Doing brand language work is like having a hard but meaningful conversation. You say a bunch of words. You try to explain how you feel.

But then someone asks, “What do you mean by that word?”

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Pretty soon, you’re being asked to unpack your thinking. You’re unpacking. You’re digging. You’re drilling down until you find a sharper way to articulate it. You’re figuring out what you actually meant.

Brand language work happens in the same way. You start with a word. A vague word like “innovative” or “human”. You ask the client what it means in that context. You try to unpack the word – the what and the why behind it.

These questions can get pretty uncomfortable quite fast. Especially if they expose gaps in the strategy. And exposing gaps in strategy is usually a sign that people haven’t done the hard bit for long enough: the thinking.

Language can’t replace the thinking

If you don’t do the thinking – as in really do it – how can you expect to put your thinking into words?

These gaps in thinking pull you back to those big, broad, generic terms – words that sound important, sound compelling, but carry very little meaning.

If all I know about the company is that it is innovative, any copy I write will be fairly generic. It’ll become vague and indistinguishable. Generic inputs lead to generic outputs because there’s nothing real to build on.

If you say you’re “innovative”, I want to know why. And more than that, tell me how you’re innovative. Give me the specifics. Then tell me why that matters and why we should care.

Then tell me why innovation matters to you. Brands aren’t accidents, they’re built deliberately, brick by brick. So what makes you so sure that “innovative” deserves a place in your strategy?

This is the difficult part of brand language work: asking provocative questions and forcing people to think hard about why they’re using certain words. But it’s also the mot valuable – especially if you have a product or service.

Doing this work is when everything starts to shift. When you move from surface-level to something sharp.

From filler to feeling.

From vague to specific.

If you want people to care about your tech product, don’t start with innovative. Start with something real. Like the fitness app that kept crashing. The bill that wouldn’t go through. The broadband that dropped out mid-call. Start there, then show them how your technology solves it.

Whether you’re launching a brand or fighting for a cause, the rule is the same: generalities fall flat. Specifics stick. Specificity is what gets you past the clichés.

Because no one is moved by a generic message. Not when there’s a host of similar brands saying exactly the same thing.

Abstract words don’t move people. Real ones do. The more precise the language, the more meaningful the message.

Sharp writing is sharp thinking

This is exactly what I teach inside my course, Tone Up.

• How to wield words for strategic bite.

• How to define and get across your point of view.

• How to go from muddy and abstract language to precise and meaningful.

• How to sound like your brand (not a cut copy of your competitors or your customers)..

Articulating what we mean isn’t easy, but words are our tools to sharpen.

And the better we get at using words, the better we get at everything else.