Brand Personification/Personality
Brand personality refers to how a brand communicates and acts. It entails giving a brand human personality qualities or attributes in order to differentiate it from competitors. These traits indicate brand behaviour in both the people who represent the brand (i.e., its workers) and in advertising, packaging, etc. Brand personality is the expression of a brand’s image or identity via human characteristics. For example, the Allen Solley brand expresses individuality and lets the wearer stand out from the crowd. Infosys stands for originality, worth, and intelligence.
The embodiment of a brand is what gives it its personality. A brand may be represented by a person who exemplifies certain personality features, such as Shahrukh Khan with Airtel or John Abraham with Castrol, or by specific personality attributes (For instance Dove as honest, feminist and optimist; Hewlett Packard brand represents accomplishment, competency and influence). All of the customer interactions with the brand contribute to the brand’s personality. It is distinctive and durable.
Brand personality must be distinguished from brand image in that the former refers to a brand’s tangible (physical and functional) advantages and features, whilst the latter refers to the brand’s connotations with emotions. Brand personality is that component of a complete brand that creates its emotional character and associations in customers’ minds, if brand image is considered to be a full brand by consumers.
Brand equity is created through brand personality. It establishes the brand’s attitude. It is a crucial component of the appearance and feel of any kind of brand communication or marketing. It assists in learning in-depth information on how people feel about the brand. When companies are similar in many qualities, brand personality is what sets them apart. Sony and Panasonic, for instance. To apply brand strategy, or to make the brand strategy vivid, brand personality is utilised. Brand personality reveals the kind of connection a consumer has with the company. It is a way for a client to express his unique individuality.
Celebrity and brand personality should complement one another. A reliable celebrity offers instant recognition, acceptance, and optimism for the company. This will have an impact on customer choice and foster brand loyalty. For instance, the Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra represents the luxury international shirt company J.Hampstead as a brand ambassador.
Brand personality encompasses not just personality traits but also demographic traits like age, gender, or class as well as psychographic traits. The brand was created to appeal to certain personality types.
Excitement: Often targeted at youthful demographics, brands in the excitement dimension have traits like daring, energetic, imaginative, and cutting-edge.
Sincerity: Sincerity is a goal of every brand of course, but as a dimension of brand personality, sincerity is reserved for brands that are wholesome, honest, cheerful, and down-to-earth.
Competence: A competent brand is reliable, intelligent, and successful. Brands within this personality dimension are confident thought leaders and responsible stalwarts of trust.
Ruggedness: Rugged brand traits include adventurous, outdoorsy, and tough. These are brands that are built to last and seen to be hard-working, strong, muscular, and authentic.
Process:
Brand summary
This first step is where you identify the brand’s/business’ core values. For example, your core values may include: honesty, integrity, excellent communication and client satisfaction. Serious consideration should be given to these values, as they become the cornerstone for developing your Brand Promise (see below).
Brand audit
This is an internal and external evaluation process to determine how prospects, customers and employees perceive your brand.
Develop your brand architecture
This is an evaluation of your brand’s features, plus its functional and emotional benefits, resulting in a singular idea of what your brand ‘means’. Brand architecture also defines your ‘value proposition’. There are three core types of value that a company can deliver: operational efficiency (the lowest price), product leadership (the best product), or customer intimacy (the best solution & service). This step will determine which one your company is best equipped to deliver.
Create your brand personality traits
Next you will select the personality traits you wish your brand to display to the market. Brand personality traits are conveyed in everything you do and create, including how your employees interact with prospects and customers.
This is a clear, engaging, unique, and relevant statement which is aligned with your core, brand values. A brand promise states that if clients use your services, they are assured certain things will occur.
Write your brand story
This is a short paragraph about what/who your company is, how it got to where it is today and its vision for the future. As no company has the same story, this forms part of your USP or point of difference. It has an underlying theme which conveys your brand values, tells clients why they should care and importantly makes them feel something. This can be used in many ways (as a mission statement, in your company profile brochure or in the ‘about us’ section of your website). It also forms a starting point for creating your positioning statements and other key elements of marketing material.
Create brand positioning statements
Part one of this step is creating a one or two sentence statement that explains what you do, for whom you do it and how you uniquely solve a need. It gives clients a compelling reason to do business with you and will be found on many elements of your marketing collateral. The second part of this step is developing a tagline. The best taglines tell a story (e.g. American Express: Don’t leave home without it) or are aspirational (Nike: Just Do It) and if possible, also emphasize the brand name (Red Bull: Red Bull Gives You Wings).
Select brand visual requirements
This is where you match colors, typestyles and logo characteristics to visually reinforce your brand. If you already have a logo, match recommendations to the existing artwork to determine effectiveness, or create recommendations to define a new corporate logo.
Define brand operational requirements
This step ties all previous work together, by defining how you will deliver your brand promise through its daily operations. It is during this step that procedures and processes are designed to ensure the company delivers what it promises it will. (For example, to implement brand visual requirements of the previous step, you might like to develop a style guide to ensure consistent visual branding).