A Visual Tool for Brand Personality Development - 12 November 2009

Read this article in Chinese (translated by Lv Fan)

“Volkswagen is really down-to-earth.” “Nike is exiting.” These examples show that consumers use personality traits when they communicate about brands among each other.  Brand personality is the set of personality traits that consumers associated with a brand. Brand personality is related to human personality theory that explains human behavior and preferences on the basis of personality traits. Personality traits are distinguishing characteristics of a person. They are a readiness to think or act in a similar fashion in response to a variety of different stimuli or situations. So, the traits of a person define behaviour to a large extent and consistent over time: an extravert person will behave in an extravert way, while an introvert person will most of the time behave in an introvert way. The value of human personality is found in the potency of the model to forecast human behavior. If a person is introvert he or she can be expected to behave in this way most of the time. Next, personality steers preference. For example women prefer more than men people who show higher levels of socially desirable traits. 

Brands, like people, can use the potency of personality. Indeed, research on brand personality shows that brand personality influence consumers’ self expressions, consumer behavior and brand loyalty. Govers and Schoormans (2005) showed that consumers prefer products with a personality that fit their own personality: extrovert consumers prefer extrovert products. Research furthermore has shown that people can recognize personality traits in products and brands (Govers, Hekkert and Schoormans, 2004). This means that a well designed personality of a brand can be used to communicate with consumers, and subsequently can be used as decisive factor in the marketplace. So, brand personality can be used to characterize a brand in the market: we are an agreeable brand; to position a brand against competitors: our brand is the most exiting brand in the market; and to fit a brand to customer’s values: we are a warm and friendly brand like yourself.

Aaker (1997) defined a model for the personality of brands. Her model was developed for the American market. She proposes a brand personality model that consists of five dimensions: sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness (see Fig. 1). However, brands carry cultural meaning. Next, differences exist in the importance of specific personality traits among cultures. To answer to the cross-cultural differences Aaker (2001) redefined her model for Japan and Spain. Further research was conducted by other researchers, who explored various brand‐personality models for different countries, like Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Korea. Although, the models all have their cultural specificity, they all show resemblance to Aaker’s five-factor model that is still the most widely used brand personality model on worldwide scale.

Define the Personality of a Brand

To use brand personality strategically, a company needs to define a specific personality for a brand. This is however by no means easy. On the moment, several brand consulting companies, who have started to use brand personality models as a strategic tool for their clients use the verbal meaning of each brand personality trait and conducting quantitative calculations to help clients to locate their brand personality factors. Generally, people can quite easily and validly use personality traits in describing human behavior. This ability is based on daily practice from a young age on and on the fact that human personality is seen constantly in human behavior. We recognize a person who is aggressive, but also someone who is nice by their behavior. In other words: personality traits are connected directly to behavior. Brand personality is a more abstract concept, and more difficult to recognize as brands show less directly their personality. It is therefore highly probably that different stakeholders have a different interpretation of personality traits and as such the use of personality traits in a branding context might be suboptimal. In this paper we describe a tool that can be used in strategic brand personality discussions. The application of this tool will facilitate the definition and development of the personality of a brand.

A visual tool for brand personality development

The central part of our tool is a visual map that is based on images of the most relevant brand personality traits. Brands can position themselves on our map to find out what their brand personality is, what the brand personality of other brands is and what the difference is between a present and a wanted brand personality.

We decided to develop a visual map because of the difficulty that arises with the verbal brand personality descriptions, mainly because of different interpretations of the verbal concepts. Meanwhile, research on visual cognition had proven that visualization is superior in actual, dynamical and motional presenting, and it could also improve people's communication, thinking and creativities. Especially compared with verbal language, visual image represents the information consisting of spatial, non-arbitrary and continuous characteristics. This is why we start this project to integrate visualization ideas into the concept of brand personality. In our visualization research we translate brand personality traits from verbal words into visual images. Next we developed a tool in which our visuals are used to enhance discussion in companies that want to develop or redefine brand and product personality.

Brand personality images

The first step in our project was to collect images that show the meaning of brand personality traits as accurate as possible. Govers (Govers, Mugge and Schoormans, 2009) has created a visual map in her thesis on product personality. We borrowed and improved her approach. Our process was basically divided into three phases: 1 searching for a large amount of images for each of the five personality factors, 2 test the validity of the images with the use of group sessions; 3 test the resulting images with the use of a larger scale questionnaire survey.

• Phase 1. Collection of images. In order to collect a great number of images we involved a small number of participants. Based on a long list of key words, they searched for images in a wide range of places in both digital as well as non-digital sources. We had decided to limit the content of the images to flora, fauna, natural sceneries, human, people’s real life situation, artifacts, and architectures. This was decided to limit cultural differences on visual perceptions as much as possible. By the end of phase 1, more than 800 pictures were collected.
• Phase 2a. The first reduction phase. We needed to reduce the amount of images. Therefore we decided to conduct a first reduction, bringing the number of images down to 200 images. All 800 images were evaluated by the authors based on the following criteria: strong perception, universal cognition, and visual content. This procedure resulted in deleting 600 images.
• Phase 2b. Second reduction phase. In this second reduction phase we used 12 participants in 4 group sessions to bring the number of images (that were made into 95mm*95mm cards and labeled with serial numbers) back from 200 to 50. In this reduction process we aimed at choosing 50 images that validly show one of the five personality factors. Therefore, in this phase we researched to what degree the participants agree on the personality that the images demonstrate. In the group session, the participants received an introduction about the concept of brand personality and get familiar with the meaning of each of the five personality traits. Next, each participant started to categorize the images into one of the five personality factors (see Fig. 2). After this task, participants discussed among each other to what degree they agree on their evaluation of the images. When, there was low consistency among the participants images were removed. Based on this procedure the amount of images could be reduced to 50; 10 for each personality factor.

• Phase 3. Test phase. The 50 images were shown to sample of the Dutch population (N=120). The aim this test was to see to which extend the images were perceived as belonging to one of the five personality traits by a large population. Seven of our 50 images were evaluated differently by our participants or they were evaluated to belong to more then one personality factor. We deleted these 7 images. This resulted in 43 images that validly show one of the five personality traits. We based the development of our tool on these 43 images (see Fig. 3). 

The design: A brand personality tool

The aim of our project is to develop a tool that can be used in the process of defining a personality for a brand or a product. We aimed especially on the development of a tool that can be used to improve brand personality discussions. We set the following design directions in the development of our tool: 1 provide the participants a valid view on the brand personality of the own brand, on an ideal brand personality for the brand, on the brand personality of competitors and on the brand personality as seen by customers, 2 provide participants a playful and stimulating experience that provides them with insights of their present brand position and directions for changes, 3 base the tool on the visual images that were collected.

We started our tool development by using the keyword 'Game', which fits our design directions in several aspects: 1 games are playful and interesting, 2 People get involved in games easily, 3 games enhance dynamical interactions, discussions and communications, 4 games can have a very open character that makes inputs as the once requested (e.g. brand personality of competitors) easy.

Next we decide to development a non-digital tool. This means that we designed a tool made by physical materials, for example like a board game for face-to-face discussions. The biggest advantage is that, unlike digital tools which always ask people to sit in front of screens, non-digital tools let participants physically touch design materials and strongly stimulates their conversation and involvement. The positive influence on interactive communication and the dynamics of the process are also reasons why the use of non-digital tools, such as collage and game workshops, is getting more and more popular during strategic discussions.

The final design of the visualization tool is a collection of material components that are combined with a series of three tasks (or we can call it ‘games’). The tool is used to compose a single brand-personality session that helps companies to locate the best position for their future brand development. The tool assists people to make decisions not simply by emotional choice or statistical analysis, but through the deep consideration of brand itself, public opinions and comparisons with competitors. The three different tests results showed that our visualization tool can efficiently help clients to make clear the present situation around their own brands, to figure out their merits and shorts, and to find out future directions with overall thinking.

The material components include a brand personality map and four kinds of cards: 'Brand Personality Visual Card', 'Verbal Meaning Card', 'Group Card' and 'Role Player Card' (see Fig. 4). ‘The brand personality map’ is a map which locates all the brand personality traits at certain positions. The position between every two brand personality traits is determined by the dependencies between personality traits. Every position on the map shows a specific brand personality definition. Clients can position their and other brands on the map and as such learn the brand personality of their brand. ‘Brand Personality Visual Cards’ are the cards printed with images which were tested as ‘valid images’ in previous visualization research. Each of them depicts one brand personality trait. By using these cards, people can make out the meaning of brand personality traits visually and emotionally. ‘Verbal Meaning Cards’ provide verbal descriptions and explanations of each brand personality traits. They are used in combination with the ‘visual cards’ to help people understand the meaning of brand personality traits better. ‘Group Cards’ are cards that show 5 to 6 images that depict one brand personality trait. By using 5 to 6 images, the meaning of a personality trait is depicted much more validly. These cards are the building blocks of the ‘brand personality map’. ‘Role Player Cards’ are the cards which represent different characters who will be involved in discussions. The role players’ includes: ‘consumer cards’ (recorded with consumer opinions); ‘competitor cards’ (recorded with competitors’ information); ‘now card’ (recorded with target brand’s current situation); and ‘future card’ (representing the future plan and final decision).

The session is composed of three tasks. Each task is processed by using the cards differently. The storyline follows the order of, firstly, letting clients present their brands; secondly, letting clients learn the concept of brand-personality; thirdly, letting clients make decisions for their brand-personality development (see Fig. 5).

Fig. 4 The four kinds of cards

Fig. 5 Three tasks of the session

In the beginning of the session, we come up with a task called ‘Talk about your brand’. In this task, clients use the ‘brand personality visual cards’ to make a visual collage for their brand and tell their brand story with the help of these cards. It is a process that invites clients to discuss the personality of their own brand. The result of this first task is that the visual collage will show all the key personality issues of the brand, with the most important personality traits presented by the cards in the central area. Based on these images, like brand positioning, brand values, or brand futures, can be discussed with clients.

In a second task, ‘visual cards’ will be turned over to the back side to reveal in text the brand-personality of the cards, in order to guarantee that the brand personality traits are well understood. Next, clients are guided to match the brand values, which were discussed in the first task, to specific brand personality traits. By the end, clients will find one or two brand personality traits which represent their brand values the best.

In a third task, clients start to use the personality map. This part is meant to define the brand personality position companies want to pursue. The result of this task is a vivid picture of the personality of a specific brand and the distance between this personality and a potential wanted one. This information is acquired by asking clients to position their brand and a possible future position of the brand on the personality map. If needed it is possible to extend the information on the map with information about the brand personality of competitors by placing them on the map. The same procedure can be used for the brand personality that is preferred by certain target groups of consumers (which can be collected earlier).

The end result of a total session is that companies get a well-founded assessment of the personality of their brand and /or how it should be developed. In this way, our tool helps, companies to make justifiable decisions when adjusting or developing the meaning of their brand, and in that way reinforce their position in a market where functionality of products is no longer key.

A Chinese Brand Personality Tool: a Next Step

One of the major challenges of brand personality is the cross-cultural diversity of the concept. This affected us in several aspects. We found that the state-of-the-art brand-personality models are based on the research of a single country and none of them can, without risk, be applied cross cultures. Therefore we decided to choose the fundamental 5 factor model as our point of departure. The approach we used when collecting our images also strongly depends on Western US-based tools. We used Google and Flickr, which are both North America companies. Next we used Western based magazines like National Geography and Nature. This, without any doubt, resulted in a set of images and the resulting brand personality tool that over represents western lifestyle. Based on earlier cross cultural research with the concept of brand personality it can be expected that our brand personality map will not perfectly fit brand-personality analysis for companies from many countries, especially for eastern cultural countries, where business and market environment is quite different from the one that is found in the Western world.

In other words, our present tool will not completely fit the brand personality of other cultures, like the Chinese one in which the concept of brand strategy is still in the rough and a visualization tools are rarely applied for decision making. Our tool will therefore not be the perfect tool in brand personality discussions for companies targeting the Chinese market. However, awaiting the availability of a brand personality tool that is purposely designed for the Chinese market, using the present tool is preferable over a situation in which no visual tool is present to facilitate the development of the personality of a brand.

Reference

Aaker, J.L. (1997) Dimensions of brand personality, Journal of Marketing Research, 34(August), 347-356.

Aaker, J.L. (1999) The malleable self: The role of self-expression in persuasion, Journal of Marketing Research, 31(May), 191-201.

Aaker, J.L., Benet-Martinez, V. and J. Garolera (2001) Consumption of symbols as carriers of culture: A study of Japanese and Spanish brand personality constructs, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(September), 492-508.

Govers, P.C.M., P. Hekkert, and J. P. L. Schoormans (2004) Happy, Cute and Tough: Can Designers Create a Product Personality Consumers Understand? In: D. C. McDonagh, P. Hekkert, J. van Erp and D. Gyi, (Eds), Design and Emotion, Taylor and Francis.

Govers, P.C.M. and J.P.L. Schoormans (2005) Product personality and its influence on consumer preference, Journal of Consumer Marketing, 22 (4), 189-197.

Govers, P.C.M. R. Mugge, and J. P. L. Schoormans (2009) The development and testing of a product personality scale. Design Studies vol 30. #3, 287-301.

Fan Lv is a post-graduate student of Delft University of Technology, and received the master degree of Design for Interaction. His graduation project is ‘visual tool for brand personality positioning and comparison’, which was supervised by Prof. dr. Jan. P.L. Schoormans.

Jan P. L. Schoormans earned his PhD from Tilburg University and is professor of consumer research at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He has published on the role of consumer behavior in new product development in academic journals like Design Studies, The Design Journal, CoDesign, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Journal of Engineering Design, and International Journal of Research in Marketing and Design Management Review.

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