A brand’s personality is comprised of human qualities that help define your brand. When developing a brand, it’s crucial to recognize that its characteristics play a critical part in consumer behavior and purchase intentions, and there is a necessity for differentiation in today’s competitive landscape. A brand stands out when it can connect to a customer; when it can relate and mirror qualities that a customer possesses or wishes to possess. How does one measure brand personality appeal, however? Among key approaches, researchers have developed theories and measurement models based on three components: favorability, clarity, and originality. By assessing these aspects, a company can understand how their brand compares to others in the market and explore new opportunities to make enhancements to their customer experience.
Favorability
Favorability is the extent to which a customer positively regards the brand’s personality. To possess positive favorability, a brand must satisfy the customer’s needs and wants. Favorability can be complex to measure, but it’s not impossible. Companies can track how customers are engaging with their advertising campaigns to gain a better understanding of how they’re performing in the market. Brand experience is everchanging as traditional and digital advertising enhances over time. If a company is not able to keep up with consumer expectations, customers lose interest and brand favorability declines.
Clarity
Brand messaging needs to be consistent across all channels. Research has proven that consumers will pick a brand that they are familiar with over others. To achieve familiarity, a brand needs to be clear in messaging and targeting. Clarity is more than just defining a mission, creating a logo, and having a storefront. To develop this clarity, a brand needs to seek its purpose, showcase its benefits, target ideal leads, and create unique value for consumers. Consistency is key and if a company can showcase true authenticity through storytelling, consumers can clearly pick a reputable brand out from the rest.
Originality
Originality is defined as the consumers’ ability to perceive a brand’s personality as novel and distinct. Today, it’s incredibly rare to come across a brand that has a completely unique idea. It’s originality that compels someone to purchase from one company over another. Defining that originality will showcase uniqueness in the mundane. Take Alani Nu Energy for example. Alani Nu was founded in 2018 and is a premium wellness brand in the supplement industry in the United States. Their branding and packaging are easily distinguishable in Target, GNC, Amazon, and many more stores across the nation. Although this brand is new to the marketplace, it has captured the attention of millennials and Gen Z due to their social media presence and unique brand personality appeal. As a result of its personified brand, they have successfully differentiated themselves from the typical personas of the wellness industry.
Think of the top five companies in the world. Does Apple come to mind? Apple’s brand personality possesses favorability through their characteristics, inspiration, dreams, lifestyle, and innovation. They portray clarity and simplicity, yet their products are complex. Their brand personality is based on emotions and stays original. They give off an appeal that is inclusive to everyone. Apple is a prime example of how success looks with brand personality appeal in the technology space.
Staying Relevant
Brand personality measurement extends beyond the brand personality appeal approach. In fact, our market research team utilized yet another approach related to measuring brand personality of five dimensions and 42 traits in this research article: 26 top U.S. quick-service restaurant chains. As mentioned in the article, Freling, Henard, and Crosno define brand personality appeal as Conceptualized and empirical validation, “the greater perceived brand personality appeal, the greater its ability to linger in a consumer’s mind until the next promotional cycle returns to reinforce the image.” Mastering the logic and execution behind favorability, clarity, and originality will help your brand stay relevant and thrive in today’s market.