I do karaoke every week. It's my thing, my community, my therapy, my creative outlet. And it has also, unexpectedly, become my best source of brand strategy metaphors.
Here's what karaoke teaches you about brand voice: the best performers aren't the best singers. They're the people who pick songs that match their actual range and then commit fully. The guy who can barely carry a tune but OWNS his Bon Jovi with total conviction is always more compelling than the technically gifted singer choosing a boring song they can definitely nail.
Lululemon's ambassador program doesn't pay athletes millions. It empowers local fitness instructors. The brand is built from the yoga studio floor up, not the broadcast booth down.
This is brand voice in a nutshell. The brands that work aren't the ones with the most polished, technically perfect communications. They're the ones who found their specific range (the topics they can speak on with genuine authority and energy) and then committed to it fully, imperfections and all.
The cringe moments at karaoke are always the same: someone picking a song they think they should sing rather than one they actually want to sing. It's immediately obvious. The performance is technically fine but emotionally vacant. I see this in brand communications every day. Technically competent content about topics the brand doesn't actually care about.
The cringe moments at karaoke are always the same: someone picking a song they think they should sing rather than one they actually want to sing.
Find your song. Not the impressive song. Not the safe song. The one that makes you come alive when you sing it, even if your voice cracks on the high notes. That's your brand voice. That's the one people will remember.