Brand Personality

Brand personality is the collection of affective, cognitive, and neurobehavioral tendencies similar to that of a person that is distinctive to a brand throughout time. It implies how one would characterize a brand if it were a person. It has a significant role in increasing consumer acquisition, brand loyalty and equity.

Brand personality drives both company design and brand message decisions. It is the aspect of a brand with which people identify and develop a relationship. The finest brand personas are instantly identifiable and highly relatable. It is the collection of human traits connected with a brand. Thus, it relates to target customers.

• Brand personality is embedding human-like characteristics in a brand and presenting a combination of distinctive affective, cognitive, and neurobehavioral tendencies to a brand.
• The five brand personality traits are humility, enthusiasm, expertise, elegance, and toughness.
• A wisely chosen brand personality evokes pleasant emotions in its target market.
• Quantitative surveys can measure brand personality, wherein participants respond if certain dimensions correlate with a brand.

Brand personality is prominent in giving a brand a human identity, making it relevant and authentic. Just like personalities make people lovable, unpleasant, motivating, dull, magnetic, or off-putting. Brand personalities are attributes similar to people that help companies resonate with their customers.

The brand personality framework reveals if a brand is daring, trustworthy, entertaining, earnest, reliable, or questionable. Brand personality is vital for B2B and customer-facing companies. Customers in both areas want a relevant human brand, just like Apple has been known as a sleek, minimalist creative type and a daring and adventurous adventurer.

Brands differ in shape, size, texture, and other ways based on target customers' choices, tastes, and traditions. Based on brand personality traits, these companies pique customers' curiosity. Thus, each firm has its personality that manifests differently in different contexts. So, firms develop a brand personality framework, which is crucial for marketers' decision-making and a key determinant for branding success.

Moreover, firms have implemented various techniques to keep their brands in consumers' minds. Thus, in recent years, the notion of personality has gained traction. According to market studies, personality attributes are crucial to company success. Hence, in the current market environment, it is believed that corporations should highlight their brands' individuality as customers view them.

Humility, enthusiasm, expertise, elegance, and toughness are the widely accepted five dimensions of brand personality that American organizational theorist David Allen Aaker gave. While every brand falls within the range for each characteristic, the most durable brands stress one core characteristic and, if desired, one secondary characteristic. A brand cannot be everything to everyone; hence, it cannot own every personality. A brand, therefore, must pick its route with clarity and determination.

#1 - Sincerity

Sincere brands are honest, genuine, cheery, healthy, and down-to-earth. They reflect consideration for families, companionship, compassion, gifting, devotion, honor, and philanthropy. But unfortunately, with many advertising venues, from print to social media, the public is more dubious than ever about a brand's genuineness.

Too often, brand messages deliver little value to the customers, muddying public judgment on whether brand sincerity is an exaggeration or an achievable brand personality trait. Nevertheless, many culinary, tourism and health companies reflect sincerity.

#2 - Excitement

Exciting companies have aggressive marketing, elevated design, and sponsorship. Thus, bold, inventive, cool, original, modern, and anti-establishment describe these brands. These brands generate a lot of buzzes and thrill their customers. Brand enthusiasm includes playful, bold, inventive, and enthusiastic attributes. Exciting brands provide consumers with unique, memorable experiences.

#3 - Competence

We are referring to brands whose ethos is one of dependability, responsibility, trustworthiness, intellect, success, and confidence. Hence, banks, insurance businesses, logistics corporations, and medical brands are examples of brands that frequently appear in the competence column. Customers who identify a competent brand with high quality and efficacy are likelier to prefer that brand over competitors.

#4 - Sophistication

As a brand personality, sophistication indicates elegance, stylish, posh, and charming. And much like enthusiasm, one can spot sophistication spread throughout all price points, but most often at the upper end of the spectrum. Moreover, sophistication blends excellence with luxury to showcase an upper-class lifestyle.

Thus, they preserve their sophisticated corporate identity with excellent marketing and premium pricing. They are noted for their inventive design and strong affinity to the Mediterranean spirit. Representing their "Timeless" personality. In addition, they want to make their ideal consumer feel sophisticated, pleasant, stylish and energizing.

#5 - Ruggedness

Products in the "rugged" category can withstand regular use over time. Customers can count on these names to get the job done. Hence, they are trusted, genuine, high-quality, hardy, outdoorsy, and agile. Likewise, many brands have an image of ruggedness, and Jeep is a great example. Industries including construction, hardware, outdoor recreation, and transportation will likely have several robust brand names.

Let us look at the brand personality examples to understand the concept better:

Below are the brands that have successfully defined their personality and can relate to their target customers in the utmost possible manner.

• Harley Davidson - It represents its audience better than most brands. Harley Davidson appeals to their consumers like a gang member with its tough brand identity, harsh vocabulary, and stern tone of voice. Hence, they have no corporate overtones or niceties; it supports their consumers' rebellious nature and goes against social norms. Thus they have chosen the dimension of ruggedness as their personality.
• Coke - It has successfully aligned the brand with every excited, happy moment imaginable, from Christmas to summer vacations. Through advertising and communication, they show joyous and magical qualities associated with satisfaction. In addition, their lighthearted and fun-loving nature urges the audience to leave their concerns and worry. Thus they have chosen the dimension of excitement as their personality.
• Apple - It is a visionary innovator. They're inspired to build something fresh and push technological boundaries. Hence as Apple encourages and inspires customers to be innovative and express themselves, creative sectors, progressive individuals, and corporations have welcomed them. Apple has transformed the world and invites customers to join them. Thus they have chosen competency as their personality.

This article is a guide to Brand Personality and its definition. Here, we explain its dimensions in detail, traits, and framework with examples. You can learn more from the following articles -

• Brand Extension
• Brand Awareness
• Brand Equity