Content at Mad Mobile

The ultimate style guide for consistent communication. Use these guidelines as a source of truth for best practices when writing for and as Mad Mobile.

What’s the purpose & why is this important?

This content style guide is designed to help Mad Mobile employees understand the brand’s voice while helping us write clear and consistent content across teams and channels. Please use this guide as a reference when you’re writing for Mad Mobile. The framing documents below can be utilized to get an overview of our restaurant and retail solutions, differentiators, and market landscape.

Brand Positioning

Mad Mobile helps companies reimagine how they connect with customers. Our unique mobile platform based around the POS enables restaurants and retailers to achieve mobility with their existing systems to increase sales and digitize the guest experience.

Mad Mobile’s voice is friendly, professional, and casual, while still displaying clear authority and experience with the restaurant and retail world from both a B2B and B2C perspective. Keep the following do’s and don’ts in mind when you are creating content.

Do’s

Mad Mobile speaks to restaurateurs, retailers, and customers alike as a friendly expert. Use fun and engaging words that are backed up with robust research and an obvious mastery of the subject matter.
Break down technical jargon without pedantic explanations.
Utilize smaller paragraphs and break ideas down into discrete sections. Try to keep paragraphs around 4 sentences to avoid a “wall of text.”
Example

Don’ts

Avoid overly-aggressive sales mechanics. Do not state price points unless specified otherwise.

Do not talk down to readers.
Do not use negative connotations or be offensive.

Example Mad Mobile’s distinctive and secure CRM database technology.

Tone is dynamic. It’s how we adapt our voice to different situations. Our voice is how we want to be perceived by the public; therefore, our tone should accompany our voice. As you create content, keep its context in mind, since that will often dictate how you adapt your tone across different situations.

Clean – The technology does the talking. The copy needs to clearly explain what the technology does, as well as how it improves over existing tech and helps businesses achieve tangible results. Jargon is not necessary. The copy should have the voice of a real expert – a person who can explain a concept in words anyone will understand in a light-hearted way.

Do’s: Explain things in a clean and clear manner. Fully explain benefits and ease of installation/operation. Example
Don’ts: Talk down to customers or oversimplify benefits of software. Assume customers are tech-illiterate. Don’t be overly pedantic. Example

Evolving – We follow trends and tech developments and invent great ways to implement these features. Mad Mobile is continually evolving and striving to improve the restaurant and retail experience on every level. We use solid information from trusted sources, including our own customers.

Do’s: Provide data, research, examples. Showing > telling. Explain benefits over existing tech. Example
Don’ts: Focus on intangible results, or technology with a “cool factor” but few proven benefits. Example

Open – Mad Mobile understands and empathizes with our clients. We are flexible and open to new ideas and listen to all customer feedback. We are excited about new ideas in technology, and we want to show customers how they can make their businesses better.

Do’s: Pass along insights and knowledge while explaining benefits. Address customer concerns. Think like an operator. Example
Don’ts: Be too silly, informal, sarcastic, or offensive. Example

Mad Mobile appeals to a variety of buyer personas and the style and tone of your content must be adapted for your target audience. Keep in mind who your audience is, what their pain points are, and how they like to be communicated with.

Content Type

Mad Mobile content is a product of many styles into a unified voice. Technical intelligence, engaging ad copy, and seamless customer service copy are all combined into one. Our copy should showcase the one-of-a-kind technology Mad Mobile offers and create a memorable and beneficial experience for readers.

We aim for Mad Mobile content to be interactive and audience-building. The content types that fulfill this are:

Blog Posts
Press and Insights
Case Studies, eBooks, and Whitepapers – Resource Center
Social Media

Graphics

The imagery in Mad Mobile’s content is equally as important as the copy. We aim to find high-quality photos that showcase the restaurant and retail industry, and capture realistic lifestyle concepts without being too cheesy.

Do’s:

Server Helping Diners with Tablet In Hand

Associate Helping Customer with In-Store Tablet

Dont’s:

Formatting Conventions

Most of the grammar, punctuation, and capitalization instructions will be spelled out in the style guide. Refer to AP stylebook – https://www.apstylebook.com for an overview.

We follow title case capitalization formatting for our titles, headings, and subheadings. Title case capitalizes the first letter of each word, except articles and short prepositions. Titles should be in H1 styling and subheadings should be set to H2 styling. Use the Capitalize My Title resource to check if your headline is formatted correctly.

This is the Correct Formatting of a Headline
This Is Not The Correct Way To Format A Headline
This is also incorrect formatting for a headline

Title case capitalization examples:

Titles of references (e.g., book titles, article titles) when they appear in the text of a paper
Titles of inventories or tests
Headings at Levels 1 and 2
In headers, capitalize verbs, proper nouns, adjectives, and keywords.

Titles of periodicals—journals, magazines, or newspapers—which are also italicized (e.g., Journal of Counseling Psychology, The New York Times)

Use branded capitalization when necessary

iPad
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn

Do NOT capitalize

Articles (the, to, in, a, an, at, etc.)
Coordinating Conjunctions (and, but, for)
Short words (less than 5 letters)
Prepositions (at, by, from)

Oxford comma is the final comma in a list of things.

Ex: Please bring me a pencil, eraser, and notebook.
Ex: Please bring me a pencil, eraser and notebook.

Spell out all single digit numbers, but leave double digits as numerals.

One (1)
22 Twenty-two
Use “1.” “2.” etc. when numbering heading in blogs.

Hyphen (-)
- Hyphens are used to join words to indicate that they have a combined meaning or that they are linked in the grammar of a sentence.
  - Open compounds are written as separate words
    - Printing press
    - Car wash
    - Chief of staff
  - Hyphenate two or more words when they come before a noun , they modify and act as a single idea. This is called a compound adjective
    - an all-in-one POS
    - state-of-the-art design
  - Do NOT use a hyphen after an adverb (not limited to but including most words ending in “-ly”)
    - Ex: (“It was a poorly written book,” NOT “poorly-written“).
En dash (–)
- En dash is used to represent a span or range of numbers, dates, or time. There should be no space between the en dash and the adjacent material.
  - Sport scores (5–3)
  - Date ranges (1999–2005, 1980–83)
  - Do NOT use spaces on either side of the en dash.
    - (1999 – 2005)
Em dash (—)
- The em dash is a versatile punctuation mark that can be used instead of commas or colons. It can set off a word, add emphasis, or signal an interruption or amplification of an idea.
  - Colon –
    - After months of deliberation, the jurors reached a unanimous verdict—guilty.
    - The white sand, the warm water, the sparkling sun—this is what brought them to Hawaii.

If abbreviating, make sure the product is spelled out the first time it’s mentioned with the abbreviation in parentheses after. Then you can use the acronym of the product throughout the content.

Ex: Point of Sale (POS)
Ex. Mobile Point of Sale (mPOS or mobile POS)
Ex. Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPIS)
Ex. Buy Online, Return in Store (BORIS)

Here’s a list of recommended and approved industry resources, and “do not mention” resources.

Unapproved

Retail:

Tulip – https://www.tulip.com/
NewStore – https://www.newstore.com/
PredictSpring – https://www.predictspring.com/

Restaurant

Clover – https://www.clover.com/
HarborTouch – https://www.harbortouch.com/
Lavu – https://lavu.com/
Lightspeed – https://lightspeedhq.com/
NCR Silver – https://www.ncr.com/silver
Revel – https://revelsystems.com/
Square – https://squareup.com/us/en
Toast – https://pos.toasttab.com/
TouchBistro – https://www.touchbistro.com/
Upserve – https://upserve.com/

Approved examples – Unless the article is sponsored by any company above. Content is not limited to these examples but serve more as recommendations to what would be approved.

Restaurant Hospitality

Modern Restaurant Management

National Retail Federation News

Deloitte

Datassential: Food & Beverage Insights

Technomic: Vital Insights for the Foodservice Industry

Mad Mobile has acquired a number of companies throughout the years and during this transition there is old verbiage that needs to be clarified if we continue to use it.

Mad Mobile’s CAKE Product Line (SMB)

TableSafe – Do not use

Concierge – Do not use

CAKE Point of Sale → All-In-One Point of Sale

OrderPad (SMB) → Tableside Ordering & Payments

CAKE Guest Manager → Guest Management System, Waitlist & Table Management System, Digital Reservation Book Waitlist & Floor Map Management

MenuPad, Mobile Server (Internal only) → Do not use. Instead describe the features.