Case study
How a one-week sprint helped Toast
Brewing pin down their brand voice
Mid-pandemic, Toast Brewing needed help figuring out a way for their lean in-house team to keep copy on-brand as they launched new initiatives, so we stepped in to help.
1-week sprint
The brief
Making their brand voice simple enough their whole team could use it.
Toast came to us mid-Covid with a tiny team and a big comms job: how did they sell beer, talk about doing good, and roll out new initiatives, all while everything was moving fast and everyone was knackered?
So we built them a mini brand voice document and turned Toast’s instinctive tone into a simple playbook the whole team could use, making it easier to stay on-brand across emails, pages and announcements when time, energy and headspace were in short supply.
Pinning down the
Toast tone of voice
We distilled what makes Toast sound like Toast into a one-page tone guide with micro-examples, so anyone on the team could keep writing on-brand copy without needing to call in an agency every time.
A one-page
voice cheat sheet
Everything Toast’s tone needed to be, in one place: what Toast’s voice looks like in practice, plus simple rules that stop the voice drifting when different people are writing.
Micro-examples for
real moments
No pages of theory or specific use cases. Instead, we leant into practical examples the team could refer back to and adapt for product pages to impact updates, launches, and more.
5 easy-to-get
brand voice pillars
Toast needed to sell great beer and talk about doing good without sounding split-personality. We gave them 5 brand voice pillars so it stayed unmistakably Toast: warm, human, and clear.
Built for busy,
non-writer humans
The goal wasn’t perfection, it was something that kept them consistent during the chaos. A simple check list that helped a stretched team stay on-brand fast — without overthinking every line.
Helping the team ship
the launch comms
With the tone guide in place, we helped Toast roll it out on two key initiatives. We helped tighten the story, sharpen the messaging, and make the impact easier to understand.
Polished the hero messaging
We tidied up the hero messaging for the Feeding People In Need and Meal Deal posts, pages and emails, keeping it warm, witty and unmistakably Toast.
Emphasised the “why Toast” USPs
We surfaced Toast’s long-standing commitment to donating 100% of profits to Feedback, so it didn’t feel like a campaign, just a continuation of what they’ve always done.
Emphasised the impact Toast drinkers made
We used concrete, real-time numbers (like “Since 1st March, we’ve funded 8,174 meals”) to show that buying a bottle of beer was a way to make a real difference.
Kept everything human
The pandemic was awash with corporate language, so we kept it real. “If your lockdown beer is starting to dwindle... maybe treat yourself to a can or two (or maybe even a case!)”.
Leaving the team with tools to write their
own on-brand copy
Because Toast’s team was stretched and changing week to week, we focused on creating reusable tools as well as one-off deliverables.
Tone-of-voice guide
The tone-of-voice guide lived as an easy reference for anyone jumping in to write an email, web update or press release.
Annotated copy
We annotated key pieces of copy so the team understood why we’d made the edits (and could adjust their writing next time).
Punchy, repeatable lines
We gave them bits of copy and messaging they could reuse across social media and in emails every time the campaign came up.
Talk to us about your brand's project
If you're an ambitious ecommerce of FMCG brand and your copy and messaging isn't doing your product justice, let's talk.
Grab a 30-minute slot on our calendar and we'll get clear on what you're trying to achieve, what's not working and suggest the best next step.
If we're a good fit, we'll follow up with a simple plan, timeline and costs. If not, we'll tell you straight up (and point you in the direction of someone who can help).
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