Henkel Adhesive Technologies is a unique business unit and so is the voice that meets and greets our customers across media, time zones, and audiences to help them fulfill their purpose and turn potential into results. Successfully helping customers all over the world, we know that communication is not only what’s said, but what’s understood.
How we sound, feel, and look is a joint effort of our purpose, ambition, attributes, positioning, and our aspiration. Read on to get a feel for what it sounds like to be pioneers at heart for the good of generations.
When communicating, we want to apply the know-how we have from different industries, applications, and technologies to meet our customers where they are and let them know that they can rely on us to consistently create value for them.
As an international market leader, we approach our global audience with real dedication and a humble ambition to serve. We communicate on behalf of a trusted brand and respect the position of our global B2B clients. This means maintaining an intelligent tone throughout our communication. And remembering that the customers we help today are the reason we will prosper tomorrow.
It also means drawing strength from the power of bias-free language that is sensitive to people’s gender, race, age, physical condition, ethnicity, and many other categories. We choose gender-neutral words when the gender of a person is not known, like “businessperson”, “executive”, “manager” or “business owner” instead of “businessman” and choose “his or her” or even “their”.
To turn customer relationships into special bonds, we listen before we speak, embrace the power of transparency – and communicate like humans, not machines.
We use the opportunity to make readers smarter without getting into unnecessary detail. Innovation, curiosity, and the desire to help our customers achieve their ambitions
drive our business and our communication.
We keep copy crisp – and don’t settle for generic terms if we know better. We have a straightforward way of saying why and how our products and services benefit businesses
and customers.
Too much humor can deflate our authenticity and professional stance. Jokes might miss their mark and be perceived differently, so avoid that style of writing. Always be approachable.
Catering to an international audience we should aim to use language that is universally understandable and designed to make recipients feel heard, understood and helped.
If we’re too talkative and casual when we communicate our brand, we diminish the value of our services and the solutions generated. Dare to be serious. Dare to be human.
Use the design
The Henkel design makes it possible for content providers to create stunning headlines with font styles like compressed, condensed, and extended. For more info on reduced and expressive use, read typography.
Only a select range of components and assets can be set in different typographical styles, so be careful. Always check with the established standards before going to work.
Aim for balance
As a rule of thumb, use the slim font style for longer words and bold for shorter impactful expressions. The italic font style is ideal for words in between. Aim to create as short and precise headlines as possible. Ideally on max two lines across all media and screen sizes.
In order to communicate on behalf of Henkel Adhesive Technologies and our product brands in an authoritative and consistent fashion, we rely on some basic rules for grammar, semantics, and formatting.
Please note: It´s not allowed to communicate externally the SBUs acronyms, e.g. ACM, APL, AAM, etc. This is an internal acronym that our customers don’t resonate with.
Want to know more?
Explore our writing rules (U.S.)