By Vanessa Doll
What is a language audit, and how can it strengthen your CPG food brand narrative?
A language audit evaluates the words your CPG food brand uses across packaging, digital content, internal documents, and other consumer touchpoints. It helps you identify inconsistencies between what your brand says, what it believes, and how customers experience it—so your narrative feels authentic, recognizable, and built for growth.
Language has the power to deepen a bond and spur customer loyalty. It can also create brand bigotry, which can be challenging to return from. So, when is the last time you analyzed the impact of your CPG food brand narrative?
Widely considered the top four attention grabbers in CPG food package design are color, structure, imagery, and typography. But what about the written word?
Consumers do not experience your written content and visual design separately, so why segregate them within your brand strategy? If your brand is starting to look tired, it may sound it too. To be a steward of your brand and optimize it for growth, you must consider how it speaks—everywhere.
The idea is to evaluate all the language associated with your brand, scrutinize it against your external and internal truths, and flesh out the discrepancies.
What types of language should you evaluate in your CPG brand narrative?
A CPG brand’s language typically moves across several areas, including foundational, identifiable, informational, aspirational, and navigation language. Each area serves a different purpose, but they should ultimately feel like they belong to the same brand.
A CPG brand’s language exists on a scale, and not all of it is consumer-facing. Foundational language is not necessarily overt to a consumer, like brand attributes used for positioning strategy or editorial style guides for consistency. Still, consumers experience it through identifiable language, like brand, company, or product names, and informational language, like media and on-pack messaging. The other two areas of language to examine are aspirational language, such as mission and values, and navigation language, something as simple as a URL is still a consumer touchpoint and, therefore, an opportunity to connect.
Do you need to rewrite all of your CPG brand content after a language audit?
No. A language audit is not a mandate to rewrite every piece of content your brand has created. Start by examining the strongest narrative touchpoints you already have and use those as a foundation for the rest of your brand language.
Suppose you love the tone of voice reflected on your packaging design and social media and are confident it is helping you draw connections with your audience. In that case, revisit your foundational language to make sure those other touchpoints are adhering to the same voice, values, and positioning.
The goal is not uniformity for uniformity’s sake. Different communications have different jobs. Your packaging does not need to sound exactly like your corporate mission statement, and your social media does not need to read like an editorial style guide. The goal is to make sure those differences still feel like they are coming from the same brand.
How can inconsistent brand language hurt a CPG food brand?
Inconsistent brand language can create a disconnect between your corporate beliefs and your consumer-facing message. When those two narratives speak to fundamentally different mindsets, your brand can begin to feel disingenuous, even when each individual statement seems reasonable on its own.
Say the brand positioning statement of your on-the-go protein shake is to “convey optimism around the positive effects of healthy eating.” But your mission statement concerns “drastically responding to an obesity epidemic that threatens lives.”
Do you see how these two ideas are at odds with each other—how vibe and tone vary widely and speak to two different consumer mindsets? Either your corporate culture or your consumer-facing messaging will be disingenuous, and that disconnect can negatively impact the authenticity of your brand itself.
A language audit gives you an opportunity to find those gaps before they become bigger brand problems. When the language customers encounter aligns with the values and ideas your organization says it stands for, the narrative feels more believable.
What questions should you ask during a CPG food brand language audit?
The best language audits look beyond grammar and word choice. They examine whether the language reflects your brand values, speaks appropriately to your audience, creates understanding, and serves the purpose of each communication.
Some criteria you can use to evaluate your CPG food brand narrative are:
- Does your language across all sectors adhere to your brand values?
- Are you customizing content to match what you know about your target customer or trying to convince them of something different?
- Is your language easy to understand, and is the purpose apparent?
- Is it creating educational value or deeper understanding for your target audience?
- Is it inviting? It should make a person connect.
- Do you appreciate or reward your audience in some way?
- Does each piece of communication function appropriately for its purpose?
These questions can quickly reveal where your brand has developed strong consistencies that speak from its heart. They can also expose the places where your narrative has drifted.
You may find that your packaging feels optimistic while your corporate language feels clinical. Or your social media may sound approachable while your website feels overly formal. These differences are worth examining because every touchpoint contributes to the larger story your brand tells.
How do you use a language audit to strengthen your CPG brand narrative?
Start with the questions, identify the strongest examples of your existing brand voice, and then use those examples as a foundation for the language that needs attention. Look for gaps between your positioning, values, mission, packaging, digital presence, and other important brand touchpoints.
You do not need to change everything at once. In fact, the most useful outcome of a language audit may simply be a clearer understanding of what your brand already does well—and where it needs greater consistency.
Building equity in your CPG food brand narrative is not about making every word sound the same. It is about making sure the words work together and that the brand customers experience is recognizable as the brand you intended to build.
As for the rest, grab a clean sheet of paper and get started. Your brand has a voice. Make sure it sounds like you.
A brand equity study is equally valuable in a brand refresh. To learn more, read this article.
*Criteria adapted from Alina Wheeler’s Designing Brand Identity
Vanessa is Partner & Director of Relationships at Freshmade. From bar owner to account lead, strategist to agency owner, she’s spent years in the trenches with leading CPG brands modernizing and optimizing their positioning to maximize growth.
Freshmade is a CPG Branding and Strategy Design agency focusing on food branding and package label design. We design for digital, from campaigns to websites, and have an in-house photography studio. Our goal is to accelerate growth for our clients through mouthwatering, thoughtful brand building and design. Notable clients we have designed CPG packaging for include Bolthouse Fresh, Evolution Fresh, Hartz, Publix, Mastronardi (Sunset), Annie Chun’s, Factor, and many more
