Voice and tone

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Brand personality traits

Just like a person, our brand has its own unique personality. At Vanta, we have five distinctive brand personality traits.

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Voice

The way we talk and write at Vanta is shaped by our personality. Each of the following unique voice elements stems directly from one of our five brand personality traits. 
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Personality trait: Human
Voice: Conversational

Conversational
We're human, so we talk like…well, like humans. That means we leave the buzzwords and tech jargon to the rest of the industry and focus instead on connecting more genuinely with the people who make up their companies.

Conversational is: Informal, friendly, approachable
Conversational is not: Unprofessional, overly casual, simplistic

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Personality trait: Experts
Voice: Confident
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Confident
We are unwaveringly sure of our value. We’re not just a good choice for helping businesses automate compliance, manage risk, and prove trust continuously—we’re the first, the best, and the only choice. Our confidence instills trust in others.
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Confident is: Credible, inspiring, decisive
Confident is not: Arrogant, boastful, insensitive

Personality trait: Rigorous
Voice: Informative
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Informative
We turn over all the rocks and sweat all the details. We don't just know this industry inside and out, we’re also leading its innovation—and we pass that knowledge to our customers, empowering them to make informed decisions and better meet their business goals.
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Informative is: Insightful, detailed, helpful
Informative is not: Wordy, complex, highbrow

Personality trait: Transparent
Voice: Concise

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Concise
We could write volumes with what we know about security and compliance, but…we don’t. We know that attention spans are fleeting and people are busy. So we keep it short and sweet—and say all the important things in as few words as possible.

Concise is: Brief, to-the-point, impactful
Concise is not: Vague, curt, simplistic

Personality trait: With a wink
Voice: Witty

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Witty
It’s not slapstick. It’s not goofy. It’s not even exactly haha funny. Instead, our brand of humor is smart, clever, and a little cheeky. It surprises, delights—and respects the intelligence of—our particularly sophisticated audience.

Witty is: Smart, clever, on-message
Witty is not: Haha-funny, goofy, distracting
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Tone

It’s not always appropriate for every facet of our brand personality to come through in everything we write. For example, the way we’d talk to our audience on social media is very different from the tone we’d take when letting customers know a payment was overdue. We always stay true to our voice because it’s part of our personality, but our tone can change depending on the channel or context.
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Style

A writing style guide is a set of standards and rules—covering grammar, punctuation, formatting, and more—that keep writing consistent across an organization.

At Vanta, we mostly default to AP Style with a few Vanta-specific exceptions. The following slides will cover the most important style rules to keep in mind.

Vanta-specific style exceptions

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Addressing our audience
Our audience is made up of people—we talk to them like people. Using “you” and “we” can go a long way to provide a human touch.

Contractions
We use contractions wherever possible. It’s how humans naturally speak (vs “it is how humans speak”) and makes us sound more approachable, readable, and friendly.

Headlines
We do use sentence case for headlines (i.e. only capitalize the first word, NOT every word), but we don’t use end punctuation.

Subheads
We do use sentence case for subheads (i.e. only capitalize the first word, NOT every word), and we do use end punctuation.

Commas
We use the Oxford (or serial) comma before “and” or “or” in a series containing three or more items.Em-dash (—)We use the em-dash (Shift-option-minus) with no spaces.

Dates and times
We write out days, times, and date ranges like this:

Dates: Month Day, Year (January 1st, 2024)
Months: Write out the full month where character count allows
Times: Use numbers and lowercase “am/pm” with no space (10am, 3:30pm) and no zeroes (5pm, not 5:00pm)
Time Ranges: Use an en dash for ranges (10am–2pm)