When a Brand Suddenly Starts Speaking in Someone Else’s Voice

The generation is not to blame

Let me make one thing clear at the outset: this is not an essay about Gen Z ruining marketing. An employee’s age says nothing in itself about professionalism or taste. A young specialist may have an exceptional feel for a brand, while someone with twenty years of experience may destroy its communication in a single approved release.

The problem arises when someone who understands the mechanics of a particular platform is simultaneously entrusted with disciplines they may never have studied and are not formally responsible for: brand architecture, positioning, reputational risk management and the management of relationships with an existing audience. The ability to make a post go viral and the ability to manage a brand overlap, but they are not the same competence.

That is precisely why the phrase “it’s only social media” is dangerous. An official account does not exist separately from the company. The moment a person at a keyboard replies to a customer, that person becomes the company — just like a sales assistant in a store, the voice of a call centre, a founder in an interview or the words printed on the packaging.

What brand DNA means — without the mysticism

The term “brand DNA” often sounds like agency metaphysics. In practice, I use it in a much more grounded way: it is the relatively stable set of features through which a brand remains recognisable in different situations. These include its positioning, values, character, visual codes, product promises, manner of speaking and rules of conduct with its audience.

Consistency does not mean sterility. A brand may be funny on Threads, formal in a contract, emotional in a campaign and service-minded in the comments. But the same personality should remain recognisable in every mode. Otherwise, we experience the effect of a familiar person suddenly speaking in someone else’s intonation: technically possible, psychologically unsettling.

This is more than a matter of taste. Research published in the European Management Journal found a strong direct relationship between the perceived consistency of marketing communications and both brand trust and loyalty. Research in the Journal of World Business likewise connected brand consistency and congruence with increased trust. In other words, recognisable coherence is not a brand director’s aesthetic whim. It is one of the mechanisms through which trust is formed.

A meme is a tool. It is not a strategy

I love memes. Swearing, irony, absurdity, self-deprecation and deliberate carelessness can all belong to strong communication. The mistake begins when format is confused with positioning: “people joke on Threads, so we joke now”; “young audiences like audacity, so we answer audaciously.”

Research into online engagement paints a more nuanced picture. Experimental work on the authenticity of customer engagement has shown that entertaining communication is received better when it is consistent with the way consumers already perceive the brand; a mismatch may weaken the sense of authenticity. The question is therefore not whether a premium fashion brand may publish memes. Of course it may. The question is which memes, spoken by whom, in what context and in support of which trait the brand already possesses.

Reach answers the question, “How many people saw this?” Branding answers, “What exactly did they understand about you afterwards?”

The reach trap: recording a fire as an increase in footfall

The most seductive defence of controversial communication is: “But look at the reach.” Logically, this is a weak argument. A scandal, mistake, conflict or absurdity can indeed produce a sharp rise in attention. Attention, however, is not automatically positive.

Imagine a store whose window has been smashed. A crowd gathers around it. Formally, footfall has increased. But if the director puts the number of passers-by into a presentation as proof of a successful retail strategy, the board will have questions. The same happens in digital: views measure the distribution of attention, not the quality of the association that has been created.

After a viral episode, I would therefore examine at least four levels: growth in the relevant audience; the sentiment and substance of comments; changes in brand associations; and behaviour after contact — visits, saves, sales and repeat purchases. If all we measured was views, we measured a media event. We have not yet demonstrated marketing success.

You cannot rejuvenate an audience with a single post

A brand may have an entirely rational need to become younger. Markets change, the core customer base ages, and new categories and platforms appear. But rejuvenation is repositioning, not a vocabulary swap.

Research into consumer responses to changes in brand image shows that consumers with a strong connection to a brand are especially sensitive: altering central associations may weaken their identification with it. Research on heritage brands has separately shown that change is received better when it is explained as a continuation of the brand’s origins rather than a break from them. The principle is useful far beyond luxury: the evolution of an audience must be connected, through narrative and behaviour, to who the brand was yesterday.

How to change a brand’s voice without amputating its memory

1. Define the business objective first. “We want to feel younger” is not an objective. The brand needs answers: whom exactly do we want to attract, why, what share of sales or awareness should this audience contribute, and what in the current perception is obstructing growth?

2. Separate the core from the outer layer. What cannot be lost without sacrificing recognition? What may change — pace, vocabulary, format, visual rhythm, platforms or protagonists? If these boundaries are not fixed, the team will confuse renewal with a relaunch.

3. Research specific people, not “Gen Z.” A generational label is too broad. Real segments are needed: motivations, aesthetic codes, attitudes to price, cultural references, purchase scenarios and sources of rejection.

4. Build a voice matrix. Not a single paragraph declaring “we are friendly and bold,” but a matrix showing how the brand speaks in a campaign, comments, a customer complaint, a crisis, Threads, Telegram, push notifications and retail. Define the red lines separately.

5. Test at the periphery rather than at the core. Begin with new columns, separate formats, collaborations, protagonists and platforms. Observe which elements feel organic. Do not replace the brand’s entire personality on a Monday morning.

6. Explain the change. If the shift is visible, the audience needs a bridge: a new chapter, a new product context, a new creative leader or a new task. People accept evolution more readily when they understand its internal logic.

7. Measure more than reach. Use brand metrics: attributes, trust, consideration, audience quality, repeat purchases, the share of negative and positive sentiment, and the themes of spontaneous associations.

When the person who embodied the brand’s language leaves

There is an even more difficult scenario: a brand loses the person who shaped its visual and communication code for years. In 2025, Ibrahim Gatsiev announced that he was ending his operational role at Planta Rosa because of differing visions for the business’s future. Public sources record that he was responsible for a substantial part of the visuals, promotion, shoots, social media and influencer communication; he later launched State Venice.

For a marketer, the private conflict is not the point — only the participants can judge the internal circumstances fairly. The structure of the risk is what matters. If the brand’s recognition over a decade or several years was tightly linked to the hand of one creative leader, that person’s departure creates more than a vacancy. It raises a question of ownership over meaning: which elements truly belong to the brand, which belong to the author, and which the audience had always considered inseparable.

At such a moment, attempting to prove the brand’s independence through an instant rejection of its former language is particularly dangerous. A sharp turn may be strategically justified, but then it must truly be a strategy: with a new platform, product logic, visual system and explanation for the audience. “We are different now” is not enough.

Cultural context is part of strategy too

Another revealing Russian case occurred in 2025 with 12 STOREEZ. The brand released Storeez of Ramadan as a collection for markets where new stores were opening, including Dubai, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Russian Muslim customers publicly asked why a collection devoted to Ramadan was unavailable in the brand’s home market. Following the audience’s response, the brand made the capsule available in Russia as well, with restrictions on several pieces.

The case is interesting not as an opportunity to declare the decision “right” or “wrong” in hindsight. It shows how easily geographic segmentation can conflict with segmentation by identity and culture. In its analysis of the case, The Blueprint specifically pointed to the many millions of Muslims living within Russia.

If a brand says it is paying tribute to a cultural tradition, it must ask in advance not only, “In which countries are we selling this capsule?” but also, “Who within each market will hear this message as being addressed to them?”

That is strategic maturity: noticing an audience before it has to enter the comments and explain to the brand that it exists.

What to do when communication has already caused irritation

A brand always has the right to experiment and the right to make a mistake. Reputational damage is more often created by the second mistake than the first: the way the company responds.

• Do not argue with the fact of someone’s perception. You may disagree with an assessment, but you cannot explain to a person that they “felt it incorrectly.”

• Separate trolling from substantive criticism. The former can be met playfully; the latter requires an argument.

• Do not turn employees into an improvised crisis team. If members of staff rush to defend the brand from personal accounts, each of them creates a new public layer of communication.

• State the position once. Explain what happened, how it relates to the brand’s voice, whether it was an experiment, what the brand learned and whether anything will change.

• Do not present reach as proof of being right. High reach may be a consequence of conflict; it is data for analysis, not a moral victory.

• If criticism has exposed a real contradiction, repair the system: the guidelines, response matrix, approval process, roles and escalation policy.

Who should have the right to speak for a brand

The very idea that SMM is the ground floor of marketing — “the person who uploads posts” — now seems outdated to me. Today, an official account is one of the company’s most frequent points of direct contact with a person. Authority should therefore correspond to risk.

This does not mean every comment must be approved by the brand director. It means the opposite: the system should be designed so well that an employee does not need approval for every comment. They should understand the boundaries of the brand’s character, the permitted degree of irony, sensitive topics, service scenarios and the moment when a conversation must be escalated.

A good tone of voice sets a team free. A bad tone of voice is a list of adjectives in a presentation that ends exactly where a real person begins in the comments.

A short test before the brand’s next “audacious” post

• If the logo were removed, would the audience still recognise us from this sentence?

• Does this language extend our character, or merely copy the platform’s manner?

• Do we understand which segment we are addressing in this way, or do we simply call it “young people”?

• Will an existing loyal customer see evolution here, or feel that something has been substituted?

• Could a service employee speak to a customer tomorrow within the same system of values?

• If the post goes viral because of negativity, which metric besides views will we defend in the meeting?

• Are the founder, brand director and retail team prepared to put their own names to this intonation?

In place of a conclusion

A brand has the right to grow older, become younger, funnier, sexier, rougher, more intellectual or simpler. Strategy should not turn it into a museum of its own past. But change works only when the audience can follow the chain of cause and effect between yesterday and today.

The most expensive mistake in communication is not a failed joke. It is the moment when a company stops understanding who is speaking in its voice, and why.

You can change vocabulary in an evening. You cannot change a brand in an evening.