Brand Personality: What is it?

Each year we run a Brand Personality survey of 1,000 consumers using a unique method to generate insights into how some of the UK’s biggest brands have performed. In this post we introduce the concept of Brand Personality, and explore the traits that underlie it.

It is well known that people have measurable personalities that can be used to predict their behaviour in new situations. According to the leading model of human personality, the myriad adjectives we use to describe people can be distilled into just five key dimensions or traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. There is also evidence that animals have personalities too.

Our own research, as well as studies from the US, have shown that the same personality measurement methodologies can be applied to companies and organizations to measure their “brand personality”. Brand personality also appears to be related to performance and financial results.

We have identified a five-factor model of brand personality. Each factor is represented by a weighted mix of adjectives that help characterize them. For example, the “Honest” dimension is characterized by adjectives like caring and trustworthy.

Our first trait, Honesty, measures a brand’s integrity. Trustworthy brands that are perceived to care about their customers will receive high Honesty scores.

Innovation tracks the energy and creativity of a brand. Stale or copy-cat brands receive a lower score on this measure.

Power relates to presence and dominance in the market. Ubiquitous and widely-purchased brands score highly on this trait.

Prestige is concerned with the social significance associated with a brand. It is typically related to exclusivity and quality.

Finally, Green-ness is a measure of perceived environmental impact.

In addition, we also report the overall positive or negative Sentiment associated with each brand, as measured by the tendency for consumers to associate that brand with positive or negative adjectives of any kind.

By using the traits we can describe, compare, contrast, and track a brand’s personality over time.