When developing a brand personality, brand managers have direct and indirect
sources of brand personality at their disposal to create and shape the desired brand
personality. The direct and indirect sources of brand personality shape in interplay
the full picture of the brand personality and it is important that the behaviour,
signal value and symbolic clues expressed through both the direct and indirect
sources of brand personality are coherent to ensure that the consumers experience,
perceive and evaluate the brand personality as authentic and true to its own nature.
- Direct sources of brand personality.The set of human characteristics asso-
ciated with the stereotypical brand user, company employees, the CEO, brand
endorsers. These human characteristics can be of both a symbolic nature, like
sophistication, or they can have a demographic nature, like age, social class,
etc. The direct sources of brand personality are always ‘person-based’. The
founder of Virgin, Richard Branson, advocates new thinking and doing things
differently through all the products inherent in the Virgin brand. His person-
ality traits are transferred directly to the Virgin brand. Richard Branson is very
visible as a CEO and his personality helps promote a certain Virgin brand
personality to consumers. - Indirect sources of brand personality.All the decisions made about the
physical, functional and tangible aspects that can be experienced by the
Box 7.6 Brand personalities in practice
Sincere
Ford, Hallmark, Coca-cola are all examples of sincere personalities that
attempt to establish a warm and caring character. Sincere personalities are
good at establishing long-term relationships with consumers built on trust.
Sincere personalities inherently consist of traits such as warmth, family-
oriented and traditional. With these traits the brand is expected by the
consumer to display trustworthy and dependable behaviour, which is good
for building strong and long-lasting relationships.
Exciting
The exciting brand personality type is associated with traits like youth-
fulness and energy. Examples of exciting brand personalities are Virgin,
MTV and Pepsi. They usually target younger consumer demographics and
seek differentiation against an established market leader. The exciting
personality is good at generating attention and appears attractive and cool.
But the exciting personalities are seldom perceived as viable candidates for
long-term relationships.
The goals and vision of the brand should hence be reflected in the brand
personality. And the organization must make sure that they have the right
capabilities to deliver the traits and behaviour that consumers expect from
the brand personality chosen.The personality approach 141