Brand Personalities - Essay Example

?Brand Personalities a) Literature Review of on the theory of brand personality: Brand personality is a group of personal characters related and connected with a brand. Jennifer Aker, in her book, Dimensions of brand personality,” Journal of Marketing Research, defines brand personality as “a sequence of individual characters related with the brand”. Brand personality is a significant tool for brand positioning in the market. Moreover it acts as a chief tool for preparing selling and advertising policies. Brand personality is a way to build up a sustainable distinctiveness in a market proliferated by the brands where it has became gradually more difficult to move towards with the branded products that are really different in consumer’s eye. Brand Personality: A Comparison with Human Personality: Hans Ouwersloot and Ana Maria Tudorica in their article “Brand Personality Creation through Advertising (2001)” says that brand personality replicates how people experience a brand, rather than what they believe the brand is or what it does. He says that the emblematic use of brands is possible for the reason that the consumers frequently give human personalities to brands. Clients perceive the brand on aspects that naturally capture personality of a person, and widen that to the field of brands. The aspects of brand personality are defined by widening the aspects of human personality to the field of brands. One means to measure and conceptualize the human personality is by way of approach of trait, which explains that the personality is a group of traits. “A trait is defined as component of a person's behavior that is assumed to serve as an explanation of his or her enduring personal characteristics” (Trait 2012). Human personality individuality or characters are determined by multi-aspect factors such as behavior of individual’s, appearance, beliefs, attitude and the demographic characteristic. On the basis of these dimensions of human personality the five dimensions related to brands are identified and they are Excitement, Sincerity, Competence, Ruggedness and Sophistication. J. Aker, in the article “Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research, 1997” mentioned that the brand personality dimensions match with three of the five human personality aspects i.e. Excitement, Sincerity and Competence. The brand personality aspects such as Ruggedness and Sophistication vary from the aspects of human personality. According to Jennifer Aker, these brand personality dimension should have function in several ways or influence the preference of consumers for several reasons. The Brand Personality Creation: The traits of brand personality are shaped and influenced by a consumer’s direct or indirect contact with a brand. A brand, can’t feel, think, or act like an individual,. A brand is merely a set of perceptions in the consumer’s mind. Consumers admit the actions of marketing to brands that are humanized. Personality characteristics are related with a brand by the individuals connected to that particular brand. The other way to influence and form the brand personality is imagery of user. Imagery user is defined as the group of human traits associated with the stereotype or typical user of the brand. The personality characteristics of the individual that are associated with a brand are shifted to the brand directly. Rajagopal in his publication named Brand Excellence: measuring the impact of advertising and brand personality on buying decisions, Measuring Business Excellence, 2006 explains that the effect that advertising have on the growth of the symbolic dimensions of the brands and this in turn affect the brand personality in a positive manner. Eventually, the spokesperson’s personalities are shifted to the brand. The relation between brand and person may have a more personal nature. One of the main advantages of brand personalities are that on the basis of their unique personalities, consumers will be able to distinguish between brands. Another benefit is that the brand’s image can be interpreted by the consumer in such a manner that will be personally more significant. The consumer places an additional effort in creating and utilizing the brand personality. In order to create a brand personality in the mind of consumers, it has to be first linked to the products that are advertised. The brand personality is created by consumer and not established from the advertisement. In other words, if the shift of the brand personality is incomplete within the advertisement; the connection has to be made by the viewer between the personality of brand communicated in the advertisement and the advertised product. The consumer has to link the personality of the person that has seen in the advertisement, or the personality resulting from the significance of the product to the product advertised. By this way consumers give personal traits to the brand and give personalities of human to them. Thus, the brand personality formation of the product advertised requires the consumers to connect the human qualities to that product advertised. The design and shift of the brand personality is entirely dependent on the way by which the advertisement is processed by consumers. b) Analysis of Brand Personality for: Nokia: Nokia Group is a manufacturer of mobile phones based on Finland and they has been progressively functioning on their brand name of corporate and the consumer’s perception management for more than five years. Its hard work have paid off, for the reason that now Nokia is one of the top most brand in several markets across the globe, successfully extricated Motorola from the number one position. Nokia has built their brand using the above mentioned principles and has been constantly managed well across the entire markets. They had lend personality to their products, devoid of giving even names to them. Otherwise, one can say that despite of the creation of any sub-brands, by concentrating on the corporate brand, they became successful in giving a standard brand personality for individual products. The brand personality of Nokia is portrayed by dependability, trust, caring and understanding. Nokia stands for proficiency, as a person. This means its reliability, intelligence and succession. It always stands for the sincerity, and that means honest, down-to-earth, healthy and cheerful. Only descriptors in terms of number are used on the products. This does not still become visible on product themselves. That is the power of the Nokia’s corporate brand. Nokia brand has many personality traits, but the work force may not have to memorize all characteristic. However, they have to remember the overall notion of the attribute’s lists. Since the attention is on building relationship with the customer, the personality of Nokia is similar to a faithful friend. Nokia brand’s heart is at building trust and friendship. And the human aspect formulated by the brand personality leads into the strategy for the brand positioning. “A friend is there for you, treats you with respect, is comfortable, is someone you like, and is an enjoyable person with whom to spend time” (Nokia Brand Dimensions 2005). Apple: Apple's Branding Strategy: The branding strategy of Apple focuses on emotions. The brand personality  of Apple is about the lifestyle, liberty recovered; imagination; innovation; dreams hopes, aspirations; passion; and power-to-the-people through technology. The brand personality of Apple is also regarding the simplicity and elimination of complication from lives of people; product design driven by people; and also about a truly humanistic business with a sincere relationship with the customers. Even though the Apple’s iTunes music and iPhone business is gainful, Apple's projects into the areas of these products were based on a tactic of utilizing music business to facilitate the boosting of Apple's appeal in computing business. Apple uses iPod, iPhone, iTunes and iPad to emphasize and give a boost to the Apple’s brand personality. These product initiatives in turn are growing as highly significant, attracting brand image in the consumer segment’s mind. Another product of Apple is iBangle. The strong brand personality or the image differentiation of Apple among the customers and internationally enabled them to market the iBangle more efficiently to the targeted market. The texture, benefits, and distinctive design of iBangle helped the company to generate an impression of having a music player in the mind of the customers. For the purpose of branding, Apple logo is implanted on iBangle and the color for the product is silver to outfit the personality for unisex customer and also to set up as a stylish bangle. The brand personality tailored for this product includes cool, stylish, trendy, originality and the different thought. Samsung: Samsung has engraved an innovative image in the customers mind. The brand is differentiated from the competitors by way of their international class of designs and technology. Samsung became the world’s top brand in digital and electronics industry. This accomplishment is strongly associated to the company’s sponsorship strategies. “Samsung associate its name to the “TOP” plan, which is “The Olympic Partner” plan” (Samsung - The TOP Brand in the World 2000). This plan has led Samsung to be among the top in brands in the world. Yet, there are several other programs to hold up the sponsorship strategy of Samsung. Devoid of these tactics the plan to be in top will have no strong efficiency and effectiveness. “Samsung’s philosophy is “devote our human resources and technology to create superior products and services, thereby contributing to a better global society” (Values & Philosophy 1995). Based on this philosophy Samsung has accepted a strategy based on sport which contributed in creating their personality of brand. The international consumer electronics business recognizes the elementary role of sport and Olympic Games in developing its brand personality as a promoter. Use of Brand Personality Theory to Support Analysis: Brand personality has turn out to be an increasingly significant concept in brand image theory and various types of factor based research is the way most broadly used in the study of brand personality. There have been reviews of some facets of early factor model, most important to an improvement and development in the methods employed in development of factor model. On the other hand, several harms remain which have so far to be addressed, and these lift questions regarding what accurately the factor models are determining. “Brand personality" is a term for the human characteristics or emotions that distinguish a brand. Companies use brand personality to identify their ideal consumer and target sales and marketing to that demographic. The employment of brand personality can inspire consumer passion for a specific brand. Brand personalities are broken into five dimensions or categories” (Jennifer 2011). The traditional vision is that personality traits turn out to be connected with a brand through the citizens who represent it - for example the company's workers or CEO, the typical consumer of a brand and the brand’s endorsers. This way to create brand personality is explained as the straight way, for the reason that the personality traits of the individual connected with the brand name are transferred straightforwardly to the brand. It is based on the idea that human being and brand personality traits share comparable conceptualization. The Aaker scale includes five different dimensions of the brand personality: that are, Ruggedness, Sincerity, Competence, Sophistication, and Excitement, (Aaker 1997). All these five dimensions are vary in their nature and are characteristically created by different sources. A survey was carried out to test this assumption. Some examples of personality theories with the product brand are: Sophistication: Dove, Achievement: Boost Competence: Kingfisher Airlines Sincerity: Life Insurance Corporation Ruggedness: Bajaj Pulsar “Jennifer Aaker’s paper, “Dimensions of Brand Personality” (1997), contributes a way to measure the much talked- about and interesting notion of brand personality. The objective of her study is to identify brand personality dimensions as perceived in the consumers’ mind. Her study of 631 subjects rated 37 brands on 114 personality traits. She presents a valid and reliable framework, which measures brand personality from. The construct exists via five core dimensions, each divided into a set of facets” (Angeline Close – Brand Personality n.d.). Meanings of every product play a significant position in contemporary customers’ choices. In the postmodern market, commercial merchandise frequently carries out as social identity markers, in addition to carriers of functional qualities. Brand personality, normally referring to the person characteristics connected with a brand, is a branding idea that elucidates a facet of dynamics of branding which is on the subject of some of the non-utilitarian brand ascriptions. Brand personality of the every product is the core of postmodern dynamics of the product branding, which tries to fulfill a multi-faceted job in consumer-organization in addition to communication within-organization. Brand personality also serves as an effectual communication instrument of the consumer-organization. It facilitates an organization to recognize brand perceptions of the customers even the concealed ones by its projection methods by way of (human) metaphor. Marketers can then make use of customers’ perceptions to create their marketing strategies turn out to be more focused on customers. Just like a human being the brand of the products has certain dimensions which are considered while branding the products. These branding personality will help the consumers to select the brand which proviso them satisfaction from the product. According to Aaker (1997), the brand of the product is related to the group of human characteristics. All the firms producing branded products use this personality theory to gain competitive advantage in the market. The marketers adopt the brand personality theory to make the customers attracted towards the product. The customers will buy the product which stands close to him in terms of his personality traits. “The brand personality should be treated very much like a person or character, as this format is easiest for consumers to understand and accept. This is because consumers have a vast experience of dealing with human relationships and the nuances of differences in personalities. They are able to distinguish between subtle differences in brand personalities and build up their own loyal or disloyal relationships with them” (Brand Personality n.d). As a consumer, the two real and model self approach into play in the market. While a customer attempt to transmit his personality with the personality of the product, and the brand, the real-self, comes into play on the other hand, when he attempt to equal the product and the brand personality with his aspirational group, and seek to purchase the similar, the model-self comes into play. This verifies the theory that self-concept is strongly associated with personality and consumers would purchase such products or services, which is equivalent with their model and personalities. The significant variables of this structure include the pleasant appearance of the brand personality, the uniqueness of the brand personality, the self-expressive worth of the brand personality, optimistic word-of-mouth information of the brand, and brand faithfulness. The experiential consequences signify that there are constructive dealings among pleasant appearance, uniqueness, and self-expressive value of brand personality. These relations had a statistically important consequence on consumers' recognition with a brand. In addition, brand recognition had a complete result on word-of-mouth information and an implicit result on brand loyalty. Various researches show that the consumer behavior has specified substantial concentration to the building of brand personality, which links the person’s characteristics with the brand. The marketers determined on the association among brand and product in conditions of personality proportions and planned to examine whether personality of brand influence the consumers’ assessment of product personality. If personality qualities connected with the consumer of a product turn out to be further prominent for the consumer of a community individuality of product associated to the consumer of a useful product, it is moreover sensible that relations about brand’s personality pursue the similar outline. Consequently, a brand in the group of social identity products should be further and stronger related with personality character than a brand in the group of useful products. Brand personality can control the liking of the consumer and selection in a variety of means. By improving the brand, brand personality give chance for constructing strong consumer brand associations. More over, by indicating significant quality in social surroundings, brand personality can permit brands to be utilized by the customers in an active way by making possible social connections and making interpersonal associations. Brand personality can be mainly helpful for counterfeit consumer brand relations in a area. Brand personality may grasp the input to shaping connection with and attractive to acquire the chance of these customers. Generating a logical personality in the course of the broad collection of brand behavior is prepared by guarantee that brand personality is articulated in all the performance and statement of the brand. It is essential to give a strong notice to establish brand consumer and target consumers, as the brand personality is shaped during recurring dealings among the brand and consumers. As contrasted to low price plan approve by retailer store brand name to get consumer acknowledgment, producer brands are optional to accept high price plan to depict product superiority or brand personality to succeed acknowledgment from customers. Also in addition to the optimistic possessions of encouragement activities and store representation, both retailers’ store brands and manufacturers’ brands affix new features to products carefully to improve, continue, and raise consumer appreciation and purchase plan. c) Recommendations: Brand personality permits to create connection among brand & consumer with emotional substance.  The amount of nearness among brand and consumer personality, will pressure the buying purpose and brand loyalty.  Brands require modernizing personality to continue, as target consumers personality might vary over a period of time, owing to variation in cultural, economic, channel coverage etc. Brand personality should not be puzzled with target consumer’s distinctiveness. Brand personalities can bring better returns to the organizations. From the three organizations, Apple, Samsung and Nokia, Samsung organization is seemed to be poor in adopting the brand personality for their products. The organization need to adopt the suitable brand personality to attract their target market. Some of the recommendations for Samsung companies to improve the brand personality are as follows: Establish and discover new features of a innovative promotion. Present innovative and creative ways for the formation of a new or the re-creation of a present brands personality. Expand and assess new products, imaginative idea, and strategic marketing plans for broader significance and enthusiasm. Make new, advance thoughts in unanticipated ways by means of a relative approach. The marketer should see that both internal and external factors are operated methodically which necessitate deep and reliable power and dimension of the brand personality. The brand personality raises the inclination and usage of the brand, appear feeling in customers and add to faith and devotion. Better projection techniques and effective advertising will create an effective brand personality which will attract the target customer. Preparing a campaign program that customers can participate will help the organization to know the perception and changes in personality traits of the different customers. Reference List Angeline Close – Brand Personality n.d. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 17 April 2012] Brand Personality n.d. StudyMarketing.org. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 17 April 2012] Jennifer, K 2011. What Are the Five Dimensions of Brand Personality? eHow. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 17 April 2012] Nokia Brand Dimensions 2005. WriteWork. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 17 April 2012] Read more: What Are the Five Dimensions of Brand Personality? eHow.com [Online] Available at [Accessed on 17 April 2012] Samsung - The TOP Brand in the World 2000. 123HelpMe.com. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 17 April 2012] Trait 2012. WebFinance, Inc. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 17 April 2012] Values & Philosophy 1995. Samsung. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 17 April 2012] Read More