The Huntington's Disease Association underwent a rebranding process to improve their tone of voice and better serve their audiences. They developed a tone of voice manual to guide all communications as more compassionate, experienced, and inclusive. Medical content on their website was rewritten in a warmer, more accessible tone based on the manual. User feedback was incorporated to improve the new site before launch. The outcomes included increased fundraising success, improved staff engagement, and enhanced credibility and communication of their complex messages to various audiences.
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Bringing life to tone of voice at the Huntington's Disease Association | Tone of voice and copywriting | North West networking group | 22 January 2019
1. Bringing tone of voice to life:
the Huntington's Disease
Association
• Beth Taylor, former Senior Communications Manager, Huntington’s Disease Association
• Katie Brewin, freelance Public Relations, Communications Projects Manager, Editor & Copywriter at Katie Brewin Communications
3. Why a
rebrand? Affecting fundraising ability
Credibility of charity and its aims
Misalignment between service
delivery and ‘head office’
4. Why is tone of
voice so
important?
USP - information and advice
specific to Huntington’s care
Accessibility of charity, information
and services
Grow fundraising programme
Communications imbalanced
between support and service
delivery
5. What we wanted
to change
Perceptions of the charity
Access to information and advice
Diversify information provision
Understand and cater for
audiences
Identified website was major
priority
6. Our process Understanding our audiences
Seeking views of community, staff and
stakeholders
Choosing agencies and freelancers
Prioritisation of projects
Based on organisation values from
rebrand
Developed tone of voice manual
8. The brief
High quality, professional medical and service-delivery content
tailored for an external, non-specialist audience
in line with HDA’s tone of voice and brand guidelines, and good
practice: warm, friendly tone of voice and plain English.
charity to supply source material
content to be supplemented by HDA with calls to
action and links, downloadable factsheets, blog etc
estimated: 55 pages, approx. 18 days’ work
delivery: 12-week timeframe
9. How we worked together
dividing up the work
agreeing processes including managing approval
flexibility
getting the brief, getting along
10. Writing the content
role of the Tone of Voice document
prioritising the audience; ‘wearing their shoes’
writing isn’t just writing: research; additional sources of help & links;
changes to the website wireframe; edit, edit, edit some more
approvals
estimating and delivery: how close did we come?
other learning?
13. Before
Psychological symptoms
Sometimes, psychological problems, rather than the
physical deterioration, cause more difficulties for both
the person with Huntington’s disease and their carers.
Some changes are definitely part of the disease
process although they made be made worse by
other factors. It is depressing to have a serious illness
and extremely frustrating not to be able to do things
which previously seemed simple.
14. After
Psychological symptoms
Sometimes the psychological and emotional sides of
living with the disease are more of a problem than
the physical side. It can be mentally difficult to cope
with having a serious illness, and extremely frustrating
not to be able to do more of the things that you
could easily do before.
However just because things are likely to be difficult,
this doesn’t mean there is nothing to be done. There
are many different kinds of support and help that
people with Huntington’s can try, to manage their
symptoms and live as well as possible.
15. User group
feedback
o Sought views on content before going
live with new site
o Tested language and sensitive content
o Incorporated into review before
o Adjusted wire frame and improved
user journey
16. Outcomes:
benefits
o Chance to understand our audiences
better and tailor our communications
to their needs for the first time
o Chance to standardise
communications within the charity
o Chance to improve external
communications
17. o Internal
o External
o Different audiences, complex
messages
o Limited resources and budget
Outcomes:
challenges
20. Visit the CharityComms website to
view slides from past events, see
what events we have coming up
and to check out what else we do:
www.charitycomms.org.uk
21. Tone of voice and
copywriting
North West networking group
22 January 2019
Manchester
#CCNorthWest