Brand Management: Research, theory and practice

that the right means of communication for that personality is used. The right
platform for the brand personality requires that both the direct and indirect sources
of brand personality are considered. Target group users and early adopters can be
used as control groups and a measure for the evaluation of whether the brand is on
the right track and ensure a continuous alignment of the brand–self congruence.
Adopting a dynamic approach to brand personality including analysis of the rela-
tionship role different personalities are able to act out in the brand–consumer rela-
tionship is essential to gain the complete and full picture of how the brand
personality and the consumers interact.

148 Seven brand approaches

Comments from the ‘founding fathers’ (3)

Brands and personality: the origin

Joseph Plummer, Columbia Business School

As mass media evolved from print to electronic media in the 1940s, 1950s

and 1960s, the battle for brand name recall and recognition became intense.

Some agencies and advertisers created special ways to generate brand recall

beyond simply spending more money – Leo Burnett in particular, with their

ability to bring a brand name to life through memorable characters like Tony

the Tiger, the Marlboro cowboy and the Jolly Green Giant. I was lucky to be

a part of that period at Leo Burnett in the late 1960s and 1970s when these

and other advertising icons were born.

One of my favourites that I worked on was Morris the Cat for Nine Lives

cat food. Morris had an attitude, like most cats, and wouldn’t accept any old

brand – he liked Nine Lives and could ‘persuade’ his owners to serve it. The

magic of this idea was that cat owners tend to ‘humanize’ their cats. They

give them personalities, human feelings and ascribe a great sense of inde-

pendence to them.

In 1979 I joined Young & Rubicam, where I was blessed to work with

Frazier Purdy. In 1980 he and I were reviewing new campaigns for Dr

Pepper, a challenger brand in the United States to Coca-cola and Pepsi.

Frazier rejected the three campaigns because he said they didn’t ‘capture the

attitude of the brand’. That brilliant observation triggered my past expe-

rience with Morris and Nine Lives. If they could ‘humanize’ a cat, was it

possible that consumers could ‘humanize’ a brand? Could a brand have atti-

tudes – maybe even a personality? We undertook some very innovative

research with the help of Howard Leonard of the Y&R research department

to see if Dr Pepper had a personality, one that was perceptually different

from Coca-cola and Pepsi. The results were astonishing! Consumers could

imagine and express different personalities of the three brands through

choices of personality characteristics like fun-loving, masculine and ener-

getic, and a selection of symbols like certain animals.