In this episode, I sit down with Justin Blackman — the Brand Voice Finder, founder of Brand Voice Academy, and the guy who trademarked "Brand Ventriloquism" — to break down one of the most misunderstood concepts in marketing: brand voice.
Justin walks us through his unconventional path: writing 100 headlines a day for 100 days to build his portfolio, spending years doing face-to-face consumer sampling for Red Bull and Five Hour Energy (and learning to read rooms in real-time), and eventually developing a mathematical approach to brand voice that breaks it down into three measurable components: vocabulary, tone, and cadence.
We dig into why "friendly, human, casual" is the worst way to define your brand, why voice of customer belongs in the editing stage not the writing stage, how to scale voice across a growing team, what to include in voice guides (up to 100 pages for personal brands), and how to give your brand's voice room to evolve without losing what makes it distinct. Whether you're a marketing leader trying to get stakeholders aligned on voice, a founder who's been told to "just be yourself," or a copywriter who keeps getting feedback that copy "doesn't sound right" without knowing why — this episode gives you the frameworks to fix it. Topics covered:
02:44 Headline Project Lessons
06:07 Formulas To Intuition
07:45 AI And Mastery
10:04 Field Marketing Roots
12:45 Brand Ventriloquism
14:57 Defining Brand Voice
17:49 Measuring Voice Consistency
21:09 Voice Vs Personality
24:12 Inside Out Voice
26:03 Editing With Voice
27:19 B2B Clarity And Personality
28:28 Scaling And Evolving Voice
31:28 Building Voice Guidelines
34:35 Voice In Messaging Workflow
36:02 Using AI With Voice
38:42 Selling Voice To Stakeholders
40:21 Unmistakably Yourself Brands
43:05 Writing Like You Talk Myth
44:54 Learning Beyond Echo Chambers
47:10 Handwriting And Meditation
49:40 Wrap Up And Resources