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What Is Brand Personality?

Brand personality is a set of human characteristics that are attributed to a 
brand name. A brand personality is something to which the consumer can
relate; an effective brand increases its brand equityby having a consistent
set of traits that a specific consumer segment enjoys. This personality is a
qualitative value-add that a brand gains in addition to its functional
benefits.

Brand personality is a framework that helps a company or organization

shape the way people feel about its product, service, or mission. A
company's brand personality elicits an emotional response in a specific
consumer segment, with the intention of inciting positive actions that
benefit the firm.

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Examples of Brand Personalities

Customers are more likely to purchase a brand if its personality is similar to
their own. There are five main types of brand personalities with common traits:
Excitement: carefree, spirited, and youthful
Sincerity: kindness, thoughtfulness, and an orientation toward family values
Ruggedness: rough, tough, outdoorsy, and athletic
Competence: successful, accomplished and influential, highlighted by
leadership
Sophistication: elegant, prestigious, and sometimes even pretentious

Dove, for example, chooses sincerity as its brand personality, to attract

feminine consumers. Luxury brands, such as Michael Kors and Chanel, aims
for sophistication. Their brand personality focuses on an upper-class,
glamorous, and trendy lifestyle, which attracts a high-spending consumer
base. REI, the outdoor recreation retail store, has a rugged brand personality;
they focus on inspiring their audience—who are typically outdoorsy,
adventurous people—to be strong and resilient.

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Adjacent, but not identical, to the “Big Five” personality traits, the five
dimensions of brand personality are sincerity, excitement, competence,
sophistication, and ruggedness. While every brand lies somewhere on the
spectrum for each one of these attributes, the most enduring brands largely
emphasize just one primary trait and optionally one secondary trait. 

1.Sincerity
Every business wants to be sincere, but brands with sincerity as their primary
attribute are those that are honest, genuine, cheerful, wholesome, and down-to-
earth. Think of things that give you warm-fuzzies: family, friendship, caregiving,
gifting, service, honor, and generosity.
Sincerity is an attribute you’ll see associated with many food, hospitality, and
safety brands. Some favorite examples of sincere brands are Campbell’s Soup,
Hallmark, Oprah, Pampers, Allstate, coca-Cola, and TOMS.

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2.Excitement
Exciting brands are often those that appeal to a younger demographic, with
energetic advertising, high-octane design, and celebrity endorsements. These
brands are daring, spirited, imaginative, cool, unique, contemporary, and anti-
establishment.
Lots of brands across nearly every category can fall under the umbrella of
excitement, including Monster Energy, Nike, MTV, T-Mobile, Vice, Tik Tok, and
Axe.

3.Competence
We’ve never done a branding project where the client didn’t object the first time
they saw the word “competence” to claim that they were, of course, competent.
The clients we’ve worked with are qualified leaders in their field, but that is not
what we mean when discussing the brand personality trait of competency. Here
we mean brands whose ethos is reliability, responsibility, trustworthiness,
intelligence, successfulness, and confidence.
You will often see brands that deal with “important stuff” in the competence
column, including banks, insurance companies, logistics firms, and medical
brands. Some examples are Chase, Verizon, UPS, New York Presbyterian,
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4.Sophistication
Like competence before it, we often hear that the brands we work with are all
sophisticated and complex – but again that is not the definition at work here.
Sophistication as a brand personality means luxurious, glamorous, upper
class, and charming.
And like excitement, sophistication cuts across categories, though generally at
the northern end of the price range. Sophisticated brands include Hermes,
American Express, Apple, Mercedes, Nescafe, Grey Goose, and Patek
Philippe.

5.Ruggedness
Rugged brands are those built to last, the tough and outdoorsy types that will
“take a licking and keep on ticking.” These brands are hard-working, authentic,
strong, muscular, and high-quality.
You may see a lot of rugged brands in the verticals of construction and
hardware, outdoors and sporting, and automotive. Some example brands
include LL Bean, Otter Box, Milwaukee Tools, Land Rover, Levis, Jack
Daniels, and REI.
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Creating Your Brand Personality

When developing your own brand identity, it can be helpful to look at your
space and see where your competitors align. If there is already a competent
player and an exciting player, maybe there is room for a sophisticated brand.
In some verticals, you will find that one particular dimension is the table stake
for competing. Every hospital should be competent. Every greeting card brand
should be sincere. Here is where combining your primary trait with a second
attribute comes into play. In the credit card space for instance: American
Express is competent and sophisticated. Capital One is competent and
exciting. Bank of America is competent and sincere.
A personal favorite of mine is looking at how ruggedness pairs with other traits
to create intriguing combinations. Orvis is rugged and sophisticated, as is Land
Rover. GoPro is rugged and exciting. The Coast Guard is rugged and
competent.
There is a lot more that goes into crafting compelling and exceptional brands,
but using this model early in your process, and continually referring back to
your results, will help you start moving in an intentional direction. At the end of
the day, remember that a brand has to say something, make a choice, and take
a stand – with a clear voice.
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Brand personality refers to personality traits of humans associated with a

brand. as per Aaker’s brand personality scale there are five dimensions of
brand personality such as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication
and ruggedness. Brand personality traits help the consumers to identify and
differentiate the different brands available in the market. In modern era
consumers buy a particular brand not only to satisfy their basic physiological
needs, social and safety needs but to satisfy their self-esteem and self-
actualization and finally buy a brand only when the personality of that brand
matches with their own personality.
So, it is a challenge for the marketer to develop and create brand personality
which is consistent with the personality of their target consumers
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