Patterson voice and tone

The voices are additive, not alternatives. The corporate voice [BG25 p.10–12] applies everywhere. Patterson Dental marketing copy layers [VOICE18] on top of it. Social layers [SOC19] on top.

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Important

Never blend the layers into one generic voice, and never substitute a sub-brand voice for the corporate one. Establish which voice applies before writing. If the audience or channel is unclear, ask.

Note

The ✅ and ❌ marks in this skill reproduce Patterson’s own published correct/incorrect examples from the Brand Guide and the Social Media Writing Guidelines. They are quoted content, not decoration — Patterson’s guidance permits emoji in social copy where they “enhance, do not overpower”. No other skill in this plugin uses them.

1. Corporate voice — always in force [BG25 p.10–12]

“At our core, we communicate in a positive, customer-first style that is uncluttered, friendly and authentic.”

Four attributes: Optimistic · Clear · Truthful · Personable.

Attribute	What it means	Published example
Optimistic	Rewrite negatives as positives; focus on solutions, not problems	✅ Rest assured your SDS requirements are covered. ❌ What keeps you up at night?
Clear	Declutter. Remove unnecessary prepositional phrases, “ands” and “thats”. Avoid great, special, really, very. One thought per sentence. Find the right word instead of using an adverb	—
Truthful	Write authentically, avoid internal jargon, focus on how customers feel. We communicate with the customer, not at them	—
Personable	Ask: does it sound like a caring person wrote it? Is the level of formality right?	—

Baseline [BG25 p.11]: AP style (AMA for medical articles), active voice.

Digital writing [BG25 p.11–12]: use the words customers use; people skim, so make content scannable; headlines and subheads must communicate the intent of the content.

2. Patterson Dental marketing voice [VOICE18]

Explicitly “an addendum to the Patterson Brand Guide” — it adds to §1, it does not replace it.

“If our copy is empathetic, empowering and authoritative, we will always be on brand.”

Attribute	What it means	Guardrail
Empathetic	We do not just understand what the customer is talking about — we have the insider knowledge to feel what they feel. Written for doctors, office managers, hygienists and assistants	Emotional connection = good. Overselling = bad.
Empowering	Every piece should make the customer think about the next step toward their vision. Aspirational language grounded in business facts	Nudge, do not shove, toward purchases
Authoritative	The professionals we address are experts; we are experts on the business practices, equipment, technology, software and merchandise a dental team needs	“There is no reason to be shy.”

Positioning:

“Patterson Dental is relied upon for expertise and is trusted to support dental practices around the country as they endeavor to grow both in size and capacity for care.”

Warning

[VOICE18] cites “140+ years in business” as written in 2018. Verify the current figure before reusing it.

[TBD: no equivalent voice addendum exists for Patterson Veterinary or Animal Health International. Do not invent one — use the corporate voice and say so.]

3. Social media voice [SOC19], [BG25 p.47–49]

Same corporate guidelines, but positive, authentic and professional, with three hard differences:

1. The audience may not be in a buying mindset. Limit sales-driven language; focus on educating, informing and entertaining. [BG25 p.47] sets an 80/20 rule — 80% of content provides value, at most 20% is promotional.
2. First-person plural, always. We, us, our/ours. Never I. Never they. We speak on behalf of Patterson as a whole [SOC19].
3. Behave like the polite host of a social gathering — ask about what matters to them, use conversational and positive language, keep your dignity, and welcome everyone. Do not hog the conversation or be boastful.

Hashtags:

Platform	Count
X (Twitter), LinkedIn	Two or three
Instagram	Up to 15
Facebook	Emphasis only

Capitalize the first letter of each word (#DidYouKnow). Research every hashtag on every platform. Avoid #Patterson — too vague, it returns towns and athletes.

Tip

Special characters, emoji and all caps enhance, never overpower, a post [SOC19].

4. Internal communications [BG25 p.43–46]

“Internal communications need to follow the same Patterson standards of voice, style and font selection.”

Patterson Priorities is the weekly all-employee newsletter, sent every Thursday. Articles run about 300 words, cover who/what/where/when/how, include a visual where available, and are due to Corporate Communications by the Friday before publication.

5. Email [BG25 p.28–32, p.58]

Hero headlines, subject lines, preheader text and subheads are all sentence case. Email signatures project the brand, not personal style: no photo, no multiple colors or fonts, no inspirational quote, no social icons, no ads. Secondary signature graphics are informational, not promotional, and static.

6. Rewriting rules

When asked to make copy “on brand”:

1. Fix case first — sentence case is the most common violation.
2. Cut adverbs, intensifiers and jargon; split multi-thought sentences.
3. Convert passive to active.
4. Reduce CTAs to one (never more than three).
5. Check point of view — first-person plural on social.
6. Preserve the sub-brand layer. Dental copy must stay empathetic/empowering/authoritative; do not flatten it into generic corporate copy.

Caution

Never invent a claim, statistic or year-count. If the draft cites one you cannot source, flag it.

References

File	When
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/voice-and-tone/references/corporate-voice.md	Full corporate voice with the guide’s own ✅/❌ example pairs
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/voice-and-tone/references/dental-voice.md	Patterson Dental addendum in full
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/voice-and-tone/references/social-voice.md	Social point of view, hashtags, channel strategy, worked examples
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/voice-and-tone/assets/voice-checklist.md	Pre-publish voice check
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/voice-and-tone/_SOURCES.md · ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/voice-and-tone/REFERENCES.md	Provenance and extraction confidence; canonical SharePoint locations

Tip

For punctuation, numbers and naming, use copy-style-guide. For color and type, use brand-identity.

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Source of truth: plugins/patterson-brand/skills/voice-and-tone/SKILL.md in the patterson-corp repository.