Brand Personality & its Impact on Brand

Effectiveness

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Article 3: Using the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique to understand brand images
Summary:
The Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) uses qualitative methods to elicit metaphors,
constructs, and mental models that drive customers' thinking and behavior, as well as quantitative
analyses to provide data for marketing mix decisions and segmentation strategies.
ZMET aids in understanding how unconscious and conscious processes interact to: (1) create needs, (2)
influence the criteria for satisfying those needs, (3) shape the experience of satisfying needs, and (4)
generate judgments about those experiences. ZMET employs visual and non-visual "images" gathered
and/or generated by consumers to elicit and probe metaphors representing consumers' thoughts and
feelings about a topic.
It is critical to understand customers' metaphors (or knowledge representations) about a brand and how
these metaphors interact with those of the manufacturing firm or advertising agency. Metaphors about a
brand can be found in customers' images, which can be visual, verbal, mathematical, or musical, among
other forms. These images, for example, contain a customer's experience, comprehension, their
knowledge about the type of packaging, where the brand can be purchased, and the advertising campaign.
Because a company's or ad agency's metaphors about a brand are communicated through various
marketing mix decisions such as advertising, product and package design, product concepts, and
distribution channels, these metaphors must include components that are both similar and dissimilar to
their customers' metaphors. Customers are predisposed to find their own metaphors in advertising,
product design, or store setting, for example, so the similarities are required. Customers are more likely to
attend to, process, and comprehend observed information when marketer communications are congruent
with customer-generated images. Dissimilarities are also necessary because they create a level of tension
that draws attention and lays the groundwork for message comprehension.[1]
Key Learnings:
1) Nonverbal communication is more common than verbal communication.
2) Visual images serve as entry points into people's knowledge structures.
3) Photography is an effective tool for gaining access to consumers' visual images.
4) Research shows that visual images are important in marketing communications.
5) The majority of market research tools are based on verbal communication.

Practical applications:
ZMET has the potential to comprehend a wide range of aspects of brand image management. ZMET can
be useful in eliciting and comprehending sensory metaphors associated with brand images. These
metaphors could be useful in a variety of marketing mix decisions, such as developing advertising
strategies, deciding on the shape and type of packaging, and deciding on distribution channels. The data
could also be useful for researching potential brand extensions. A dual application of ZMET would be
required, one to investigate the current brand image and the other to investigate the potential extension.
Managers must have (1) detailed knowledge of the consumer and the marketplace, (2) clarity of thought
guided by effective models and theories, (3) creativity and imagination, and (4) reasoned judgment and

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experience to develop creative strategic solutions to marketing problems. Where these requirements exist,
ZMET should be considered. [2]

Article 4: When Brand Personality Matters: The Moderating Role of Attachment Styles
Summary:
Via this article we learned about the attachment theory in order to gain a better understanding of the
role of brand personality in influencing consequential branding outcomes such as brand attachment,
purchase likelihood, and brand choice, particularly in marketplace settings where consumers are not
explicitly directed to pay attention to the brand's personality. Attachment theory has identified two
dimensions of attachment style based on an individual's view of self and view of others, namely anxiety
and avoidance, which are expected to influence the type of relationships one engages in and the potential
for attachment formation in the interpersonal domain.
Aaker created a framework for brand personality and emphasized its five dimensions (sincerity,
excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness). Among these five dimensions, sincere and
exciting brand personalities appear to capture much of the variation in brand personality ratings and have
been the focus of brand personality research. Exciting and sincere brand personalities are especially
intriguing because they map onto the three key ideals identified by Fletcher et al. as important in
interpersonal relationships: warmth, vitality, and status. There are four attachment styles that
correspond to different levels of anxiety and avoidance: secure (low anxiety and low avoidance),
dismissing (low anxiety and high avoidance), preoccupied (high anxiety and low avoidance), and fearful
(high anxiety and high avoidance) (high anxiety and high avoidance).
Individual attachment styles (view of self and view of others) define the circumstances under which
brands are likely to play a signaling role.
Key Learnings:
1) Participants primed with a low anxiety style were unaffected by the brand's personality in the
formation of their brand attachments. Participants primed with a high anxiety attachment style,
on the other hand, became extremely sensitive to brand personality, demonstrating significant
differences in response to sincere versus exciting ads. High anxiety consumers, who typically
have lower self-esteem and a greater fear of rejection, may find the brand useful in associating
themselves with desirable personality traits, thereby increasing their potential attractiveness to
others.
2) A closer examination of the means for purchase likelihood in the public versus private conditions
suggests that brand personality outcomes in the public condition may also be driven by the
consumer avoiding a product that presents a mismatch between the ideal self-concept and brand
personality.

Practical applications:
High anxiety individuals who avoid relationships are more likely to prefer exciting brands, whereas high
anxiety individuals who avoid relationships are more likely to prefer sincere brands. This pattern of
effects is important because it is replicated across different product categories (shoes, clocks, and
clothing), in the domain of well-known brands to brand extensions of existing brands as well as new and
unfamiliar brands, and for outcomes ranging from brand attachment to purchase likelihood to brand

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choice. Keeping these results in mind the brands need to develop the brand personality to suit the
particular customer segment.[3]

References:
[1] https://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/7644/volumes/v21/NA-21
[2] https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/mind-of-the-market-laboratory/zmet
[3] http://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/120408.pdf