sincere personality traits encourage progressively stronger relationships compared
with exciting brands. This is why sincere personalities are often valued as a more
stable and better choice for a long-term relationship as opposed to exciting brand
personalities. In practice, considering and managing a brand personality is closely
related to the management of the relationship that brands have with consumers. But it
is not only in practice that these two concepts are becoming more and more inter-
twined. Some of the more prominent researchers of respectively the personality
approach (Jennifer Aaker) and the relational approach (Susan Fournier) along with
Adam Brasel have joined forces and conducted an interesting study exploring how
different personalities affect the interaction between the brand and the consumer as
the relationship evolves. The study also indicates the boundaries of and can provide
guidelines for appropriate behaviour of different personality types. A conclusion of
the study is hence that a sincere brand personality poses much higher demands for
accuracy and infallibility. Consumers are much less forgiving if a sincere brand
personality makes a mistake than if an exciting brand personality commits that same
mistake. This can have serious consequences on how the relation between the brand
and the consumer can evolve.
The personality approach 145Box 7.7 When good brands do bad
The article ‘When good brands do bad’ explores the correlation between
brand personality and consumer–brand relationships. For this purpose
Aaker et al. (2004) set up a field study: two online film processing
companies, one with a sincere brand personality (expressed through pre-
tested graphic element, tonality, font, content, and links to other sites), the
other more exciting. The idea was to expose the customers of the two
different brand personalities to the same transgression, followed by
attempts to recover and excuse the transgression. Since transgressions
according to theory are almost inevitable in long relationships, it is of major
importance how consumers respond to them and the damage can be limited.
The evolution of the relationship would hence consist of comparable trans-
gressions and attempts to resolve the situation. It turned out that the
consumers were much more reluctant to forgive the online film processing
company with the sincere brand personality than the exciting brand person-
ality. The sincere brand showed no sign of recovery after reparation
attempts, whereas the exciting brand character shows signs of a
strengthened relationship after a transgression if recovery activities were
attempted immediately after the transgression had occurred.
Aaker et al. (2004) concludes that the evolution and boundaries of
consumer-brand relationships are to a great extent affected by what person-
ality type the brand possesses. The study illustrates how transgressions
brands commit are perceived differently depending on what personality
types that brand has. The study hence demonstrates the interrelation