Every brand has a personality, whether unintended or planned. Either way, it’s a key element in communicating intangible benefits to consumers.

A brand’s personality impacts on preference and usage, as consumers develop an emotional bond with brands that resonate with them. Consumers often feel connected to brands that have similar traits to themselves, making their purchase decision feel like second nature. Appealing to customers’ emotions and cultivating a bond encourages loyalty, making customers more likely to advocate a brand.

For example, a teenager might prefer a shoe brand that exemplifies a cool image that is accessible (i.e. Converse). A professional woman, however, might prefer a shoe brand that symbolises sophistication and exclusivity (i.e. Louis Vuitton).

The intention behind a brand’s personality significantly increases the likelihood that the brand will resonate with the desired target market. It can, however, often be unclear as to where to start in doing so.

Where do I start?

There are numerous methods you can use to determine and develop your brand’s personality, however, the following resources and tips may help you get started

Discover your Brand Archetype

The book The Hero and The Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes, by Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson, outlines a system consisting of two dimensions: self-focused vs. group-oriented, and order vs. change. This system helps brands determine their personality and create a model that can then guide other brand elements.

The Brand Personality Spectrum

The ‘Brand Personality Spectrum’ can be used to develop a quick snapshot of your brand’s personality. Simply place a dot along each horizontal line, wherever you feel your brand falls on that spectrum, or where you would like it to be. If more dots fall to the left, your brand is more contemporary, fast-moving and energetic. If there are more dots on the right, your brand is more traditional and planned in its approach with set processes in place. If you fall in the middle, then you must make a decision as to which side of the spectrum is most appropriate for your brand, as being in the middle leaves a brand forgettable.

Use Analogies

The ‘car analogy’ and the ‘celebrity analogy’ are both commonly used to identify brand characteristics. That said, many analogies would work. Essentially, this method is about considering if your brand was, for example, a car, what car would it be? Whichever analogy you use, this is about considering your brand as something more tangible with more easily identifiable personality traits. This will help you to then translate any similarities over to brand attributes.

Your brand’s personality has the power to influence purchase decisions, based on how well it resonates with your target market’s characteristics and values. Understanding your target market, their characteristics, motivators and demotivators, will mean you can create a brand personality that aligns.

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This stresses the importance of having a strategic brand positioning strategy. When building a brand, a lot of factors come into play. 

1)      Define Your brand.

Just like a person, your company needs an identity. This identity will be a reflection of your company’s personality and beliefs. As part of the process, the below items must be carefully considered as these will set the tone for the other elements of your brand.

a)      Positioning. Describe your product or service. Define which space it occupies relative to your competitors. Is it budget-friendly or premium quality, functional or lavish, entry-level or high-end?

b)      Value Proposition. This explains why customers should patronise your business. It should answer the questions: What is unique about your offering? How are you going to make a difference in the lives of your customers? What kind of experience are your customers going to get?

c)      Tone of Voice. The tone of voice should reflect the values of the company as well as the people behind it. It should be in line with your brand’s persona.  The tone of voice must be consistent throughout the company, from the marketing to all forms of communication.

d)      Persona. Human characteristics are assigned to brands to make them relatable to people. Examples include carefree, athletic, influential, elegant, thoughtful and family-oriented.

2)     Develop Your Tagline.

Your tagline is essentially a description of your brand value in a nutshell. A good tagline is concise, simple, clear, memorable, communicates a story and most importantly, communicates a key benefit.

3)    Create Your Logo.

Your logo will be the main and most visible representation of your company as it will appear in all marketing collaterals and other forms of communication. Because of this, it is vital that its design is crafted with a lot of thought. Its components must be in line with your brand identity.  At the same time, its elements must consider logo design principles and best practice.

4)     Decide on Your Design Elements.

Various types of marketing collateral will be required for different marketing arenas.  In presenting your product or service, the look and feel of your collateral should be consistent throughout all channels and reflect your brand. In order to do this, certain design elements such as colour schemes, fonts, and formatting must be outlined in the brand guidelines.

5)     Ingrain Your brand in your Company Culture.  

Branding does not stop at design and communication activities. Since employees engage with customers, their actions, appearance, and way of communicating must likewise accurately represent your brand.

When building a brand, you need to develop a brand strategy that encompasses defining what your brand is, developing a tagline, creating a logo, deciding on design elements and tone of voice to use in all forms of communication and ingraining the brand values in your culture.

These brand elements must be consistent at all times at every customer touch point. Branding done correctly has the capability to influence purchasing decisions of customers by differentiating your company, creating loyalty among customers, and establishing your company as a trustworthy and dependable source.

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What is a value proposition? Simply said, it is a succinct statement that summarises what a brand offers its customers and why consumers should choose the brand over another. To give you an idea, here are some of the examples of brands with a compelling value proposition.

Survey Monkey: “Create Surveys, Get Answers.”
Canva: “Beautiful design in 30 seconds.”
CoSchedule: “The Best Way To Plan Your Marketing, Save A Ton of Time.”
Evernote: “Remember Everything”
Skype: “Skype keeps the world talking for free. Share, message and call-now with group video on mobile and tablet too.
Bitly: “Shorten. Share. Measure.”
Google Drive: “A safe place for all your files.”
PayPanther: “ Helping businesses manager their files/ emails/invoices/expenses/accounting/ life/events/clients.”
Hootsuite: “The best social media tool for business. Manage all your social media marketing from one tool.”
Netflix: “See what’s next. Watch anywhere. Cancel anytime.”

Now, how does a brand come up with a value proposition that will encourage customers to avail of the products and/or services it offers? In developing a value proposition, there are several factors to consider such as the target market, the competitors and the value that the product brings to customers.

Target Market

Assess the demographics and psychographics. The demographics include information such as the age, gender, location occupation (etc) of the target market. On the other hand, the psychographics looks into the values, opinions, habits and attitudes of the market.

Competitor Information

What are the substitutes or products and services that can be used in lieu of yours? Having a clear understanding of the competition and what they offer can help a brand assess what it is up against. In doing so, it would be good to study the similarities and differences of what competitors offer.

Product Value and Features

Equally essential is to identify the value that the product will bring to customers or how it will benefit them or solve a problem. This usually is drawn from having a clear understanding of

1. The product, and
2. The target market/s (their desires and what would entice them to choose a product over another)

The process involves assessing the product or service by laying out all its features and then ensuring that the product or service features and delivery meets the needs and expectations of the customer. For example, for customers who are conscious about cost, this could be the price at which a product is sold. This could also be the quality of the product regardless of price for those that give more weight to quality. In terms of product delivery, the customer’s communication and service delivery preference should be considered as well.

Nowadays, competition among businesses is tougher than ever before. Customers are presented with countless options to choose from for their needs and wants. Having a well written and thought out value proposition can help entice customers to choose a product over another. The process of arriving at a great value proposition involves gaining a clear understanding of the competition, the customer and identifying what they perceive as valuable then composing a message that clearly communicates how the product or service can address their needs.

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Branding consists of two aspects: the tangible and the intangible:

• The tangible aspect refers to the graphic representations (i.e. the logo and other design elements), colour palette and typography. These are usually manifested by marketing collateral, stationery, signage and other visual materials.
• The intangible aspect encompasses the messaging and the tone of voice in the businesses marketing materials. It is also evident in the behaviour of the people associated with the company.

Both the tangible and intangible aspects of any brand need to be consistent, in order to make a lasting and positive impression. Doing so will help your business earn the trust of your customers and yield the following benefits:

• Improves audience recall – It takes time for customers to get to know and trust your brand. However, seeing the same design elements and messaging throughout various touch points will help customers become familiar with your brand.
• Reinforces your story, messaging and image – Consistent branding will further highlight to your customers what your brand is all about and help them to form impressions of your business that are in line with what you are working to communicate.
• Influences buying behaviour – When customers believe in and share your values, they are far more likely to purchase your products and/or services. Seeing consistent messaging that reflects your business’ values will encourage customers to see your brand for what it is and give them the confidence to trust your business.

With the proliferation of new marketing touch points, maintaining branding consistency across multiple channels is more challenging than ever. However, consistent branding is necessary to earn your customer’s trust and eventually, their loyalty. Below are some ways to ensure consistency across all your customer touch points:

• Ensure that your brand identity is reflected accurately across all marketing channels and/or customer touch points. Each touch point and/or marketing channel should use the same logo, tagline, colours and tone of voice, and should communicate the same brand messages. This will help to leave a visual imprint in the minds of your customers and will foster an emotional connection between them and your brand. In the future, these customers will then easily identify and remember your company.
• Develop a brand book and use it. A brand book contains a detailed description of the brand and its elements, and how to properly utilize them. It serves a guide for designers and writers when they create communication materials. It is also a good reference for employees on how to act in a way that accurately represents the company’s values and personality
• Develop a branding and messaging strategy. Consistent branding across multiple touch points is not easy to demonstrate and requires careful planning. While not a lot of time and energy will be needed to pull off visual consistency across marketing channels and customer touch points (as the graphic representations will be standard), achieving cohesive messaging across these channels can be tedious. It is best to plan ahead.
• Assign a brand ambassador. With all the communications that go out, having someone responsible for ensuring that all outbound communications are in line with the brand will be advantageous to your company. The brand ambassador, usually the Communications Officer, will have the task of meticulously checking whether or not the visual and intangible branding aspects in all marketing materials and other forms of communications reflect the company correctly.
• Develop key messages that reflect your company values and product or service offering. Find out what messages resonate with your audience and the best method of delivering them. It is important to consider your customer’s language and how and where they consume information.

Maintaining consistent branding across all marketing channels and customer touch points are key to first getting the attention of your customers and then, later on, earning their loyalty and advocacy. When creating your outbound communications, it is important to remember that branding consistency goes beyond the mere visual aspects (i.e. logo, tagline, colours palette), and that messages and tone of voice in communications and the behaviour or demeanour of those that represent the company are also just as crucial to the overall branding of a company.

Learn more about how we can help build your Brand Identity and Positioning Strategy here.

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They have a Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

A unique value proposition is a promise to bring value to the customer through the product’s features or service. It usually is represented in the form of a statement or statements that summarise the reason(s) why the product and/or service is valuable and special – aka why customers should purchase it. Below are some essential questions to ask when identifying and articulating (often forgotten!) your UVP.

• Who is your target market? – The value proposition should be aimed at meeting the needs of certain or specific groups of people within an industry.
• What needs will your product/service satisfy? – The product or service is designed to meet a specific need of the customer.
• Who are your competitors and what do they offer? – The product or service should be different, ideally better in specific areas, than those offered by the competitor.

They execute their Promise

The thing about a UVP is that it doesn’t really mean anything unless you deliver. Below are the three most important things to aim for when carrying out your promise.

• Quality– There is no doubt that quality is high on the list of the things customers look for in products. Quality goods and services (relative to the price point) satisfy customers and encourage them to become loyal to your business.
• Value for Money- Whether or not the economy is thriving or takes a downturn; one thing that is constant is the desire of customers to get bang for their buck. Customers want to know that their hard earned money will be worth it regardless of the price.
• Customer Service– People like to hear and feel that they are important. Having a customer-centric business is one of the most powerful ways of generating word-of-mouth, a free and most effective marketing tool. Your product may not be the best but if your customer service is superb, it can be enough to keep them coming back.

They Market the UVP and Promise Well

So you have a compelling UVP and you execute your promise to a T, but without marketing your product/ service, you may well disappear into the background and even worse, be forgotten. To ensure that your product/service stays top-of-mind with your customers, consider these marketing strategies.

• Consistent Branding – It is important to display consistent branding across all marketing channels. The purpose of which is to differentiate from competitors, increase customer recognition, and reinforce brand identity.
• Establish an Effective Online Presence – Studies show that digital marketing can no longer be ignored. A study conducted by Google and Shopper Science found that shoppers are most likely to switch from ‘undecided’ to ‘decided’ while researching online. To have an effective online presence it’s about determining the where, when and how your customers look for information and then presenting them with the right ‘what’ regarding your product or service information at those critical research points.
• Collaborate with Influencers – Since influencers are viewed by people as credible sources of information, the tendency is to listen to their suggestions and opinions. Collaborating with influencers can potentially increase brand awareness and transfer credibility if you’re in a particularly difficult market to crack.

These are by no means exhaustive, but they offer a really good place to start!

Interested in discussing options for refining your brand’s competitive positioning?
Contact Us for an obligation-free consultation, or give us a call on 1300 714 146.

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As competition increases, what makes some companies triumph whilst others flounder and fail? The answer lies in branding.

In most cases, people think of branding as being all about a brand name, a company logo or a slogan.

However, it is much more than this. An effective branding strategy creates an identity for the company and personifies the brand in a way that relates to the target market.

Branding is an expression of your company’s values and the intangible attributes that differentiate you from your competitors. This provides your company with a brand identity that goes beyond the products or services offered by relating to the customer on a personal and emotional level.

So why is this important?

A brand that has an identity can develop a connection between the customer and the company.

This connection simplifies the decision-making process as customers are no longer evaluating the product or service attributes, they are evaluating the intangible elements of the brand that are controlled by the company through the brand messages.

If executed effectively, branding will assist in developing consumer trust as customers feel they ‘know’ the brand through the emotional connection they have established with it.  This can translate into long-term sales and customer loyalty.

A well-established brand can help communicate value or quality through the intangible elements of the product or service. This can result in an opportunity to command premium prices or cement your company as a market leader in your industry.

Ultimately, a brand lives in the hearts and imagination of your customers, but this is influenced every time they come into contact with your company. From your TV ads to your service staff, everything you do sends a brand message.

So with branding having a major impact on your customer’s decision making and purchasing habits, maybe it’s time to evaluate your company’s branding strategy?

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