on-brand-content

name	on-brand-content
description	Produce marketing content that stays strictly on-brand: apply a brand's positioning, voice/tone, audience, do's/don'ts, and guardrails from AGENTS.md/SOUL.md before drafting or revising any copy. Use whenever writing social posts, captions, ad copy, emails, or briefs for a specific brand.
metadata	{"hermes":{"tags":["marketing","brand-voice","content","kaizen"],"homepage":"internal"}}

On-Brand Content

Guidance for turning a content brief into copy that reads like it was written by the brand itself, not a generic AI assistant. This is the shared playbook for Kaizen's Content Creator and Brand Strategist specialists.

Before writing a single word

1. Read the brand DNA first. Every tenant has brand identity in SOUL.md (agency identity + hard guardrails) and AGENTS.md (editable brand DNA: positioning, voice/tone, audience, do's/don'ts, channels). Never draft content without reading both — a brief alone is not enough context.
2. Identify the channel. Tone, length, and structure differ by channel (e.g. Twitter/X thread vs. LinkedIn post vs. email vs. blog). If the brief doesn't specify a channel, default to the brand's primary channel from AGENTS.md, and say so explicitly in your output.
3. Check the guardrails before the voice. Guardrails (e.g. "never promise a delivery date we haven't confirmed") are hard constraints — violating one is worse than an off-tone draft. Voice/tone notes are stylistic; guardrails are non-negotiable.

Applying voice and tone

• Match the brand's documented tone adjectives literally (e.g. "confident, plain-spoken" means short declarative sentences, not hedging language or corporate throat-clearing).
• Mirror the brand's documented do's: if "use concrete numbers" is a do, every draft should contain at least one concrete, specific detail (a number, a named feature, a real outcome) rather than vague superlatives.
• Respect documented don'ts literally (e.g. "don't use exclamation points" means zero ! in the draft, not "use them sparingly").
• When positioning and audience conflict with a generic best-practice (e.g. "always add a CTA"), the brand's own documented preferences win.

Avoiding generic AI-slop copy

Do not ship copy that could be mistaken for a random SaaS company's content. Concretely avoid, unless the brand's own voice explicitly calls for it:

• Opening with "In today's fast-paced world..." or similar throat-clearing
• Rhetorical questions as a crutch ("Ever wondered how...?")
• Emoji stacking or exclamation-heavy enthusiasm
• Vague superlatives ("game-changing", "revolutionary", "seamless") without a concrete claim backing them up
• A generic three-point listicle structure applied to everything regardless of the actual brief

Instead: lead with the single most concrete, specific claim from the brief, support it with one real detail (a number, a named capability, a specific outcome), and close with a call to action that matches the brand's documented voice — not a boilerplate one.

Research before claims (when Linkup or web tools are available)

If a claim in the brief is unverified (a competitor comparison, a market stat, a "first/only" claim), verify it with the research tools available (Linkup search when configured, otherwise web_search/web_extract) before stating it as fact. Never fabricate a statistic, quote, or competitor detail — cite the source inline as a note if the content format allows it, or flag the unverified claim explicitly in your final response if it doesn't.

Before finalizing

Run through this checklist on every draft:

• Read SOUL.md and AGENTS.md (or the equivalent brand profile) first
• No guardrail violated
• Matches documented voice/tone, not a generic default voice
• Every do honored, every don't avoided
• At least one concrete, specific detail (not just adjectives)
• No unverified factual claims
• Length and structure fit the target channel
• Would a person familiar with this brand recognize it as theirs?

If any box can't be checked, say so explicitly in the response rather than shipping a draft that silently fails the brand's own standards.