What is brand personality?
Brand personality is simply a sum of your brand’s character traits – if it were a person.
While brand personality may seem difficult to grasp, it’s important to nail. Just as we make friends and fall in love with people whose personalities we like – we are attracted to brands whose personalities we identify with.
Like people, brands have qualities, traits and behaviors that make them who they are. They define how the brand communicates – both verbally and visually, and how it serves.
Does my business need to define its brand personality?
Yes! Every business needs a well-defined brand personality (no matter how small you are)
Your brand personality is important because it’s reflected in your brand messaging, visual identity and overall customer experience.
All day, every day, brands are communicating with prospects, clients, partners, employees, regulators, stockholders and the general public. They are communicating through multiple channels – on the website, via email, on social media, in person, and on the phone. That’s a lot of messages going out to different eyeballs and ears!
What’s more, in the digital age, these communications are often permanent – firmly attached to your brand. All of these communications make up your brand reputation. Just like it’s important to create and distribute consistent brand messaging, you need to be intentional about broadcasting a consistent brand personality.
You need to be as strategic about keeping your brand personality consistent as you are about keeping your logo and colors consistent.
I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it…” While I don’t agree with that, (both what you say and how you say it matter in my book) nobody can deny that how we communicate has a huge impact on how we are perceived. And because first impressions turn into lasting impressions – it’s hard to change how your brand is perceived once that perception is established (just think of all the rebranding campaigns that fall flat every year).
Your brand is your reputation. And your brand personality is an integral part of that reputation – which makes it a brand asset. Are you managing this important brand asset? If not, you definitely should.
Did you know? When you are “building a brand”, what you are doing is attempting to affect how your business is perceived in the marketplace. I’ll say it again… The reason companies spend time and money defining their brands is to shape how they are perceived in the market.
And if you are leaving this to chance – you will miss out on connecting with your audiences, creating customer loyalty and making consistent sales. You also run the risk of losing customer trust if your brand messaging, tone, visual identity and underlying personality are inconsistent.
Your brand personality plays an important role in your brand communication strategy. It affects how your message is written, what terminology you use, what colors and fonts you choose, how you create and select graphics and photos, what your customer service experience is like and more!
As you define your brand and establish your brand strategy – be sure to create guidelines on brand personality to keep your brand communications consistent and intentional.
Need proof? Here are a few Brand Personality stats
There are several studies that have been conducted on the impact of brand personality and archetypes on consumer behavior and brand perception. Here are a few key stats on this topic:
- According to a study by branding expert Jennifer Aaker, brands that have a strong, distinct personality are perceived as more likeable, trustworthy, and influential by consumers.
- Another study found that consumers are more likely to purchase products or services from brands that have a personality that aligns with their own personal values and beliefs.
- A study by the University of Maryland found that brand archetypes can be used to predict consumer behavior and brand loyalty. For example, brands that align with the “Hero” archetype are perceived as strong and courageous and are more likely to appeal to consumers who value leadership and ambition.
- A study by the Journal of Marketing found that brand personality significantly impacts consumer attitudes and purchase intentions. Consumers are more likely to purchase from brands that have a personality that they find appealing and relatable.
- Research by the Journal of Business Research found that brand personality is a key factor in consumer decision-making, and that brands with strong personalities are more likely to be successful in the long term.
How to define your brand personality
1. Know thyself: Look at your brand as if it were a person and identify a list of relevant brand qualities, traits and behaviors.
To begin defining your brand personality, look within. Your brand personality is organically driven by your brand values, Founder/ CEO’s personality and values and collective personality of your team (if you have one).
Let’s break these down.
Brand values
Brand values are what the brand believes and holds dear, what it stands against and how it wants to be perceived in the world. This includes common values like integrity, work ethic, professionalism and more individualized values – like being results-driven, or not taking things too seriously, or being detail oriented. Your values may be sustainability, health, or humor – and they will be reflected in your brand personality.
Founder/CEO’s personality
Typically, when a brand is run by a single founder, or a solopreneur, many of the qualities, beliefs and values of that person end up transposing to the brand personality. This is usually apparent when you look at small businesses. This also offers a very easy way to start identifying your brand personality. Take inventory of your values and behaviors and see which of these are mirrored in your brand.
Team personality
If you have a team and you don’t have a predefined brand personality – take a look at your team’s collective personality and trace the qualities to your brand. Is your team cheerful? Hard-working? Patient? Or is it rude? Wasteful? Unfocused? For better or for worse, you’ll see these qualities reflected in your overall brand.
2. Get strategic: Identify qualities, traits and behaviors you aspire to.
While looking at the organic source of your brand personality is a good starting point, you have to review your findings and decide strategically which parts of this personality you want to bring into focus.
Your brand personality needs to be in alignment with your values and goals.
For example…
You sell an entertainment product, and your values include, “work hard – play hard,” “have fun” and “be positive”, but your team’s responses to customers are rude and negative.
What happens?
This kicks your brand personality and your brand as a whole out of alignment with its values. This misalignment confuses customers and causes them to lose trust in your brand because if your brand is not living by the values that you hold in high regard and the personality that goes along with those values – it looks like a liar.
Your brand personality traits need to also be strategic. In other words, after you’ve looked at your values, you need to decide what behaviors your brand has to cultivate to reflect those values on a daily basis. We are not talking about being artificial here – we are talking about having a template, a standard of behavior.
3. Identify your brand archetype
Apply the information you’ve collected in the last 2 steps to find your archetype.
Brand archetypes are simply Carl Jung’s archetypes applied to your brand, as if it was an individual person. Carl Jung was a notable psychologist and psychiatrist who maintained that there exist several categories of story characters who are instantly recognizable by their core values, motivations and behaviors. Can you recognize the outlaw when watching a western movie? I bet you can! That’s because the human mind is always trying to categorize everything – including personalities or archetypes.
Jungian archetypes have become a key tool in categorizing brand personalities.
There are twelve brand archetypes: The Innocent, the Sage, Everyman, Hero, Outlaw, Explorer, Ruler, Magician, Lover, Caregiver, Jester, and Creator.
Typically, your brand will fit into one archetype better than the rest. Do not make the mistake of simply selecting a brand archetype and attempting to conform to it. This approach always fails because it leaves no room for your brand to be authentic. Instead, do the work of figuring out what your brand is already like, align it with your archetype and work to magnify its finest qualities.
Identifying your brand archetype allows you to categorize your brand personality and “puts a name” on what your brand is like. Having an archetype to reference gives you a template for executing your brand and keeping your brand personality consistent.
4. Putting it all together: develop a framework to follow
Instead of leaving your brand personality to chance, define it strategically by blending together the natural qualities and behaviors of your brand (based on your personality and values) with the qualities and behaviors you aspire to as a company. Bring everything together under a brand archetype, tweak the finer points to fit your unique brand personality and use the result as a strategic guide for ongoing brand execution.
The key here is to develop a framework that you (and your team if you have one) can easily follow in daily course of business — and setting expectations with your team.
Practical application
Remember, brand personality and brand archetype are a part of the bigger picture. Brand personality development does not happen in isolation.
Together with your goals, values, messaging, buyer personas and overall brand strategy, they form the building blocks of your brand and help you go from concepts and ideas to a solid, authentic, trustworthy brand that is connecting with customers and creating revenue for you – the business owner.
When I work with clients, I walk them through a few exercises to help them pinpoint their brand personality, weave it throughout their messaging and visual identity and use it to guide their marketing strategy.
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- Identify your key brand concepts
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- Figure out your brand personality and archetype and learn how to use it
- Identify your buyer personas
- Develop a visual brand identity
- and more
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