Brand Personality
Business Dictionary defines Brand Personality as "Human traits or characteristics associated with a specific brand name.' Common characteristics or traits represented include uniqueness, sincerity, intellectualism, competence, excitement, and sophistication. The brand personalities give consumers something with which they can relate, effectively increasing Brand Awareness and popularity.[1]
The idea of brand personality comes from around 1961 but it started being more heavily used in the 1980’s. It is deeply connected with The Big Five Personality Traits, from which all human behavior is derived, based on a small set of fundamentals. All human actions are based on a mix of the respective elements included in the Big Five Personality Traits which include openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and lastly, neuroticism. Based on the Big Five Personality Traits, the five dimensions of brand personality are represented by
a) Sincerity;
b) Excitement;
c) Competence;
d) Sophistication;
e) Ruggedness[2]
Brand personality is a framework that helps a company or organization shape the way people feel about its product, service, or mission. A company's brand personality elicits an emotional response in a specific consumer segment, with the intention of inciting positive actions that benefits the firm. Dove, for example, chooses sincerity as its brand personality. This allows the company to attract feminine consumers.[3]
Brand personality develops brand equity. It sets the brand attitude. It is a key input into the look and feels of any communication or marketing activity by the brand. It helps in gaining a thorough knowledge of customer's feelings about the brand. Brand personality differentiates among brands specifically when they are alike in many attributes. For instance - Sony versus Panasonic. Brand personality is used to make the brand strategy lively, i.e, to implement Brand Strategy. Brand personality indicates the kind of relationship a customer has with the brand. It is a means by which a customer communicates his own identity. Brand personality must be differentiated from brand image, in the sense that, while brand image denotes the tangible (physical and functional) benefits and attributes of a brand, brand personality indicates emotional associations of the brand. If a brand image is a comprehensive brand according to consumers’ opinion, brand personality is that aspect of the comprehensive brand which generates its emotional character and associations in consumers’ minds.[4]
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