Surprise
and delight
Kew Gardens
Tone of voice
Kew Gardens needed a stand-out tone of voice to do justice to this world-class wonder.
What we did
Tone of voice
Visitor experience copy
Signage copy
Marketing creative
Kew boasts the largest and most diverse botanical collection in the world. But visitors to this iconic London attraction were also ‘treated’ to traditional flowery language, which no longer fitted with their modern, friendly approach.
That’s when Kew branched out (sorry…) and contacted Lark for help. They asked us to create a new tone of voice that could be used across visitor contact points such as signs, leaflets and information labels next to displays and exhibits.
The brief called for an “active, playful, surprising, interactive and sensory” visitor experience, so there was only one place to start: a day out at Kew Gardens!
After immersing ourselves in London’s botanical garden, we had a much greater understanding of what visitors were experiencing – and the problems facing the internal teams at Kew.
Following this research, we developed an accessible and practical set of tone of voice guidelines for anyone creating Kew content for visitors.
This included 10 key principles, and how to apply them, and plenty of examples showing the new warm and friendly tone in action.
Kew immediately put our work into practice across their signage, marketing materials and wider visitor experience.
Impact
Thanks to the success of the new tone of voice guidelines, Kew commissioned us for a much larger copywriting project involving their most high-profile signs.
