SWEARING IN BUSINESS: WHAT IT REALLY SAYS ABOUT YOUR BRAND VOICE

I asked ~100 of you last week: should you swear in your marketing?

The data came back completely all around the board.

93% swear in everyday life

70% are fine with swearing in marketing

79% don't swear on social media

69% don't swear in business content

You swear. You're chill with swearing. But the second your brand is involved, it's full sentences and the word deliverables.

Here's what I think is actually happening.

The moment money enters the picture — when people are forming opinions, when you're not just posting but positioning — something tightens. The voice gets polished. The personality goes on loan from someone else.

We've all done it.

But your answers kind of gave it away. When I asked if swearing makes you trust a brand more or less, most of you shrugged. Barely anyone said an f-bomb on a website would be a dealbreaker.

Your audience is not sitting there spiraling over your word choices. They're thinking about their own chaos.

And you also said you hold different industries to different standards — which means there is no universal rule. No magic line between "professional" and "authentic." Just context. Just intention.

A well-placed swear can feel like a breath of fresh air. It can make your brand feel like an actual person instead of a content strategy doc.

But the wrong word in the wrong place? It reads as try-hard. Like a brand that learned the word "relatable" in a workshop.

Same word. Completely different impact.

Here's the honest answer: it depends on who's in the room.

Not every audience is your audience. A corporate procurement manager and a burnt-out founder in her third year of business are not reading your website the same way. Swearing can build trust with one and quietly lose the other — and if you don't know yet which one you're talking to, buttoning it up while you figure that out is the smarter play. There's no shame in that. It's just good strategy.

But — and this matters — playing it safe indefinitely isn't neutral. It has a cost too. When your voice is scrubbed clean of anything remotely polarizing, you don't just avoid offending people. You also stop resonating with them. The brands that actually build loyalty aren't the ones who never said anything wrong. They're the ones who were consistent and clear enough that the right people felt genuinely seen.

So yes, know your audience before you go there. But also know this: a brand that's afraid to sound like itself will always struggle to connect. The goal isn't to be inoffensive. It's to be right for the people you actually want.