Sonder & Tell Co-Founder Kate Hamilton on How to Use Copywriting as the Starting Point of Brand Building

Kate Hamilton is the co-founder of Sonder & Tell, a business that helps brands find their voice and express themselves through storytelling, tone of voice and creative copywriting.

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Show notes

Find more of Sonder & Tell and subscribe to their newsletter The Word: Check out Sonder & Tell’s website,InstagramandLinkedIn.Read the article Elly referenced that Kate wrote: Your About Us Isn’t Really About You.

🎧 Full Podcast Transcript Below

Elly: So today on the Conscious Commerce podcast, I am joined by Kate Hamilton, who’s the co-founder and story director at Sonder & Tell. Welcome, Kate!

Kate: Thanks Elly for having me. I’m excited to be talking to you this morning, or this evening for you.

Elly: Yeah, opposite sides of the world! And so we start off the podcast by getting to know you as a person a little bit better. So what’s the fun fact about you that not many people know, or do you have a party trick?

Kate: I feel like the fun fact is maybe linked to my party trick. Anyway, so I used to live in Alabama when I was younger, in the South, like, the very deep south USA, because my dad had a job that was posted there. So I was this real Southern belle and went to Bible camp. And like more dungarees, and yeah, I was just really Southern, and then is linked to my party trait, which I’m kind of nervous to say because I know what the next question will be. But I’m quite good at accents.

Elly: Okay, but a Southern American accent or any sort of accent?

Kate: Well, I could do Alabama, but I can do Northern Irish Liverpool.

Elly: Well, let’s hear the southern Alabama one.

Kate: Well, it’s a little bit like this. It’s kind of a drawl. Like, you have to go real slow. Make the vowels real open. There you go.

Elly: That’s amazing – that’s like such a juxtaposition from the English lass I’m looking at right now on video.

Kate: I know, I know, It’s funny.

Elly: And tendlyn’s community is from all across the globe, so we like to give people a sense of where our interviewees come from. So where do you call home in the world? And what’s great about it?

Kate: Kind of linked to the last question, I grew up in different places in the world: Hong Kong, America, different parts of the UK. So I don’t have a sense of home in terms of the place that I grew up but now I call London home. And it’s actually the place that I’ve been for the longest. And I kind of love that anyone can do that, I think you can come from wherever and just live in London and suddenly call it home. And although it’s kind of been compromised, we’ll definitely been compromised in the last year with lockdowns and things in general, I think it’s the energy that I love about it. But yeah, just the sense that kind of anything can happen.

Elly: How would you describe London to someone that’s never been there?

Kate: I keep coming back to this word energy. But yeah, it is energetic, which also means it’s hectic. But I think it’s quite open as well. I think British people can be a little bit stiff, I think there is still the kind of openness and friendliness and some definitely compared to somewhere like New York. People will help you out a little bit more. And I love London also feels like it’s made up of all these different villages. Like I love that you can go from, I don’t know, Columbia road and Hackney to pack them in South London to where the Hampstead Heath ponds are. And they all feel like very different places. And architecturally as well, it’s amazing. You just feel like you’re walking through history.

Elly: And if you weren’t heading up Sonder & Tell, what industry or job do you think you’d be working in?

Kate: So I think if I never gone and set up Sonder & Tell, I was a travel journalist before at a magazine called Suitcase. And I think I probably would still be not necessarily at Suitcase, but I’d probably still be in journalism. So I guess it’s similar in that I’d still be working with words and writing and editing but for editorial publications, rather than for brands. Although I think that’s changed. Now, if tomorrow I had to leave Sonder and Tell I would stay in the brand writing space rather than editorial journalism, although there’s the skills that’s quite interchangeable in some ways, because you’re always kind of interrogating a story, asking who your target audience should be and how you should write and tailor things to them.

Elly: Yeah, I come from a journalism background as well so I totally resonate with everything you’re saying. And as a child, I think a certain type of person comes into these kinds of jobs as well because I used to read the dictionary as a kid and I don’t think that’s normal.

Kate: I love that, that’s so nerdy.

Elly: So when I was introduced to Sonder & Tell as a brand, I was like, Oh my gosh, I love this because it’s perfect for language nerds like myself. So where do you think your love for words and storytelling began?

Kate: I think it was probably from my dad. He used to read me a lot of stories as a kid and I think he’s a bit of a frustrated writer. He’s been writing a book for about 30 years now. So I think he’s always kind of encouraged me and my sisters to write. And also, I think I was quite a shy kid, so I think writing was a way for me to express myself without having to talk to people. I used to write letters to my favorite authors and they used to write back, which was amazing. I remember writing to Jacqueline Wilson and she wrote back to me, and I was obsessed.

Elly: I love that they wrote back to you as well.

Kate: They’re very like that, their social media is worth checking out. On Twitter, they’re really funny.

Elly: Do you get writer’s block?

Kate: Yes, I just read this quote the other day from one of our interviewees, Pandora Sykes, who was like, you don’t have writer’s block, you have a deadline, which I thought was actually getting over it. Yes. But I tend to get out of it by reading, so I think that’s so useful. If you’re struggling to come up with creative ideas, just read someone else’s not to say that you’re going to copy them, but it’ll kind of get you out of the funk of I can’t think of anything at all.

Elly: Yeah, that’s very good advice. And how did you and Emily (Sonder & Tell’s co-founder) meet and then decided that you wanted to run a business together?

Kate: We met working at an agency in London. We were both copywriters there. And we just got on really well. We used to go for lunch and talk about how we would do things differently if we had our own agency. And then after a few years, we both left that agency and went freelance separately. And then we just kept in touch and we decided to join forces. It was a very organic process. We didn’t have a big launch or anything. We just started working together on projects and then gradually built it up.

Elly: Can you share the inspiration behind the name, Sonder & Tell?

Kate: Yes. So it took us so long to name our business, which I think is probably when you build a business about the importance of words and if you think of your name as like the destination of all of your words.

Elly: Yeah, there’s so much pressure riding on it.

Kate: Exactly. Yeah, I think we put too much pressure on ourselves. But anyway, we finally came across this word called Sonder which a friend sent me. And there’s a linguist in the US called John Koenig and he’s started this project called the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and what he was trying to do was find language or making up words for human emotions that didn’t have language yet. So one of the words was Sonder and it means the moment you realize that everyone around you has their own story. So it’s like when, pre-COVID, if you’ve been on the bus or the tube, and you kind of look around, and think, Oh, I wonder what that person is thinking about? Or that person must have something interesting to think about. So it’s kind of tuning into people around you realizing that everyone has their own story to tell so there’s that idea, and then we help we help them tell it.

Elly: And at what moment did you and Emily know that you were onto a good thing with your business?

Kate: I think it was when we started getting repeat clients and referrals. That was a big moment. Also, when we started to get inquiries from brands that we really admired. That was a big confidence boost. And I think also when we started to see the impact of our work. When a client would say, “That piece of copy you wrote really helped us connect with our audience” or “We’ve seen a real shift in how people talk about our brand since we updated our tone of voice.” That’s when we knew we were onto something.

Elly: Yeah, it’s very holistic. And I just want to take the opportunity to give a shout out to two great pieces of content of yours. So I first heard about Sonder & Tell when you wrote an awesome blog post for us called Your About Us Isn’t Really About You

Kate: Oh, thank you! That was a fun one to write. I think the About Us page is one of the most overlooked pieces of copy on a website. People either write a boring company history or they try to be too clever. It’s really about finding that balance between being informative and being human.

Elly: And what are some common mistakes you see with brand storytelling that could be quite easily avoided?

Kate: I think the biggest one is trying to be everything to everyone. Brands often try to appeal to too many different audiences and end up with a message that’s diluted and doesn’t resonate with anyone. Another common mistake is not being consistent across all channels. If your tone of voice on Instagram is completely different from your website, it creates confusion. And I think a lot of brands also forget to actually listen to their customers. Storytelling is a two-way conversation, not a monologue.

Elly: Yeah, and I think with the amount of channels that are out there from digital to offline, people do sometimes get a bit confused with the messaging across the different platforms and don’t have that consistency. So getting that one strong message to hone in on across all platforms is so key, right?

Kate: Yeah, and when you do it well, you then see your customers repeating your messages at each other and spreading the word in that way, which is amazing to see. We’ve worked with a small start-up food brand lately and they’ve really just taken the story and they say it over and over every day and then we’ve been looking at their tagged posts, it’s all about supporting independent food suppliers. With this recipe box that they’ve created, it’s called on the table. But when you look at their tagged posts and people sharing stories about them, it’s all like the best independent produce boxed up, supporting the butcher, the baker, the natural winemaker, which is all stuff that they’ve been saying. So it’s obviously just sticking in customers’ minds, and then never repeating it back, which is what you want.

Elly: Yeah, Would you say that’s a sign of success when the customers repeating the messaging back to the brand?

Kate: Yeah, repeating it back, also making it their own as well, right? I don’t mean that as a kind of robotic thing, but like they’ve assimilated it and now it’s part of their story. And I think that’s what happens with storytelling is, there’s this thing called neural mirroring or something like that. And it’s when you recognize a story. So if you were telling me a story, I enjoy it, take it on board, and then I’m going to go and tell it to someone else tomorrow as if it was my own. I think it’s called coupling and that’s what happens with good brand stories as well as like the customer takes it on and then they kind of repeat it as if it’s as if it’s theirs.

Elly: They might have changed some of the details in terms of their own experience as well.

Kate: Exactly, yeah.

Elly: What advice do you give new businesses who are struggling to nail their story?

Kate: I always say start with your why. Why did you start this business? What problem are you trying to solve? And then think about who you’re trying to help. Really get to know your audience. What are their pain points? What are their aspirations? And then think about what makes you different. What’s your unique perspective or approach? And then once you have that, you can start to build your story around it. Also, don’t be afraid to be vulnerable. Some of the best brand stories I’ve seen are the ones that are honest about the struggles and the failures, not just the successes.

Elly: Yeah, I think that’s a great point, especially with sustainable brands, because people will often say I want to support ethical brands, sustainable brands, that’s the option I’ll opt for. But then when push comes to shove, maybe their behaviour doesn’t actually reflect that. So that’s those two clashing areas, right?

Kate: Exactly. There’s a gap between what people say they want and what they actually do. And I think that’s where storytelling can really help bridge that gap. If you can tell a story that makes the sustainable choice feel like the easy, desirable choice, then you’re more likely to get people to actually follow through. It’s about making the sustainable option feel aspirational and accessible, not preachy or difficult.

Elly: Yeah, because sometimes you can be too close to the brand, right? So it’s good to get that third person perspective as well.

Kate: Yeah, exactly, exactly. You can be too into all of the intricacies of what you’re doing. And you kind of need someone to almost play the external role of the customer and be like, this is interesting, say this. Don’t say that, leave that out.

Elly: And you count some amazing businesses as clients from Airbnb and Bumble, Lick and Rude Health. So when it comes to communication, what do you think they’re doing really well? Is it their brand story being linked to a strong sense of purpose?

Kate: I think with Airbnb, for example, they’ve done an incredible job of making the brand about belonging and connection, not just about finding a place to stay. Their whole “Belong Anywhere” campaign was a masterclass in brand storytelling. And they’ve carried that through everything they do, from their website copy to their social media to their customer communications. When you think about the #AirbnbHost community, for instance, the language they use is all about hospitality and creating experiences, not just transactions. Similarly, Bumble has done a great job of making their brand about empowering women and changing the dynamics of dating and networking. Their tone of voice is confident, playful, and empowering. It’s consistent across everything they do.

Elly: I already know their tagline before you said it, because I’ve heard it so many times that the recall is there.

Kate: Exactly. That’s the power of a strong, consistent brand voice. When you can say a tagline and people immediately know which brand it’s from, you’ve done your job.

Kate: Another really good brand for tone of voice is there’s this water in a can called Liquid Death. And if you think about the category conventions of water, it’s that it comes in a plastic bottle and it’s all about vibrancy. They are challenging that because obviously they’ve put water in aluminium cans as an environmental thing. They flipped the whole convention and so therefore they flipped the language and it becomes Liquid Death, murder your thirst, which I just think is really clever.

Elly: Yeah, that’s awesome storytelling. Is there any other brands you’re admiring right now for the use of language?

Kate: I think Bloom and Wild, who are a flower delivery service in Europe are doing a really good job. So I think their tag is don’t just send flowers, care wildly, and they have this thoughtful marketing initiative where you can opt in or out of things like Mother’s Day campaigns if you find it triggering, so they’re taking the idea of caring wildly and making sure that they as a brand go above and beyond to care for their customers. I really like StarFace as well, I don’t know if you’ve heard of them, they are a super Gen Z brand essentially for acne. So they have these little pimple spots in the shape of stars that you put on spots to dry them out and help your skin and they come in the shape of the star and they’ve made it almost cool to wear spot patches on your face.

Elly: Yeah I was gonna say that’s very Gen Z.

Kate: Yeah, exactly. I don’t know who does their social but they’re so hot on every trend and their brand story on their website is this kind of star face story. So it’s like a long time in a galaxy far, far away there was the war on acne, and it’s just really fun. I always feel really old looking at that stuff.

Elly: That’s how I feel about TikTok.

Kate: Yeah, exactly I’m like such a boomer. Who else? There’s a fake meat company called This, which is doing really well. And their whole thing is they did a marketing campaign a couple of years ago where they got a fake Ed Sheeran to serve to serve that fake burgers, but he looks so much like Ed Sheeran that they had this whole streams of people down the street queuing to meet Ed Sheeran. And then you got up close and you’re like, this isn’t Ed Sheeran, and their whole thing was like, this isn’t meat either. So they do really fun stuff.

Elly: That’s genius.

Kate: It’s so good.

Elly: And besides helping brands find their unique voice and helping your followers see the beauty of words, how are you building a sustainable agency?

Kate: Well, our team, there’s only four of us so we’re quite low impact at the moment. We’re not in office, none of us are commuting, we’ll see how we go when the world starts coming back to a bit of normality. But I think more than that, it’s probably in the way that we communicate with brands that we work with and what we encourage them to do because I think from the start, we’ve always said that we want brands to be more than just about selling a product, encouraging them to build their own positive culture beyond just making something, so it might not even be directly sustainability in the environmental sense. But it could be, you know, if you’re a book platform, can you support children’s literacy?

Elly: Is it International Women’s Day there at the moment, or was it yesterday?

Kate: It was yesterday.

Elly: Because something I noticed was how many brands were jumping on the bandwagon for International Women’s Day, but it was all the same message and it was like extremely fatiguing to just have it over and over again, from different companies. Like there wasn’t really any new material in the storytelling there. It was just like, celebrate women and that was it. Did you find that your experience?

Kate: Yeah, I think International Women’s Day has almost become a bit comical for that over the years, because it is it becomes like, yay the girlies, without actually thinking, what are you doing to support women? Or, you know, are you making donations today? We’ve worked with a sustainable fashion brand called Birdsong who have this meme that is like when you post on International Women’s Day, but your garment workers don’t have rights or don’t have minimum pay. It’s that kind of thing. You need to make sure that you’re supporting women at every level of your business and not just shouting out on International Women’s Day. Because yeah, it becomes this thing where you just feel like you have to have an opinion. And if it’s not ingrained in your culture in the way that you kind of rigorously look at your products, then you shouldn’t really be talking about it.

Elly: Yeah, when people when businesses just jump on a train that’s quite easy to see right through it, right. Like the there’s not a deepest sense of storytelling or meaning there. It’s just like a shout-out on a special day.

Kate: Yeah, or slogan that just is boosting your profits, but not actually doing anything meaningful. I saw a lot of kind of tongue in cheek memes about it yesterday as well. So I don’t know if consumers are also wising up to that, because I feel like that’s been quite gradual. It’s like, Okay, sure. That was interesting to see.

Elly: I’ll have to look those memes up. When we talk about the language, around having a business purpose, or even sustainability, I think it can get a little confusing for people and lost in the communication between people and brands. So have you seen businesses struggling to articulate their efforts in that area? And what’s your advice to them usually?

Kate: Definitely. I think a lot of businesses feel like they have to use big, complex language to sound serious and credible when talking about sustainability. But actually, the most effective communication is simple and clear. My advice is to define what sustainability means for your specific business. Don’t just use it as a buzzword. Be specific about what you’re doing and why. And be transparent about where you’re still working on things. Consumers appreciate honesty more than perfection. Also, think about how you can make your sustainability efforts relevant to your audience. If you’re a food brand, talk about sourcing and waste. If you’re a fashion brand, talk about materials and labor practices. Make it tangible.

Elly: Yeah. And also as you said, defining what it means to you as a business and the actions you’re taking to get there. Because I think it is such a broad umbrella term, it’s used to mean so many things, so you’ve really got to distill it down to its essence.

Kate: Yeah, and you don’t have to say everything that you’re doing at once. We actually have an interview on our site with an impact strategist called Amirah and she was like, it’s okay to say, “We’re doing these things, and we’re working on these things.” So you know, people don’t expect you to be perfect, they just expect you to be clear.

Elly: Yeah, transparent.

Kate: Exactly. And I think there’s also something to be said for talking about your type of sustainability in your own brand tone of voice. Because I think there’s a real tendency for people to adopt a quote, unquote, serious or formal tone, when they’re talking about serious issues like preserving the planet. But actually, I think the bigger challenge is to do that in a way that feels like it’s going to be relevant to your audience. And don’t be afraid of humor or things like that. So Home Things is a good example of that, because they’ve got this kind of challenging, irreverent tone or overtly right, there’s got a serious message, but does it in this kind of dry, witty way. So I think if you can be really clear on what you want to say, but then try and say it in your own tone as well, without sort of making the customer feel like this is all serious is a good way to deal with it.

Elly: Yeah. And that leads quite nicely to my next question, because, here in our issue, we define sustainability as the ability to exist indefinitely and think long-term about the future of our planet and of our businesses. And as I was researching, I found that sustainability comes from the Latin word sustinere, which means to support, maintain, or endure, so taking it right back to its origin. So that’s how we’re defining it as a business and the perspective we have on it, but how long-term are you thinking with Sonder & Tell and the change that you want to see in the world?

Kate: We’re thinking really long-term. We want to build an agency that lasts, not just in terms of our business, but in terms of the impact we have on the brands we work with. We want to help brands build stories that have longevity, that can adapt and evolve as the world changes. We’re also thinking about how we can use our skills to contribute to positive change. We’re exploring ways to work with more purpose-driven brands and to use our platform to amplify important messages. And we’re thinking about the future of work and how we can build a sustainable, flexible agency that supports our team and our values. It’s about thinking beyond the next quarter or the next year, and thinking about what kind of legacy we want to leave.

Elly: Yeah, I feel like we’ve seen so many of those articles that say the robots are coming for your jobs, but it’s like, when are they actually going to be here, taking our jobs? You know, it’s always been predicted, but it hasn’t happened. But maybe it is actually getting that little bit closer now in 2021?

Kate: I know. Well there was a New York Times piece lately where they’d got a few different machines to write, I think it was some versions of their love stories, and they were really good. They’re definitely getting smarter at simulating human writing.

Elly: So even romance novelists will be out of a job soon.

Kate: Yeah, I guess it’s like how you define different versions of creativity. I think what this impact strategy has really helped us think was to try and think of these advances in tech as allies. So how can we work with them rather than against them?

Elly: Yeah, I think creativity is still very much the human domain, right?

Kate: Yeah. Well, we were talking about it and wondering if that’ll be almost the tagline in the future, like a tag of pride will be like, written by humans, or made by humans, you know, even how it’s now like no animal testing, a consumer will buy into something that is made by a human, not by a robot.

Elly: That’s a really interesting train of thought, wow.

Kate: I know, we got quite deep. This was probably like 30 years in the future, but we have been thinking about it. And it has definitely shifted our mindset, even how we approach brand stories. We’re like, okay, does this have longevity in it?

Elly: Yeah, the question was like, how long term are you thinking and I think you’re thinking pretty long-term, which is good – you’re prepared for any outcome with the robots! And has Sonder & Tell had a COVID pivot as such, or has everything been business as normal?

Kate: We’ve been really lucky to be honest, it’s hard to know what business as normal would have been because we were still such a young agency starting out. So it’s hard to know what a non-COVID Sonder would have been. But I think that, in a way, brand communications, especially digitally, became more important than ever, because a lot of brands had those face-to-face interactions with consumer, whether it be in-store or events, or marketing activations taken away. So I think a lot of brands started asking about their tone of voice.

Elly: And what’s your advice for someone that wants to start a business around their unique set of talents, but doesn’t know where to begin?

Kate: Yeah, if you don’t know where to start, I think a good place is to actually look at the competition. So people who you think are doing things in a similar area, not to copy them, but to define yourself sort of against them. So if they are saying this about themselves, they can you say something slightly different? And yeah, if you’re building a service-based business, like an agency, then what can you stand for, apart from your services? And can you build a real niche? Like, can you be known for working with direct-to-consumer food brands, for instance? Yeah, and I think then you’ll kind of build up a very specific audience around that and those people can then communicate your services as well.

Elly: Yeah, definitely. And how do you define success for Sonder & Tell and also for yourself, personally?

Kate: For Sonder & Tell, success is about the impact we have on the brands we work with. It’s about seeing them grow and thrive and connect with their audiences in meaningful ways. It’s also about building a sustainable, happy team where everyone feels valued and fulfilled. Personally, success for me is about balance. It’s about doing work that I’m passionate about, but also having time for the people and things that matter to me outside of work. It’s about continuous learning and growth, and feeling like I’m making a positive contribution, however small.

Elly: Yeah, because Do you think brand storytelling hasn’t been as much of a priority? Or are the times changing now?

Kate: I think I think the word storytelling is super broad as well, but I definitely think brand copywriting hasn’t.

Elly: Copywriting, yeah, the language, the tone.

Kate: Definitely, I don’t think I don’t think language, tone copywriting has been valued enough. I do think things are changing because I think consumers are becoming so much more discerning. But I think it still is often an afterthought. A really common brief for us is ‘We’ve done the design, we just need the copy’ but it’s never just the copy, it’s like, okay, if you don’t have the copy or the tone, then you don’t really have a strategy for how to communicate with your consumer. And I think that’s the kind of argument that we really get on is, start with the words, if you can, lead with the words, use that as a brief for design, you know, there’s so much power and the ability for a founder or a team member to be able to sum up exactly what you’re doing in a sentence or a few words. If you can do that, then your whole team can get behind it. You can have really focused team meetings.

Elly: Yeah, it’s so true even for, you know, start-ups with their investor pitch. If they can nail their elevator pitch succinctly, then you know success will follow. Like the words are so important that you use as a company.

Kate: Exactly. We always say you can’t, you don’t really understand something until you name it. And I think that is the same as like, you can’t really process an idea until you put words and language around it and can say it in a sentence or two, so that’s what we’re trying to get all brands to, to realize and sign up to.

Elly: It’s like my former editor used to say, what would you tell your mom about this? How would you explain it to your mum in simple terms, and as that’s always stuck with me.

Kate: Yeah, like Bitcoin to your mom or something, I can’t even explain that to myself.

Elly: I can’t even wrap my head around either! Cool, we’ll leave that there. But thank you so much for your time today.

Kate: Thank you, Elly. It’s been really lovely talking to you.