Brand Management

Brand Management

Brand Personality

Brand Development as Playing Matchmaker

• Yo Santosa: founder of Ferro Concrete • Branding is matchmaking • Who is the consumer • Build a brand personality that matches that

Personality

Individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving

American Psychological Association

The Big Five - OCEAN

• Openness to Experience – curious or cautious • Conscientiousness – efficient or easy-going • Extraversion – outgoing or reserved • Agreeableness – friendly or challenging • Neuroticism – nervous or confident

Brand Personality

• A set of human personality traits associated with a brand. (J Aaker 1997)

• Born out of our need to relate to the non- human world (anthropomorphism)

• Communicated through a general style of communication/way of being, rather than words

• Should be defined to reflect the brand’s character and not change at the whim of the creative team

• If your brand was a person, how would you describe him/her?

The importance of brand personality

• Brand personality is a way for consumers to support and express their self-concept (Belk 1988)

• Brand personality is viewed as a central driver in the establishment of positive attitude and preference for a brand (Biel, 1993)

• Consumers build relationships with brands that match their personality or have a desired or favorable personality (Fournier 1998)

• Consumers prefer brands that have characteristics that are congruent with their actual or ideal selves. (Sirgy 1982; Malhotra 1988)

• A way to represent self-expressive benefits (D Aaker 2016)

Personality as a basis for Relationship • Family member – comfort and respect

• Inspiring leader – guidance and motivation

• Mentor – look to for advice and they are interested in you

• Stimulating Companion – funny, stimulating, interesting

• Friend – shared interest Aaker 2014

Dimensions of Brand Personality

• Sincerity – Down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, cheerful

• Excitement – Daring, spirited, imaginative, up-to-date

• Competence – reliable, intelligent, successful

• Sophistication – upper class, charming

• Ruggedness – outdoorsy, tough

J Aaker (1997)

• Implications of culture must be considered. In Spain and Japan, delete ruggedness and add serenity (J Aaker et al 2001)

Personality, Affect, and Trust

• Clear relationship between brand personality, affect, and trust • Sincere brands are more likely to influence brand trust than brand affect • Both exciting and sophisticated brand personality traits influence brand

affect more strongly than brand trust

• Competence has similar level of impact on trust and affect • Ruggedness impacts on brand trust but not significantly on brand affect –

likely due to the functional nature of these brands e.g. Timberland

(Sung and Kim 2010)

Personality impacts Relationship Strength Captura Photo Services

• Life is too meaningful to let it pass you by

• Life is too exciting to let it pass you by

J Aaker (2004)

Brand Personality

Responsibility

Down to earth

Stable

Responsible

Activity

Active

Dynamic

Innovative

Aggressiveness

Aggressive

Bold

Simplicity

Ordinary

Simple

Emotionality

Romantic

Sentimental

Geuens et al (2009) critique Aaker on: • Loose

definition of personality - ’upper class’, age; brand personality or perceived user?

• Removing within-brand variance

• Cultural differences

Perceptions of Personality Influenced by… • Any direct or indirect contact

with the brand (Plummer 1985)

• Brand user imagery – human characteristics associated with the typical user of the brand

• Company employees or C-suite • Brand endorsers • MarComs • Consumer experience

Carve Out Areas of Incompetence

• Identifying who you aren’t is as important as identifying who you are

J Aaker 1997

• Thoughts, feelings, behavious, emotions

• Consciousness: psychic contents that one has knowledge of; any experience one is aware of

• Personal Unconsciousness: psychic contents one is unaware of unique to each individual; experiences forgotten or repressed due to their distressing nature

• Collectives Unconscious: “psychic structures” or cognitive categories; shared by all; influence thoughts, behaviours, and world view

The Psyche (one’s total personality)

Personal Unconscious

Collective Unconscious

Consciousness

Jungian Archetypes

• Carl Jung – early 20 century

• Part of our collective unconscious

Image source: Vision One

Discussion on the application to branding from Siraj and Kumari (2011)

Brand Personality

In groups of 3-4 discuss:

• What personality characteristics are Old Spice seeking to communicate to viewers?

In groups of 3-4 discuss:

• What personality characteristics are Nike seeking to communicate to viewers?

In groups of 3-4 discuss:

• What personality characteristics are Burger King seeking to communicate to viewers?

For your Assignment

• How would you describe the personality of your brand?

• How can you further communicate this personality as you enter into extension category?