How to Communicate Your Brand's Personality:
Applying consistent personality traits to your brand is a way to humanize it with characteristics so a specific consumer segment can relate to your brand.
Just like how you can tell a lot about a person based on their personality, you can do the same for brands.
Your brand’s personality will dictate whether customers perceive your brand as Sincere, Exciting, Competent, Sophisticated, or Rugged.
When you use adjectives, or traits, that support these personality types through your tone of voice, visuals and messaging, the customer will decide whether they want to be associated with you or in opposition.
The authenticity and consistency of these traits is what separates a successful brand from a brand that is boring and irrelevant in the mind of the consumer.
Why Brand Personality is Important
It will engage emotionally with your target audience, which will drive their decision-making and purchasing decisions.
Here are 5 benefits to consistently communicating your brand personality to your audience:
- Creates Competitive Differentiation
Your audience will constantly be comparing your products and services to those of your competition. By communicating your brand personality you have the opportunity to market and position the same products or services differently than your competition. This will play a huge role in how the customer perceives your brand. - Increases Brand Awareness
By applying a personality to your brand it will consistently attract new customers who can relate to those same traits, and it makes your brand more recognizable in the marketplace. - Fosters Brand Loyalty
When you have a legion of customers who identify with the personality of your brand, they will continue to purchase from you and evolve from just brand recognition to brand preference. - Enhances your brand story
People want to be part of something bigger than just a brand’s product line, and expect full transparency from the companies they choose to buy from. Communication and being open with your brand personality will enhance your brand’s story and further connect with your audience. - Authenticates Your Core Values
When your brand’s personality reflects your core values, you will be perceived as authentic in the eyes of the consumer.
This authenticity will build trust and support from your target audience so be sure you have well defined brand values.
How to Find Your Brand's Personality
In order to create your brand’s personality you first need to review who you are, what’s your brand purpose, how you want your customers to feel about you, and what your brand values are.
Your personality is an extension of your brand purpose, vision, mission, and values.
The more you’re able to communicate your personality, the better odds you will have of building a valuable connection with the customer.
Once you have clarity about why you exist and what you’re trying to do, next you need to determine which of these 5 personality types best reflects your brand.
Is your brand Sincere, Exciting, Competent, Sophisticated, or Rugged?
- Sincere brands are: honest, genuine, heartfelt, gracious, and passionate
- Exciting brands are: intense, energetic, joyous, imaginative, and enthusiastic.
- Competent brands are: knowledgeable, professional, trustworthy, reliable, and strategic.
- Sophisticated brands are: stylistic, luxurious, cultured, exquisite, and exceptional.
- Rugged brands are: adventurous, strong, tough, confident, and outdoorsy.
Once you have clarity on which personality type represents your brand, let’s begin to refine it.
Step 1: Start by choosing 10-15 adjectives that support your brand’s personality type.
Then gather your team and have each of them choose the top 5 that resonate with them the most.
This should help you narrow it down to the most obvious 3-5.
Step 2: Create a persona for your brand.
If your brand were a person, who would that person be?
Is it a high-performance athlete, a well dressed proper gentleman, or a carefree laughing child.
Visualizing a fictional personality type will help you determine who your brand is made for.
Step 3: Decide who you want to be to your customers.
What type of personality would they search out when they are in need of help, or when they want to have fun?
Ask yourself “I’m the one that’s __________.” When you’ve filled in that blank, you’ve provided your potential customers with a clear and easy-to-understand differentiator.
If that quality aligns with them, they will become more attracted to your brand.
Now, keeping in mind who your fictional persona is, and who you want to be to your customers.
Take those 3-5 adjectives you’ve defined and describe your personality into a simple description.
Keep this description to one or two tight sentences.
The goal is to articulate your brand personality in a way that is quickly and easily understood by your audience.
How to Communicate Your Brand Personality
There are three ways for you to do that:
- Through Your Visual Identity
This includes your logo, your typography, your brand colors, your imagery and the look and feel of the design you use in marketing. - Through Your Voice
This includes your messaging, the language you use, your tagline, and how you speak to your customers. - Through Your Actions
This basically includes everything you do both online and offline. How you conduct yourself. How you present your brand in videos. How you interact on social media. And How your customer service department responds to emails. This will help you further refine your brand’s personality and make positive connections with your audience.
To continue your training, please be sure to download the FREE Brand Builder Toolbox and complete the Action Guide.
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[…] reliability, while red is associated with passion and excitement. Similarly, typography can also communicate the brand’s personality. A modern and bold typeface can represent a brand that is innovative and cutting-edge, while a more […]