Branding and Brand Voice

A lot of the time when people are talking about branding, they are specifically talking about the visual parts of their brand: the logo, the colors, the fonts. And while those are a part of the branding, they are not exclusively what comprises a company’s branding. Branding includes all of the touchpoints someone (customer, client, patient, etc.) has with your company. This also includes your brand voice, the way you speak to your audiences. This can be very serious and professional, it can be casual and professional, it can be casual and irreverent, to name a few ways we might describe tone of voice.

But it can be hard to understand what the impact is without good examples to contrast. So, when I was doing some holiday shopping a few days ago and I ran across these two brands selling coffee, I thought this was a perfect way to show what it means to fully embrace your branding, to the extent that it is readily apparent in your brand voice, as well.

To be clear, I am not affiliated with these brands of coffee in any way, nor had any prior knowledge of. These were companies I organically ran across.

I also want to state that these are two brands that have decided that they want to be in the “casual and irreverent” branding space. And while this is not right for most clients, being able to showcase these two brands using a branding that is going to be very different than most organizations, I think the shock value (being so far outside of the “norms”) helps make it very apparent when a brand clearly embraces the branding fully.

So, now that I’ve stalled long enough, here are the two coffee brands I ran across:

The Bean Flicker Coffee Co.

And

Rising Cock Coffee Co.

If you need to giggle, take a moment. They’d probably appreciate it. 

So, I think we definitely have found some, ahem, head-to-head competition, so to speak.

But let’s take a closer look. 

The Bean Flicker:

Product names:

The Bean Flicker has Breakfast Blend, Whiskey Barrel Aged, Max Caf, Italian Roast, etc. 

The Rising Cock has coffee blends named: Morning Quickie, Whiskey Business, The Wrong Hole, Not Tonight Decaf, etc.

Just in the names alone, RC has incorporated some puns and colloquial phrases that are in a similar vein to the brand name and still allude to the individual bean blend. 

Product Descriptions:

Description of their Whisky Barrel Aged: “Single origin Guatemala, medium-dark roast aged 30 days in a Bourbon barrel and then roasted to order.”

Fairly standard coffee bean offerings and descriptions. 

Description of Wrong Hole: “Waking you up faster than that ‘oops’ you swore you’d never do again, Wrong Hole doesn’t play nice and neither should you. It goes in smooth and rich with just the right amount of trouble, sweet enough to hook you and bold enough to keep you coming back. Awkward mornings are inevitable. This one just makes them taste a whole lot better.”

Takeaways

For a casual and irreverent humor brand, it appears Rising Cock has fully embraced and incorporated this into the whole brand, including their brand voice. If you’re going to do it, don’t go halfway. Really lean into it.

Again, this branding approach isn’t what most brands would choose. But by showing these two companies that are a pretty good apples-to-apples comparison, with branding that is catching you off-guard, I hope it helps clarify what the brand voice is and why it is part of your overall branding and brand strategy, even when your brand voice is more subtle.