Tone Knob takes a nerd’s-eye view of brands doing interesting things with their words and tone of voice. Every new issue is free to read in full. If you find all this useful for your work, do consider becoming a paid subscriber – then you can fill yer boots with the whole archive (‘the world’s biggest, most valuable, and funniest stash of thinking about tone of voice’ as one nice subscriber said). Thanks.
👋 Hey!
Welcome, welcome. If you’re new here, it’s great to have you along 🙌. I’m gonna dive straight in because there’s a lot to say about this month’s brand.
Dowsing & Reynolds are an online interiors shop. They design and sell their own lighting, sockets, taps, knobs and handles and whatnot. Many things in ‘tarnished copper’ and ‘smoked gold’. Strong boutique hotel vibes. But without eye-watering designer prices. It’s what I think of as Instagram zhuzhi.
D&R have an irresistible origin story: James just wanted to make his concrete lamps. Ally noticed they were like the ones you see in expensive magazines. With the help of friends, family, their impeccable taste and Ally’s Ad agency experience, they created a whole range of designer stuff that’d go perfectly with your mid-century furniture and that terrarium you I just bought. They now employ 60-plus people in the North of England, are still growing fast, and look like they’re having a blast.
And their tone of voice? It’s magnificent. You’ll see. Though it all starts off fairly gently on their homepage:
Design details matter. The subtle beauty of a black light switch and how pleasing it sounds as you turn it on. The way a kitchen handle feels to the touch as you open a cupboard or drawer. A statement light that provides a focal point and creates just the right ambience.
We specialise in detail. We’re passionate about improving the aesthetics of everyday things. Curious to see how we can make the often-overlooked, boring items in your home more striking? It’s these stylish finishing touches that make your home’s interior design as remarkable as you.
The confidence of ‘Design details matter’. The way that little staccato burst is mirrored at the start of the next paragraph with ‘we specialise in detail’. (Not, you notice, ‘electricals’ or even ‘accessories’.) They’re starting to tune our senses into the pleasure of small things: ‘the subtle beauty of a black light switch and how pleasing it sounds as you turn it on.’
The rest of the second paragraph is a bit underwhelming (‘passionate’, ‘as remarkable as you are.’) But it matters not. Because something extraordinary is about to happen.
Let’s check out the Raw Concrete Cylindrical Table Lamp. Here it is:
And here comes the product description:
Wait, what just happened?! This is less like a product description and more like a creative writing response to a particularly unhinged prompt: ‘Bring to life a day at the beach using all the senses. Also, write it in the second person continuous present tense. Also leave me with an underlying sense of melancholy. Also, never stop. Also, sell me a lamp.’
As a piece of ‘creative writing’, it’s all over the place: it’s both sensuously ‘in the moment’ (all that plucking, flicking, sinking) and alliterative ‘scavenge for sea-smoothed pebbles to stash’) yet it’s also often stodgily over-written (‘fingertips grasping the smooth disc, you pluck it from the cold water and dash back to the shore, impressed with your sea-dodging prowess.’)
The second-person (‘You’) perspective immerses us in the flow (‘you instinctively reach out and trace your fingertips across the surface of the cylindrical raw concrete…’) but also often overburdens us with feels (‘your… innate desire to reconnect yourself with the outdoors overriding all emotion’) which tends to break the spell it’s just cast.
I feel discombobulated, emotionally manipulated, and strangely exhausted.
I love it.
Let’s look at another one. Gold Lanesborough Pendant Lights.
Hold on tight. Here we go:
Bustling around the laundry room, you determine to get a bunch of household chores completed before lunchtime. Retrieving crisp white shirts from the tumble drier, you hold one to your nose and breathe in the fresh scent of clean cotton before hanging on the rail above the built-in sink to air.
Opening the washer, you unload soggy towels and bundle them into the drier. As it whirrs into life, you feel the white noise lulling you, relaxing your back and neck muscles a little.
Noticing it’s overcast outside, you reach for the dimmer light switch and turn on the row of Lanesborough gold ceiling pendant lights above you. Casting the room in a warm, comforting glow, it’s exactly what you need right now. The task spotlights are all well and good, but sometimes you crave the cosy ambient light of a ceiling light - especially late in the evening when you still have jobs to do.
Sorting through the mountain of dirty clothes, you bundle the next load into the machine and reach for one of the gold handles adorning the black units you’ve chosen for this area. Grasping the solid metal handle firmly, you pull and, blindly fumbling in the cupboard, locate the detergent pods. Flinging one into the machine, you shut the door and turn that on too.
Jobs done for now, you head back into the kitchen for a coffee.
There’s the same sensory immersion: fresh scents, crisp white shirts, and cosy ambient lights. It all conjures up an intense home-as-sanctuary vibe, with the ‘sanctuary-ness’ enshrined in the lighting, the switches and handles. You’re the ‘central character’ here, and the supporting cast are all D&R details.
Actually, it’s more than ‘cosy sanctuary’ isn’t it: the lulling white noise of the washer ‘relaxing your back and neck muscles a little’; the ‘craving’; the ‘firm grasping’; the ‘blind fumbling’ – it’s more like… fan-fic erotica? You may have chores to do, you domestic goddess, but with D&R it’s like doing them with an attentive lover1.
Seriously, go spend some time on their website. Quoting them simply can’t convey their absolute commitment to trance-like sensuality. (OK, I’ll try.)
Here’s Wall Hooks enveloping you in steamy indulgence:
Rubbing your eyes, you hang your silk robe on the wall hook and start the shower. Balmy steam and the aromatic scent of eucalyptus fill the bathroom, creating a wash of serenity that reminds you of spa days. Taking a deep breath, you step under the cascading water, letting the warm droplets revitalise your skin…
Here’s Rocker Switches making working from home sound more like spending a lazy Sunday with a care package from Lovehoney:
Changing into your work-from-home attire, you pour a strong coffee and head into your office. Morning darkness blankets the sky outside, and you reach for the light switch by the door. The gold rocker glides smoothly, bathing the room in a warm glow. Savouring the moment, you smile and take a rejuvenating breath as you slide into your chair.
And here’s Skyscraper Gold Knurled Handle sounding for all the world like the establishing shot from a Fifty Shades of Grey-vibes TV movie:
There’s something romantic about a city shrouded in darkness, the twinkling lights of skyscrapers glistening like stars. It’s magical […] Black drenched walls with glistening gold details that flash enticingly beneath the lights make this dramatic kitchen a decadent nod to evenings spent in the glamourous art deco-inspired bars you love so much. Heading over to the cupboard, you’re distracted as the gold skyscraper handle glints and catches your eye, and then your fingertips grasping the cool knurled metal…
The second-person ‘you’ creates a cinematic effect of watching yourself from an out-of-body POV2. It’s heightened even more by all those sentences starting with gerunds3: rubbing your eyes; grasping the metal; savouring the moment. It reminds me of what happens when I watch dancers move – how I start to notice how considered and graceful even their smallest gestures are.
On and on they go. Door Knobs. Lamps. Sockets. Fake plants. Paint colours. The sumptuousness. The lingering touches. The relentless adjectives4. All are devoted to creating the time, attention and mood for you to fully experience just how much these details matter.
I find that once I start reading one, I can’t stop. They’re hypnotic. Written in calm pale grey text on a luxurious inky black backdrop, the words drawing you tenderly in to a hYpNoTiCalLy iNtImATE ARG IT’S IN MY HEAD!
Eventually, I found a product they couldn’t entirely sensualise. Toilet Roll Holder:
Nudging the toilet roll from its perch on the radiator, you sigh as it unravels across the downstairs cloakroom floor. Space is definitely at a premium in this smallest room of the house. Bending to pick it up, you vow to search through the list of toilet roll holders you’ve earmarked and have this most essential of bathroom accessories fitted by the weekend!
We get a bit of ‘nudging’, ‘sighing’ and ‘bending’… then it’s like they can’t quite keep a straight face. Oh fuck it, just buy yourself a nice toilet roll holder you know you want to! I love them even more for this.
Phew! There’s a lot to unpack here.
There are so many fascinating, unexpected and contradictory things going on here. I think I’m just gonna make a list:
It works. It was my brother-in-law who spotted D&R’s words and shared them on our family WhatsApp. Now, my brother-in-law is a senior military something-or-other and is generally impervious to marketing. Yet this stopped him in his tracks5. (I’m sure he’d also remind me that his response is a ‘data point of one’.)
Even though it kinda ‘shouldn’t’. There’s some lovely evocative writing here. There are also plenty of sentences that one could say are ‘too much’, or ‘undermine the effect they’re trying to create’ or even just ‘badly written’. Yet the overall vibe is immersive, sincere and strangely affecting. It’s similar to what TV execs term ‘warm bath’ TV6 like Death in Paradise: we don’t just tolerate the corniness or the formulaic structure – we luxuriate in it.
Also, D&R have totally nailed something true. When we decorate our homes, we often do enter a kind of trance-like fog where all that matters are the infinitesimal differences in shades of white paint or the precise finish on a dimmer switch. This isn’t so much writing to persuade you to buy sexy light switches. It’s writing to validate your obsession, to create time and space, to allow you to continue in your fever dream.
I wonder if it’s something to do with the low stakes? There’s something glorious about lavishing all this attention on the small details and accessories that are usually overlooked. I’m happy to let D&R tell me what to think and feel because we’re not talking about big stuff here. If they were trying to tell me how to feel about, say, a bed or a sofa, that might break the spell.
It’s also in the context of a warm, down-to-earth brand7. Luxury brands often trade on a certain aloofness8. D&R manage to exude exquisite taste vibes and also friendly and unpretentious helpfulness. It’s partly in the warm way they talk about themselves and their team, and partly their welcoming attitude to good design. (For example, they add a ‘not sure how to buy this?’ section to some products. Notice how this bespoke wallpaper descriptor starts with ‘choosing a mural or bespoke wallpaper can feel a bit daunting if you’ve never done it before…’) You could argue this means their tone is ‘inconsistent’. I think it’s more like the reassurance of having a safe word when you’re knurling with strangers9.
It’s fascinating how quickly it feels normal. The first couple of descriptors were thrillingly unexpected. But by the third or fourth I’d settled in and was mostly thinking ‘I wonder what they’ll do this time?’ That’s a great reminder to be bolder with our words. That wild idea you had? It’s really not as extreme as you think.
You can take it or leave it. Notice that you only ever see the first couple of sentences (see below) – enough to be intriguing, but not so much as to be annoying if you’re not into it. You have to click CARRY ON READING to unleash the full descriptor. That’s a considerate touch.
Ahh, what a joy. We really are living in a golden age of brand voices aren’t we. Thanks for reading! See you next time. I’m just off to figure out what to do with this Moss Wall Panel I appear to have bought (‘Nestling down amongst the wilderness, you place your backpack on a rogue tree stump and pull out a book and a bottle of water…’). 🤷♀️
Cheers,
Nick
It reminds me of the TV ad genre in which a solitary metropolitan woman has a personal moment with a bar of chocolate. (Though tbh the choc ads tend to feel to me like late Capitalism at its most alienating and creepy, whereas solitary knurl-fondling seems kinda lovely. Go figure.)
I wonder what these would look like run through an AI text-to-video generator? Terrifying, probably.
Gerunds are verbs that work as nouns by adding an ‘-ing’ on the end: rubbing, bending, savouring, etc. There’s been a lot of grammar in this issue, hasn’t there? Sorry about that. (See also ‘second person’ and ‘continuous present tense’.) If it’s any consolation, I was a professional writer for about 10 years before I could reliably identify an adverb. I still have to look this stuff up all the time, and it’s extremely likely that someone will email to point out I’ve been Doing The Grammar All Wrongly in this newsletter. In my experience, knowing your grammar has very little to do with being a good writer.
I was reminded of Stwart Lee’s parody of Dan Brown’s adjective-heavy writing style in The Da Vinci Code: ‘The famous man looked at the red cup’.
My wife, on the other hand, airily said, ‘Yeah, but do the words really make a difference?’ which was, well, crushing.
In fact, Joe Fattorini has literally just used the same phrase – ‘warm bath’ – to describe Gary Barlow’s new wine TV travelogue show. I don’t think it’s actually called ‘A Warm Bath of Wine With Gary Barlow’ but I’d watch it if it was.
I could have written a whole Tone Knob about the way they balance ‘exclusive taste’ and ‘welcoming friendly’ vibes – but space is limited and let’s face it you’d have skipped it as soon as I mentioned ‘erotica’ wouldn’t you.
Which is why The Rochambeau Club is so hilarious innit. They’re hilariously hapless gatekeepers.
No, I don’t know what I mean here, either.