Brand Personality - 3

Blackston (2000) has argued that to understand brand-customer relationships, it is necessary to consider what a brand thinks of you. To obtain this information you need to think about what the brand would say to you if it were a person.

Whether a brand is a product or a company, the company has to decide what personality traits the brand is to have. One commonly accepted way for creating brand personality is matching the brand personality as close as possible to that of the consumers or to a personality that they admire. Temporal (1999, p 39) defined brand personality creation process with four steps:

Step 1: Define the target audience

Step 2: Find out their needs, expectations and what they like

Step 3: Build a consumer personality profile

Step 4: Create the product personality as close as consumer personality profile

Aaker (1997) has created a framework to describe and measure the brand personality in five core dimensions, which is known as Brand Personality Dimensions or Relationship Basis Model.




• Sincerity (Down-to-earth, family oriented, genuine, old-fashioned)

• Excitement (Spirited, young, up-to-date, outgoing)

• Competence (Accomplished, influential, competent)

• Sophistication (Pretentious, wealthy, condescending)

• Ruggedness (Athletic and outdoorsy)

This framework can used to investigate the current status of a brand and to describe the desired future status of it.

Brand Personality - 2

Aaker (1997) mentioned that in addition to personality characteristics, brand personality includes demographic characteristics such as gender, age and class. Similar to personality characteristics, these demographic characteristics also are inferred directly from the brand’s user imagery, employees, or product endorsers and indirectly from other brand associations. For example, driven by distinct user imagery, Virginia Slims tends to be thought of as feminine, whereas Marlboro tends to be perceived as masculine. Apple is considered to be young, and IBM is considered to be older (Aaker, 1996). On the basis of their different pricing strategies, Saks Fifth Avenue is perceived as upper class, whereas Kmart is perceived as blue collar (Aaker, 1997).

Temporal (1999) mentioned about a consumer research, where sample consumers were asked to comment about how they feel about two companies.

When asked the question: “If these two companies were people, how would you describe them?” their replies were:




These two companies are actually competitors in a service industry. Like 95% of the sample consumers you would choose Company B as your friend if you were asked to choose one of them.

This research shows that consumers tend to prefer brands that fit in with their self-concept. Consumers tend to like personalities that are similar to theirs or to those whom they admire. An effective brand personality building strategy is to create the brand personality as close as to the target consumers’ personalities. The closer the brand personality to consumer personality, the greater will be the willingness to buy the brand and the deeper the loyalty.

Brand Personality - 1

Many of the world’s most powerful brands spend a great deal of time for putting personality into their brands. How can a company create personality for its products or for itself? The answer of this question lies in the choice and application of personality values and characteristics. Based on the premise that brands can have personalities in much the same way as humans, brand personality describes brands in terms of human characteristics. Brand personality is seen as a valuable factor in increasing brand engagement and brand attachment, in much the same way as people relate and bind to other people. Much of the work in the area of brand personality is based on translated theories of human personality and using similar measures of personality attributes and factors. Brand personality is defined as “The psychological nature of a particular brand as intended by its sellers, though persons in the marketplace may see the brand otherwise (called brand image). These two perspectives compare to the personalities of individual humans: what we intend or desire, and what others see or believe” in the marketing terms dictionary of American Marketing Association (A.MA.).

The concept of relationship between a person and a brand provides a different perspective on how brand personality can work. Aaker (1996) mentioned about two elements that affect an individual’s relationship with a brand. First one is that there is a relationship between the brand as person and the customer, which is analogous to the relationship between two people. Second element is the brand personality which is the type of person the brand represents (Aaker, 1996). The brand personality adds depth to the relationship.

Human and brand personality differ in terms of how they are formed, although they might share a similar conceptualization. Perceptions of human personality traits are inferred on the basis of an individual’s behavior, physical characteristics, attitudes and beliefs, and demographic characteristics. In contrast, perception of brand personality traits can be formed and influenced by any direct or indirect contact that the customer has with the brand (Aaker, 1997).

After creating a personality for a brand, it will be easier to attract consumers to the brand. As brands grow, as do human relationships, it is the emotional dimension which tends to become dominant in loyalty. Brand personality helps brand to grow by providing them emotional difference and experience.

People’s personalities are determined through their beliefs and values and other personality characteristics they develop. Honesty is an example for a value or belief. And confidence is an example for a characteristic. There are about two hundred words that describe personality characteristics and these can be used in brand personality creation process (Temporal, 1999).

Brand Identity - 3

An easy to remember and immediately recognizable visual identity helps building awareness and recognition of a brand. That visual identity triggers perceptions and unlocks associations of the brand. Human brain recognizes and remembers shapes first. While words have to be decoded into meaning, visual images can be remembered and recognized directly. Reading is not necessary to be able to identify shapes, but identifying shapes is necessary to be able to read. After recognizing shapes human brain remembers colours. Colour can trigger an emotion and evoke a brand association. Carefully chosen and distinctive colours can also help expressing differentiation, while building brand awareness. Third and last, content comes, that means the brain takes more time to process the language (Wheeler, 2003).

Unlike advertising, which launches a new campaign each year, brand identity needs to be long lasting. Brand building and sustaining process represent a major investment for the companies.

Wheeler (2003, p 13) stated three compelling reasons to invest in brand identity:

 Brand identity makes it easy for the customer to buy: Brand identity plays an important role in differentiation. And a smart system conveys respect for the customer and makes it easy to understand features and benefits of both recent and future products and services.

 Brand identity makes it easy for the sales force to sell: Strategic brand identity works across diverse audiences and cultures to build an awareness and understanding of a company and its strengths.

 Brand identity makes it easy to build brand equity: A strong brand identity will help build brand equity through increased awareness, recognition and customer loyalty, which in turn helps make an organization more successful.

Regardless of the size of the company or the nature of a business, there are certain ideals that characterize the best brand identities. According to Wheeler (2003, p 16) brand identity ideals can be investigated in nine different topics:

1. Vision
A compelling vision by an effective, articulate and passionate leader is the aspiration and foundation of most successful brands in general. Successful brand identity projects are top-down initiatives which means top management has endorsed the project. The support of top management is critical because it sends a strong message to everyone involved that the project is a priority that will affect the future success of the company.

2. Meaning
Top brands stand for something- a big idea, a strategic position, a defined set of values or a voice that stands apart. Meaning is an idea that is conveyed through a symbol, a word or an action and it inspires the creative process. Meaning is the DNA of brand identity, where form is imbued with rationale and assigned deeper meaning.

3. Authenticity
The brand identity must be an authentic expression of a company- its unique vision, goals, values, voice and personality. The design and messages emerge from who it is and anticipate what it will become. The design must be appropriate to the target market and business sector of the company. Authentic identities emerge from a process which is both investigative and intuitive.

4. Differentiation
The uniqueness and differentiation of brands determine their success. All companies want customers’ attention, loyalty and money so all brands compete with each other within their business category. When a designer creates a brand mark, his/her responsibility is to create a unique symbol that is differentiated, has the power to communicate within a second and most of the time smaller than a dime.

5. Sustainability
Sustainability is the inherent ability of an identity to have longevity in an environment that is in flux, characterized by future permutations that no one can predict. Sustainability also refers to an identity’s ability to transition through changing media, and models of communication.

6. Coherence
Coherence is the quality that implies that all the pieces hold together in a way that feels seamless to the customer.

7. Flexibility
An identity system must continuously demonstrate an inherent flexibility. With the help of flexibility communications inside and outside stay fresh and relevant. No one can say with absolute certainty what new products and services a company may offer in five or ten years. However the brand identity designer needs to anticipate and create a flexible infrastructure to accommodate the future.

8. Commitment
A good identity itself does not guarantee success. It is not enough to create an effective brand name or develop a sustainable and intelligent brand mark. Most successful companies have a commitment to quality and to seizing every opportunity to grow their brand. An effective brand identity is tied inextricably to management’s desire to nurture it.

9. Value
The indisputable goal of most organizations is creating value. The best companies consistently demonstrate their value though the superior quality of their products and services and their unswerving dedication to meeting their customers’ needs. The best brand identities are the most public and widely communicated symbols of that value.