Understanding Brand Personality examples and types

With this piece, we take a look at Brand Personality examples and types. We understand the concept of Brand Personality and then head on to understand different types of Brand Personalities with suitable examples. Let’s jump right in the piece!

Brands have personalities too!

Ever wondered why Woodland seems like a lumberjack camping in the woods over any free weekend? Or why Sunsilk feels like a touch of a soft, feminine woman who absolutely knows her power? Or why Nike seems to resemble that cool cousin of yours who is always off following his instincts and living THE life?

Nope, you aren’t weird, this is proof that the brands have been successful in projecting their personalities. Brand Personality, today, has become an important part of connecting with the consumer. Gone are the days when consumers look for functional benefits to solve their problems, emotional benefits have taken the front seat today. People look for comfort, familiarity, assurance while going for a product/service. A brand can invoke these feelings by developing a personality with traits that a consumer can connect with.

For all you know, even the celebrities or influencers that these brands choose align highly with the Brand Personality. Doing this bit wrong can literally impact your brand in a wrong way.

Why do we say this? Can you imagine a laid-back celebrity advocating for Red bull? It just won’t work. So, it is very important that influencers highly align with your brand personalities.

But to be honest, after the Binod madness on Twitter, we highly doubt if personalities are to be taken as serious today. With brands trying to walk an extra mile to excite their audience, the concept is only getting complicated. It is also important to know that a brand can have multiple personalities, and these personalities are usually plotted on a spider chart, see the example below for Nike. However, there’s one shining personality, and that is what the brand is known for.

Ideally, there are 5 broad categories of brand personalities. Let’s deep dive into them to make more sense of how nuanced an entity a brand is.

Related: Take a look at the Rise of Influencer Marketing

Brand Personality examples and Types

Excitement

Common characteristics of this personality are carefree, spirited, impulsive, youthful.

Nike is a very famous example of this brand personality type. The idea here is to understand that Nike as a brand is trying to emotionally tap into a consumer’s feeling of excitement, the need to seek out carefree adventures and create a connection with them.

Related: Take a look at the case study of MTV

Sincerity

Common characteristics of this personality are wholesome, cheerful, honest, down-to-earth.

Sometimes, a brand feels like a warm hug on a rainy day. Everything about the brand’s communications, packaging, and products feel wholesome and honest. One such brand is Dove with its beautiful campaigns, featuring women of all ages, skin tones, and stages of life. The ‘Real Beauty’ campaign launched by the brand was a success and ended up increasing company sales. Not only sales but the campaign also helped women over the world gain more self-confidence.

Related: Take a look at the rise of Organic Skincare category

Competence

Common characteristics of this personality are successful, intelligent, reliable, and hard-working.

You just KNOW you can rely on some brands; it is like a gut feeling. Let me redirect you to the idea that it isn’t a gut feeling, it is a conditioning. The brand has consistently conditioned you to see it as a reliable, older brother, or a successful, no-nonsense, result-oriented brand. One such brand is Google. It is absolutely trusted globally and everyone knows what it means when they hear the words “I will Google it”. In fact, it is so reliable, that Google itself uses Google to market itself!

Ruggedness

Common characteristics of this personality are rough & tough, outdoorsy, adventurous, athletic.

Some brands immediately conjure up a picture of an absolutely tough lumberjack, ready to strap on his leather boots and take to work. Timberland, Old Spice, Marlboro are examples of such brands that seek to tap into the raw, outdoorsy streak of the target audience they correspond to.

Sophistication

Common characteristics of this personality are prestigious, elegant, classy, sometimes even pretentious

Apple. Chanel. Tiffany & Co., Rolex.

Aren’t you immediately swaddled in a luxurious haze, dreaming about living the life of classy Gods and Goddesses?

Well, there goes the conditioning playing their tricks on you. These brands have worked hard to associate themselves with an elegant, classy personality that knows its exclusivity, yet is decent enough to not throw it in your face.

Building a brand personality is intricate and allows little room for error. Although, your brand can be sophisticated and/or rugged. It is crucial to make an authentic personality that is convincing enough for the customers to believe and connect with. The modern consumer is spoilt for choice, he will flip if he stops connecting with the brand or gets disappointed with the brand.

Studies have shown that about 300% of emotionally connected customers remain loyal to their brand of choice. 300%? Talk about over-achievers like Elon Musk, am I right?

Related: Take a look at the Story of Titan: India's most successful consumer brands 

The Author

This piece was penned by Mahek Mirchandani.  If you liked this piece, go ahead and share this piece on WhatsApp?

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