An Effective Brand Starts with Knowing Who You Are.
As humans, we are more prone to resonate with people who have similar characteristics as ourselves.
Clients are more likely to purchase a brand if its personality is similar to their own, establishing a ‘brand personality’ by giving your business human characteristics can help shape the way people feel about you, your product or your service.
Marketing via social media has become very personable and conversational and the communication between you and your client is an ongoing conversation, so as well as your brand design and photography style by adopting a brand personality can help with a tone of voice to help with consistency in your storytelling.
Five Dimensions of Brand Personality
There have been many studies associating human qualities to brands, one of the areas that can help you is to analyse and define your brands personality accordingly to Jennifer L. Aaker’s Five Dimensions of Brand Personality;
Sincerity: kindness, honest, thoughtfulness and wholesome
Excitement: carefree, spirited, daring and youthful
Competence: successful, reliable, accomplished and influential
Sophistication: elegant, prestigious, and charming
Ruggedness: rough, tough, outdoorsy, and athletic.
Many businesses choose a brand personality as a vehicle to express their brand and marketing. Campbell’s soup, for example, chooses sincerity as its brand personality, to attract family-orientated consumers.
Using work, play, family, cooking and dinnertime with lovely warm wholesome food photography helps them to relate to their ideal consumer;
The keywords and tone of voice in their quotes and story telling are very nurturing and cosy. Their content is family orientated and relates to everyday life, resonating with their ideal consumer i.e; they subconsciously get across that Campbell’s should be a part of your everyday life, by having a Campbell’s product to hand (and a staple in your store cupboard) can make life easier after a hard day.
Branding and Tone of Voice Starts from the Inside Out
Before starting any of my clients branding projects we start with the Brand Brainstorm strategy workshop, whereby we dig deep and explore; core values, purpose, target audience, look and feel as well as touching on the five dimensions of brand personality theory.
The results and following report from the workshop helps them gain clarity and an intentional direction the brand will take before I start sketching any design ideas, the results also helps them to work with a story teller, a brand photographer and social media strategist to further develop the tone of voice and brand vibe within their communications.
Could your brands tone of voice be young, cheeky and playful? Or more traditional and sophisticated?
If you're here on my blog, you may well have already downloaded my freebie, if not you could determine your brand personality by downloading my free fun exercise; https://www.flossgibbs.com/brandvibeworksheet