Brand personality is a coherent set of non-functional characteristics with which consumers identify the brand. This article looks at the use of user imagery and symbolic advertising in creating brand personalities. Incidence and the frequency of success achieved through this kind of communication strategy makes us to conclude that imagery-based advertising and communication is one of the strongest and most frequently used strategies for branding success.
Brands have certain images and personalities in the eyes of the customers. A good brand tries to build brand equity by reinforcing this image through its communication strategy. A good integrated marketing communication strategy tries to build and sustain a desirable image in the eyes of the target audience so that the audience will perceive the brand as some form of human beings. A brand can have hard or functional associations and soft or symbolic associations. Combinations of soft and hard associations constitute brand personality. Advertising and other tools of integrated marketing communication help in building such hard and soft associations that contribute towards brand personality. Just as people have human characteristics, brands also acquire a set of characteristics over a period of time due to brand communication. If the advertising and other tools of brand communication can identify and develop a consistent image that can be reinforced over a period of time, it will lead to the creation of a distinct brand personality.
Brand personality refers to a set of human characteristics associated with a brand. Brand is personified rather than just characterized in human form. It is the consumer's emotional response to a brand through which attributes are personified and used to differentiate between alternate offerings. A study in brand personality helps understand how the personality of a brand enables a consumer to express his own self, ideal self, or specific dimensions of self through the use of the brand. Through such a personality statement, brands can be seen as young, old, masculine, aggressive, macho, sophisticated, upper class, run-of-the-mill, middle class, gentle and friendly, and in many other ways. Brands have come to symbolize certain important life values and associated emotional characteristics.
Brand managers use these soft associations to differentiate a brand in a product category. This is also used as a central driver for consumer preference and usage. When the brand does not directly deliver any kind of substantial benefit, brand managers create usage imageries and personalities around the brand as a reason for buying the brand. Brand personality can also be used as a common denominator to market across cultures. Global brands tend to keep the same personality across all the markets because a typical brand personality tends to serve a symbolic or self expressive function in contrast to product-related attributes which serve a utilitarian function. |
