.
Converting the adjectives into rules first. "Warm" cannot be checked in an edit, so it has to become something that can.
We are / we are not
| We are | We are not |
|---|---|
| Second person, always | Third person about the customer |
| Specific about time and cost | Vague about outcomes |
| Willing to say a product is not for someone | Universal claims |
| Plain nouns | Latinate nouns where a plain one exists |
The checkable rules
- Under 16 words per sentence, median under 12. Long sentences read clinical regardless of vocabulary. This is the rule that does most of the work.
- Second person. "Your skin", never "the consumer's skin".
- No intensifier without a number. "Dramatically" is banned unless followed by a figure.
- One claim per sentence. Stacked claims are how copy starts sounding like a label.
- Never instruct twice. One imperative per paragraph, or it turns preachy.
Banned
| Term | Why |
|---|---|
| clinically proven | Legally loaded and unverifiable in a caption |
| advanced formulation | Says nothing, sounds like a lab |
| for all skin types | Universal claim, breaks rule 3 |
| transform | Overpromise your audience has heard before |
| glow up | Borrowed language, dates fast |
Your sentence breaks four of the five rules: 11 words but three stacked claims, third person, two banned terms, one universal claim.
Our advanced formulation delivers clinically proven results for all skin types.
Rewrite 1, closest to the original meaning.
Tested on oily, dry and combination skin. It worked on all three.
Rewrite 2, warm.
We tested this on three skin types. Yours is probably one of them.
Rewrite 3, direct.
Three skin types tested. If yours is sensitive, start every other day.
Rewrite 3 is the strongest and the least comfortable, because it sells to fewer people. That is usually the sign it is on voice: your "never preachy" rule and your willingness to say a product is not for someone both point the same way.
One flag. Rule 1 will fight your legal copy. Claims language is long by nature. Exempt the claims block explicitly in the guide rather than letting writers discover the conflict on their own.
Naise created an artifact
Five checkable rules, a banned list with reasons, and three rewrites of a real sentence.
The rules
| # | Rule |
|---|---|
| 1 | Under 16 words, median under 12 |
| 2 | Second person, always |
| 3 | No intensifier without a number |
| 4 | One claim per sentence |
| 5 | One imperative per paragraph |
Proof
Before: Our advanced formulation delivers clinically proven results for all skin types.
After: Three skin types tested. If yours is sensitive, start every other day.
Flagged: rule 1 conflicts with legal claims copy. Exempt that block explicitly.
That was a sample. Run it on your own brand.
Naise reads your brand, your channels, and your market, then does this against your real data.
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