The Key to Better Brand Communication: Interactive Alignment
Key points for how brands can harness interactive alignment:
As social creatures, humans have devised certain means of reducing ambiguity throughout the course of conversation
The most impactful mechanism is interactive alignment: we naturally, and unconsciousnly adjust our communication style to that of our conversational partner
Brands can apply interactive alignment by engaging in dynamic communication, especially when it comes to online conversations
In America, it's called a “parking lot”. In the UK, it’s a “car park”.
Americans go on “vacation”, but the Brits go on “holiday”.
In America, the street-level floor of a building is called the “first floor”. But in the UK? This is called the “ground floor”; it’s the next floor up that is called the “first floor”.
Confused yet?
The linguistic differences are so numerous that it's a miracle that Brits and Americans can communicate at all. As the playwright George Bernard Shaw once remarked, “Britain and America Are two nations divided by a common language”.
Indeed, languages are complex. Even within the same regional dialect - like American English, or British English, speakers have different slang, pronunciation styles, and cultural references. This diversity of language makes life interesting. But it also presents key challenges to communication - for both humans and brands. The good news is, there’s a way for your brand’s messaging to rise to this challenge.
Here, we can borrow a key concept from the neuroscience of language: Interactive Alignment. Adopting this enables brands to reduce ambiguity and make their messaging as efficient and influential as possible.
Beyond Neural Coupling: Interactive Alignment
Recall the concept of neural synchrony: if we have an idea in our heads, it is our job as the speaker to inculcate that same pattern of neural activity into the brain of the listener. The better we can do that, the better we’ve communicated. This is great as an organizing framework, but how can it be improved in the face of immense, linguistic diversity?
The answer lies in another crucial facet in the neuroscience of communication: interactive alignment.
As social creatures, people have devised ways of communicating which naturally reduce ambiguity over time. Namely - when you speak to someone, you naturally, automatically, and unconsciously mirror the other person’s conversational features - and they yours. Your speech styles become more similar because you adopt their language patterns and they adopt yours.
So if you speak really fast, quickly communicating a wide array of words, while your conversational partner speaks slowly, deliberately selecting specific words — chances are you’ll converge onto a shared speaking speed within the first few minutes of conversation.
Studies pioneered at The University of Glasgow have found that when you lean back in your chair, the person you’re speaking to will often do the same. These researchers also found the same to be true when it comes to a person’s tone, pitch, and even accent.
All of these subtle shifts allow you to converge on one shared medium of communication, which helps you to better understand others. Ultimately, it galvanizes neural coupling between speaker and listener.
Applying Interactive Alignment to Marketing
When you apply this to a brand delivering a message - whether it be a statement via PR, social media content, or advertising copy - this is clearly more challenging. It’s typically not an active conversation taking place over many minutes, but a 1 to many delivery.
As a brand you’ll need to recognize that language and communication are dynamic — ESPECIALLY on the internet. 10 years ago, a brand communicating with a simple emoji would have been almost unheard of. But now? You have official accounts of massive brands utilizing gifs, memes, and pop culture references galore. It’s anyone’s guess what the next 5 years - or even the next 5 months - is going to bring. Because language is always being adapted by its users.
The key for brands is to remove the guesswork, and instead, to have their fingers on the pulse of these shifts. Brands can’t rest on their laurels; communication styles change and they need to change along with it.
This will take research: start following a dozen of your customers on Tik Tok, Instagram, and Twitter, and look at the captions they write and the comments they leave. You’ll be able to pick up their patterns and start creating a compatible communication style between you and them.
Next, you’ll need to ACTIVELY adjust your brand’s communication style. Communication - and especially interactive alignment - isn’t a spectator sport.
Engaging in Dynamic Communication
The more a brand can actively engage in communication with their target market - either on social media, webinars, or other media - the more opportunities they’ll have to cater their communication to their unique styles, allowing them to remain closely tethered to that target market as these linguistic tendencies naturally shift. Language and communication is dynamic; it’s one element of neuroscience which is constantly evolving.
As much as possible, engage in two-way conversations to catalyze the natural process of interactive alignment. So make a new habit, and start responding to your audience’s unique communication style. The more you can actively engage, and adapt accordingly, the clearer and more impactful your messaging will be.
And over time, you may even be able to communicate effectively “across the pond”.
Photo by Priscilla Du Pree on Unsplash
About the author
Matt Johnson, PhD is a researcher, writer, and consumer neuroscientist focusing on the application of psychology to branding. He is the author of the best-selling consumer psychology book Blindsight, and Branding That Means Business (Economist Books, Fall 2022). Contact Matt for speaking engagements, opportunities to collaborate, or just to say hello
References for “Brand Communication Through Interactive Alignment”
Garrod, S., & Pickering, M. J. (2009). Joint action, interactive alignment, and dialog. Topics in Cognitive Science, 1(2), 292-304.
Garrod, S., & Pickering, M. J. (2013). Interactive alignment and prediction in dialogue. Alignment in communication: Towards a new theory of communication, 193-204.
Johnson, M. A., Turk-Browne, N. B., & Goldberg, A. E. (2013). Prediction plays a key role in language development as well as processing. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, (4), 360.
Pickering, M. J., & Garrod, S. (2004). The interactive-alignment model: Developments and refinements. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27(2), 212-225.
Stephens, G. J., Silbert, L. J., & Hasson, U. (2010). Speaker–listener neural coupling underlies successful communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(32), 14425-14430.
