Does Your Brand Have a Personality Disorder?

People buy from brands they KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST.  A brand is not just the physical attributes like your logo, color palette, and packaging.  A brand is what people think about it and how they perceive it.  It is how the customer values it.  The best brands actually generate emotion when the customer thinks of them.  How do they do that?  They have a clear Brand Personality and Brand Voice with messaging that reinforces both.

Most business owners understand the importance of messaging in their marketing, but often they tend to more “fall into” how they create the messaging for their marketing.  They don’t have a true vision of what their brand is, and often will even struggle to tell you what their brand stands for.  Messaging, or storytelling, is not just a strategic marketing tactic.  A compelling, memorable, and relatable message can also create a lasting bond between a customer and a brand.  People connect to each other through shared experiences and values. Stories allow people to express those experiences and values by displaying personality, vulnerability, and individuality. Think about some of the best books you’ve ever read.  As you get immersed in the story, you develop a relationship with the characters.  Just like a story can bond two people, a story can bond people to brands.

Determine Your Brand Personality

Before you can begin your messaging, you first have to understand your Brand Personality.   Brand Personality is the humanizing of a brand.  Brand personality refers to the human characteristics, emotions, and attributes embodied by a brand.  If you are just beginning your brand development process, make sure you first have a complete understanding of your customer and their customer value journey.  It will do you no good to create your brand personality if it doesn’t coincide with your customer.  By having a thorough understanding of your customer, you will be able to craft your brand personality in a way that builds that “know, like, and trust” factor. 

Three things that your brand personality should define:

1. What you stand for
2. What you represent
3. Why I’m doing what I’m doing

While there are many ways to determine a brand’s personality, two of the best are Jennifer Aaker’s Five Dimensions of Brand Personality and Carl Jung’s 12 archetypes.

5 Dimensions of Personality

Jennifer Acker designed a framework that posits that there are 5 dimensions to brand personality and each dimension contains facets.  Each facet then contains a series of traits.   While every brand can place somewhere on the spectrum for each dimension, the most enduring and strongest brand personalities primarily emphasize just one primary trait and optionally one secondary trait.  No one brand can be everything to everybody, so your brand should focus in one direction with clear and intentional messaging.

Carl Jung’s 12 Archetypes

The famous psychiatrist and psychologist, Carl Jung, founder of analytical psychology, developed 12 archetypes that he found to be representative of human behavioral patterns and motivations.  He believed a person’s identity is derived from our most primitive instincts and the collective unconscious.  These instincts form the most basic foundation of who we are, the stories we tell, and how our culture is derived.  Each person tends to have one dominant personality type, but often with a less strong back-up.

He felt that there were 4 basic needs that formed the essential goals at the center of his framework.  These needs and goals then formed the 12 main archetypes.

When properly identified, brand archetypes will reflect the personality of brands and will serve to better align brand personality with specific Customer Personas.  The twelve brand archetypes are:

• The Innocent – this archetype is comprised of optimists, romantics, and dreamers.  These brands exemplify tradition and nostalgia.  Brand Examples:  Little Debbie with both name and 1950’s packaging, Coca-Cola
• The Sage – this archetype is committed to seeking knowledge and wisdom.  These brands serve as mentors and advisors.  Brand Examples:  Google, PBS, Harvard
• The Explorer – this archetype eschews boundaries and limits and is constantly seeking new experiences.  These brands are non-conformists and seek adventure.  Brand Examples: Harley-Davidson, Jeep, REI, Red Bull
• The Outlaw – this archetype questions authority and fights the system.  These brands are rule-breakers and misfits who aim to disrupt and destroy the status quo by shifting power.  Brand Examples: Virgin, Apple, Howard Stern, Miley Cyrus, Robin Hood
• The Magician – this archetype is all about making magic happen.  These brands are the charismatic visionaries who make dreams a reality.  They are transformers and inventors, creators and healers.  Brand Examples:  Disney, Absolut, Polaroid, Dyson
• The Hero –  this archetype is on a mission to make the world a better place.  These brands are fearless, strong, and agile.  They are the front-line warriors, superheroes, and soldiers.  Brand Examples:  Marvel, US Army, Nike, Duracell
• The Lover – this archetype inspires to create romance and commitment.  It seeks intimate moments.  These brands are all about relationships, passion, and compassion.  They are the partners, team-builders, and sensualists.  Brand Examples:  Victoria’s Secret, Hershey’s Kisses, Agent Provocateur, Channel, Haagen Dazs
• The Jester – this archetype brings joy to the world through mischief, humor, fun, and irreverence.  These brands are the comedians and pranksters.  Brand Examples: Old Spice, M&Ms, Ben & Jerry’s
• The Member (or The Every Man) – this archetype seeks connections and belonging and is supportive, faithful, and down-to-earth.  These brands have solid values.  They represent the person you want to go have a beer with.  They seek to fit in.  Brand Examples:  Boston Lager (with their Cousin from Boston promotion), Dunkin Donuts (America runs on Dunkin), IKEA, Home Depot
• The Caregiver – this archetype is altruistic, generous, and empathetic.  These brands exemplify selflessness in the belief of a life of serving others, nurturing others, and protecting and caring for others.  Brand Examples:  Johnson & Johnson, Cambell’s Soup, UNICEF, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, Greenpeace
• The Ruler – this archetype seeks to crush the competition and looks to create order from chaos.  They are powerful leaders who believe that winning is the ultimate goal.  These brands are role models, leaders, aristocrats, and politicians.  Brand Examples:  Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, British Airways
• The Creator – this archetype is imaginative, inventive, and driven.  It is the artist with boundless imagination.  These brands are the visionaries who create the world in new, unique ways.  They desire innovation, creativity, and perfection.  Creators differ from Magicians by digging in tactically to create covet-worthy products.  Brand Examples:  Adobe, Crayola, Legos, Tinker Toys

Just like the Queen of England is very different from David Copperfield, so is Disney a drastically different brand from Dyson Vacuums.  The messaging that would sell one product would obviously not sell the other.  But understanding the personality of a brand is not enough.  The brand must also determine its voice.

Brand Voice

Whether you are familiar with the term or not, you experience Brand Voice every day. So what exactly is it? Brand voice refers to the energy, voice, vibe, and emotion infused into a company’s communications. It encompasses everything from the words and language you use, to the emotion and memories your marketing assets aim to invoke.

Coca-Cola is a great example when it comes to consistent brand voice. There’s a reason they are one of the most recognizable and popular brands in the world. The Coca-Cola voice is positive, friendly, and down-to-earth. They are always showing us concepts of what a happy life looks like accompanied by a positive voice.

The digital landscape is crowded. It’s filled with chatter from brands and individuals alike. You can only stand out so much based on your visual content, logo, or product features alone. Your written content needs that same attention and consistency you give to the other elements of your brand presence.

Tone

More than ever, readers want to make an emotional connection with the brands they follow or give business to. They want to read content that speaks to them, not at them, and not past them. This is where the tone of your messaging comes in.

You may think you’re writing in an easy, friendly tone, but often your audience may see it differently.

If you haven’t created a personal or company brand yet, and need some direction here are some questions to get you started.  Or you can book a strategy session with us below:

1. How will your brand make people feel?
2. What makes your business different?
3. What are your core beliefs and values?
4. What type of company culture do you want?
5. What’s your message?
6. Who are your ideal people or customers?
7. How are you influential?
8. Does your product, service, or brand give people a transformation?
9. What problem do you solve?
10. What guarantees success and failure to you?
11. What’s your niche?
12. Are you authoritative in your niche?

Book a Branding Strategy with Innov8tive Brand Management today!