PHOENIX (Mar. 15, 2023) – /Zion & Zion, a full-service, global marketing agency, released part three of a study that explores the relative brand personalities of 45 top U.S. brands. In part three of multi-part study, the Zion & Zion research team explored how brand personalities form groups or clusters of similar brand perception.
In order to further understand how consumers perceive the personalities of top U.S. brands the team performed k-Means cluster analysis based on their average personality scores using 11 dimensions to evaluate whether the brands formed groups that are similar to each other within the group as a whole, but distinct from other sets of brands. This allowed the team to better understand how brands group naturally across industries.
The number of clusters was optimized based on the results of two techniques – the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), which is a method of calculating how well a model fits the data, and the Elbow Technique, which allows the researcher to evaluate improvements in how they fit across a range of potential cluster numbers.
“It’s important to keep in mind that each brand has its own unique profile that needs to be understood in relation to the brand’s positioning and target segment,” said Zion & Zion CEO Aric Zion. “It would be misleading to conclude that a brand is strong only if it scores high on all appeal facets and low on all negative facets. Brands can perform well if they have middling scores on all of these dimensions, so this is not a hard and fast rule. Being perceived negatively by some consumers may be acceptable if the brand’s target segment sees the brand in a positive light.”
The results show that the leading brands in our study form four distinct clusters. One of these clusters scored high on all five classic brand personality dimensions, high on clarity and originality and low on negative personality traits. Seven of the 11 brands in this cluster hail from the technology industry. Two brands form their own cluster at the opposite end of the scale, Wells Fargo and Facebook, both beset by recent scandals tarnishing their brands.
View the full research report here: Part III: The Brand Personality Of 45 Major U.S. Brands.
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