What is Brand Personality? Scales, Why Use, Aaker’s Brand Personality Model

What is Brand Personality?

Brand personality refers to a set of human characteristics that contribute to the brand name which consists of a consistent set of traits that are valued by the consumers. The personality aspect is a value-added qualitative gain from a brand apart from its functional advantages.

Organisations need to be able to accurately explain their brand personality so that they can click with the right consumers. The brand personality is a structure that helps the firm to form an opinion of the people in regards to the company’s product and service and they focus on extracting a positive emotional response from a targeted consumer segment. Since the brand personality is something to which the consumer can relate and it is seen that if its personality is similar to their own the customers are more likely to purchase the product.

Brand personality forms a significant component of brand identity which is used by companies to present their brand to the target groups. Many studies and research on brand personality have been inspired by the work of Aaker in 1997, where she defined brand personality as “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand”.

She eventually created a brand personality scale consisting of 44 items that are developed on five broad dimensions:

• Sincerity
• Excitement
• Competence
• Sophistication
• Ruggedness

The following characteristics were used by Aaker to define brand personality and not traits and the scale has also been used for measuring brand personality in many studies.

According to Azoulay & Kapferer, Brand personality is the set of human personality traits that are both applicable to and relevant for brands.

---

Scales of Brand Personality

Several variables have a role to play in determining the choice of the consumer to purchase one brand over another. Some consumers are majorly influenced by advertising on social media which reflects the brand personality which is consistent with their own. There are times when the relationship and connection between the brand and the consumers are based on their desire rather than their actual image.

For example, Red Bull does things differently than other brands. It’s a little unusual. It lives on the edge of things, laughs in the face of danger, and welcomes the extreme. There aren’t many more energising instances of brand personalities.

Even among fellow rebels, adventurers, and sportsmen, it’s safe to say that Red Bull is a bit of a daredevil. Red Bull is well on its way to owning the word “Extreme” in the minds of its audience by connecting them with every extreme sport imaginable. Red Bull has swallowed up an alliance with every specialised extreme sport you can think of to depict an outlandish personality across all contact points, thanks to its explosive colours, charging bull emblem, and aggressive attitude.

The scales of brand personality include:

Brand competence

Competent brands are seen as being reliable, responsible, intelligent, and efficient. The perceptions of the consumer are normally based on the performance of the product or service performs, and the image of the organisation in society and the market.

Brand sincerity

This dimension of brand personality follows ethical practises and is committed to the consumers and the community. The traits associated with brand sincerity are down to earth, genuine, honest, trustful, cheerful, and more.

Brand excitement

These are brands that make use of colourful logos, unique fonts, and more and display themselves in exciting and unexpected places and environments. The dimension associated with this brand personality includes imaginative, up-to-date, inspiring, edgy, daring, imaginative, spirited, and more.

Brand sophistication

These are brands that are perceived by the customers as being upper class, romantic, charming, pretentious, elegant, glamorous and poised. These brands are generally found in luxury industries and for high-priced brands for their products and services. The sophisticated branding varies across multiple industries, from fashion and accessories to automobiles, medical equipment, food and dining, and more.

Brand toughness

These brands display their products in outdoor and extreme conditions to send the message that the product is resistant, durable and made for brave people who are willing to take risks and they do not wish to have an ordinary lifestyle and have low fear. The traits associated with this dimension are tough, powerful, forceful, potent, masculine, outdoorsy, and more.

---

Why Use Brand Personality?

Organisations need to define accurately their brand personality so that they can relate to the appropriate consumers. This is because a brand personality determines the attitude of the brand in the market and it is an important element used for marketing campaigns.

Brand personality is necessary for creating loyal customers and the opinion and beliefs of the customers help with achieving brand equity and helps with differentiating from the competition. These factors and associations help with measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of the marketing campaigns that are useful and needed for the future success and growth of the brand.

The association of human characteristics and traits with the brand to which the customers can relate gives rise to its personality. It involves a set of human characteristics and traits that are associated with the brand.

Brand personality is required for differentiating the product in the market in the following manner:

Developing a brand image

Brand personality helps with developing a brand image using brand identity which helps with developing a desired brand image in the market. Brand personality works on a strategy based on the market performance of the brand thereafter brand identity predicts the strategy and uses it for developing the brand image.

Effective in decision-making

Brand personality helps with positioning the various offering of the company. It helps with effectively guiding the customers with the benefits of the product and using the brand’s products.

Develops emotional connection

Brand personality is useful in developing an emotional connection with the target customers looking for more than substantial offerings from the brand. This emotional connection with the brand is useful in developing more meaningful brand interactions through customer interactions, loyalty marketing, word of mouth, and more.

Helps with easy communication

Brand personality helps with easy communication with the customers regarding the brand since the customers can relate to their traits with the personality traits of the brand.

---

Brand Personality as a Reflection of Customer’s Personality

Brand personality is a framework that is used by organisations for eliciting a positive response from customers regarding its product and services. A company’s brand can create an emotional response with the target consumer segment that is beneficial for the firm since the customer can relate to the traits that they possess with the personality traits of the brand which creates an emotional connection between the brand and the customer. Brands also possess certain personality traits such as human beings which evoke certain emotions in the customers which attracts them to the brand.

The various brand personality traits can be linked with scales of brand personality in the following manner.

• Excitement relates to traits of youthful and carefree
  
  
• Sincerity relates to trustworthiness, thoughtful, kindliness and innocence Ruggedness relates to the traits of rough, athletic and outdoorsy
  
  
• Competence relates to the traits of being successful, leadership and influential
  
  
• Sophistication relates to the traits of elegance, prestige and being pricy
  
  
• Desirability relates to exclusivity, allure and status

This means that the brands incorporate human characteristics to present themselves to customers and create a bond with the customers. Hence the organisation must understand the personality traits of their audience and their behaviour which helps with formulating the brand strategy of the organisation.

It is necessary to understand the brand psychology that helps shape the perceptions of the people so that they can see the brand in a specific manner. Brand personality helps with building brand loyalty and relationships with people and the emotional connections have a direct impact on sales and business which is eventually beneficial for the company.

According to Harvard Business School, “95% of purchasing decisions are based on feelings instead of logic. People tend to choose the brands that appeal to their subconscious, or “gut,” so brands that present themselves in a human and personal way do better than brands that rely on statistics or rationality.

Hence, the organisation needs to have a strong brand personality matching its products and services for attracting customers.

For this, the brands need to be:

• Authentic: Where the brand personality should always reflect the business goals and company culture
  
  
• Memorable: New brands need to stand out and be remembered by the people
  
  
• Value: The customers need to be aware of the value that is being provided by the product or services. The brand personality should be able to differentiate itself from the others and relate to the business model of the company
  
  
• Trustworthy: The Company should accurately define its brand messages and traits for people to have confidence in them and be able to trust them
  
  
• Authority: A brand personality that shows authority and confidence can attract more audience and business

---

Aaker’s Brand Personality Model

Jennifer Aaker was a behavioural psychologist and Standford researcher who created a brand personality framework in 1997 and she divided personality into five dimensions. Each of these features consisted of smaller personal traits.

Aaker’s five dimensions are:

Sincerity

Brands that are perceived as down-to-earth, honest, trustworthy, and cheery, for example, fall into this category. Sincere brands are frequently perceived in this light because they adhere to and express ethical principles, their dedication to the community, or customer concerns. Sincere companies also use clear consumer rules to minimise ambiguity, build strong customer connections, and support employees as well as the social and natural environment.

Genuine brands are seldom involved in scandals or contentious situations. The precise opposite is true. They recognise and behave as members of a bigger collective sociocultural group. As a result of any or all of these tactics, customers (or society as a whole) see them as genuine. For example, Propercorn is a family-run business with a simple goal: to obsess about popcorn and create delicious popcorn flavours.

Excitement

This dimension includes brands that are seen as inventive, current, inspirational, edgy, and spirited. As a result, these firms frequently employ bright logos, unusual typefaces, and depict themselves in unexpected and entertaining settings and scenarios. They are also regularly seen at sports championships and large-scale music events. Their marketing staff works hard to represent them as firms that “think beyond the box” in order to inspire and excite customers.

For example, BuzzFeed is known for being a brand that not only educates about trends but also shapes numerous trends for its target (youngsters). It is adventurous, lively, innovative, and up-to-date.

Competence

This dimension includes brands that are seen as inventive, current, inspirational, edgy, and spirited. As a result, these firms frequently employ bright logos, unusual typefaces, and depict themselves in unexpected and entertaining settings and scenarios. They are also regularly seen at sports championships and large-scale music events. Their marketing staff works hard to represent them as firms that “think beyond the box” in order to inspire and excite customers.

For example, SpaceX has carved its identity as a competent commercial American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services corporation as a private enterprise challenging an industry controlled by a sluggish government sector.

Sophistication

Consumers regard sophisticated products as high-class, romantic, charming, pompous, and glamorous. As a result, it is not surprising to see sophisticated branding on high-priced brands (for their product categories) in other sectors. Sophisticated branding may be seen in a variety of industries, including fashion and accessories (watches and clothing), automobiles, medical equipment, and food and eating.

It’s also highly frequent in feminine or female-oriented companies. Brands typically use delicate and thin typefaces, simple designs, and light colours, and are connected with appealing and premium locations to show refinement. They are also frequently seen in posh settings (luxury hotels, European cities, and modern companies).

For example, Dolce & Gabbana, one of the world’s largest and greatest luxury companies, uses strong communication and marketing techniques, as well as premium pricing, to retain its particular brand identity of being high-class and charming.

Ruggedness

Finally, this dimension comprises trademarks associated with the outdoors, toughness, masculinity, and westernism, for example. As a result, tough brands tend to be male-oriented, with brand ideas that include dark hues (typically black, grey, navy blue, green), powerful and thick typefaces, fewer fine details, and depict their goods in outdoor (mountains, rivers, farms, oceans, cliffs) and extreme circumstances (heavy rain, foggy weather, snow).

The overall goal is to communicate the concept that the product is resistant, sturdy, and designed for those who are fearless, willing to take chances, and do not want to live an average life. For example, there was a time when Old Spice lacked individuality. The corporation successfully shifted its branding approach and developed an unmistakable identity of being manly, tough, and hilarious.

According to Aaker, these features can be further divided into a set of traits. The brand’s personality is identified by ranking these traits on a scale of one to five where the scale of 1 is considered as least representative of the brand and the scale of 5 is the most descriptive and each rating describes the specific brand of interest.

• Down-to-earth: down-to-earth, family-oriented, small-town
• Honest: honest, sincere, real
• Wholesome: wholesome, original
• Cheerful: cheerful, sentimental, friendly
• Daring: daring, trendy, exciting
• Spirited: spirited, cool, young
• Imaginative: imaginative, unique
• Up-to-date: up-to-date, independent, contemporary
• Reliable: reliable, hardworking, secure
• Intelligent: intelligent, technical, corporate
• Successful: successful, leader, confident
• Upper class: upper class, glamorous, good-looking
• Charming: charming, feminine, smooth
• Outdoorsy: outdoorsy, masculine, western
• Tough: tough, rugged

This framework created by Aaker is used for finding out the status of the brand and to know the desired future status of the brand.

---

Brand Personality of Volvo

A Volvo is a dependable, strong, and dependable individual. Volvo takes great pleasure in its “decades of leadership in automobile safety” and values discipline, responsibility, and morality.

Furthermore, on Volvo’s About Us page, you can find phrases like “For nearly a century, we have been making life easier, better, and safer with cutting-edge technology” and “Volvo Cars is a brand for people who care about the world we live in and the people around us” — all of which point to a dependable personality.

Other automakers may emphasise a vehicle’s glitzy amenities, but Volvo continues to prioritise safety as its top priority.