In the presentation "Are Brands Fracking the Social Web?" there's talk about shifting brand tones. Moving them beyond just feelings and compressed language to become a tone of action. I've long held that "tone" is one of the most important parts of a creative brief. But it's often dismissed because tone, too often, shows up as a series of common, lazy, uninspiring words.
In the book Contagious: Why Things Catch On Jonah Berger writes that when it comes to understanding word of mouth, only 7 percent happens online. You might think it would be higher. I did. But it's only 7 percent. Which makes sense. Life is lived going out to lunch and chatting in the hallways. We're talking offline, face-to-face, much more than we're talking online.
These things relate. A tone of action is more remarkable than a tone of voice. What an organization did, how they handled a situation, their degree of uniqueness and originality... such things of action warrant more word of mouth storytelling than just their voice.