LEAD COPYWRITER: SOCIO DESIGN (AGENCY) + LIFE TIME (CLIENT)
THE LUXURY ATHLETIC COUNTRY CLUB WITH OVER 160 LOCATIONS ACROSS THE UNITED STATES
Working with London-based design studio and type foundry, Socio Design, to rebrand Life Time’s website (due for launch late 2024)
Team: Scarlet Mae (Project Manager), Brendan Smith (Creative Director), Nigel Bates (Co-Founder, Design Director), Charlie Phipps (Lead Designer), Cecilia Dinwoodie (Lead Copywriter) 👋
Brand foundations & voice principles
Life Time’s (LT’s) members range from 90 days to 90 years of age, and the club’s offerings are just as diverse – renowned for their advanced athletic training sessions just as much as their spas, salons, child care services and pensioner coffee clubs. The level of choice at LT is vast. Great news for the customer, but when it comes to defining a clear, consistent tone of voice…
Challenge
Consistency establishes trust. But how do we create a clear, consistent tone of voice that’s flexible enough to be used with all of LT’s varying services, locations, audiences and age groups?
Answer
Same voice, different tone. Separate the tone from the voice.
It’s human nature to change the way we talk, depending on who we’re speaking with. For example, you might notice your tone shift when talking to your grandmother, compared to your boss, close friends and passing strangers. You’re still you, but your selection of words, pitch, warmth and urgency will subconsciously switch. This theory was developed by Howard Giles in the 1970s to show some of the psychological dynamics of communication, and he named it ‘convergence.’
Strategy
Define the brand voice, which will stay a constant. This will be the brand’s personality and identity, influenced by their core values, purpose, vision and mission (explored below).
Then create a palette of tones which will flex, depending on the service and customer at play. Contributing factors that will impact Life Time’s convergence include the offering’s category, energy and core audience (explored further down the page).
1) INTRODUCTION TO CLIENT
First things first, let’s get to know the bones of the brand. What makes Life Time Life Time? What are their core values, purpose, vision and mission? This will help us establish a clear identity, which will influence its personality and, therefore, voice
2) COMPETITOR RESEARCH
Showing the importance of having a strong purpose, vision and mission, with reference to competitors
3) LIFE TIME’S BRAND FOUNDATIONS
Defining LT’s purpose, trueline, vision, mission, core values and pillars. This will help us distill the brand’s voice principles afterwards
4) LIFE TIME’S VOICE PRINCIPLES AND TONES
Voice principles: forming the consistent voice of LT based on their purpose, vision, mission, core values and pillars concluded above
Tone matrix: creating a palette of tones which will flex depending on the category’s energy, offering and audience at hand
5) TONE AND VOICE EXERCISES
Now, putting all of the above into practice. We set to test the strategy by writing intro text for four varying LT offerings with their appropriate tones informed by their audience, energy and atmosphere
Master brand (LT homepage) with ALL tones: positive, driven, empathetic, confident, playful, elegant, warm
Alpha (LT’s signature version of CrossFit) with the following tones: positive, driven, confident
LifeSpa (relaxing spa treatments) with the following tones: empathetic, confident, elegant, warm
Kids & Family (child care services) with the following tones: positive, empathetic, confident, playful, warm
