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Written:1996

The alternative to complex, systemic approaches to understanding brands, like Aakers Brand Equity System, is a metaphoric approach. Metaphoric definitions have the advantage of being more intuitive and also easily relatable to the consumer. After all, for brands, perception is reality. In order to be able to use metaphoric models, however, a deep and visceral understanding of the consumer, and especially the consumer category relationship is required because often that relationship has to be redefined. To the extent that a brand is able to redefine the consumer-category relationship, it will succeed.

One such metaphoric approach is Brand Personality. Building brand personality is not different from building brand equity or image. The term, Brand Personality implies the set of human characteristics associated with a brand. Or the personification of the brand by the consumers and the communicators. These personalities are defined by unique combinations of demographic (male/female; young/old), lifestyle (rich/poor; club member/not) and individual identity (friendly/aloof) attributes. The Arvind Mills brings Newport Jeans to life in such a manner when they describe its personality as "Young, Urban, Middle Class Male, dependable and rides a two wheeler." The brand personality provides down-to-earth and hands-on cues for the brand custodians to act upon. HLL defines the personality of Lifebuoy as "a very hardworking, more masculine brand, efficient, functional, who delivers extremely well the promise of germ kill." or that of Liril as "Female, very energetic, vivacious and full of life.". It says much about the values of the brand, its target group, its positioning and perhaps how to communicate and grow the brand.

Yet another approach defines a brand as a relationship.

WHY SHOULD YOU HAVE A BRAND PERSONALITY ?
Unfortunately, you don't have a choice. Whether or not you like it, your brand is going to have some personality for each of your consumers. It is now accepted that people form bonds with the products they use. Perhaps as a process of rationalisation, they attach a human personality to the product since somewhere deep down, it doesn't make sense to have relationships with inanimate objects. As Aaker says, "in a world characterised by stress, clutter and alienation, people cope by creating escape mechanisms and meaningful friendships", and we shall show in this story that brands can cater to both of these needs.

The choices that you do have are in the realm of how to build a strong personality that adds value to your product offering for your consumers, and how to manage the personality in the best interest of the brand. In this light the question of why you should use a brand personality has some specific answers. First, for enriching understanding - you can get more insights into the perceptions via the personality. If for example your brand is seen as an old, respected gentleman, well read but not well dressed, as the Godrej Brand was in 1994, it reveals a lot about what the problem with the brand could be. A competitor of Philips found the Philips brand to be likened to Ashok Kumar, a few years ago. Philips was cognizant of this "old, Indian brand" image and its recent campaign has tried to tackle this problem. Second, for contributing to a differentiating identity. How does a Virginia Slims or a Marlboro manage to stand out in a crowded brandspace ? Or a Skypak ? The personality is often the foundation for meaningful differentiation, especially when products are similar on functional attributes. Third, for guiding the communication effort. The concept and vocabulary of the personality, according to Aaker, communicates the identity with richness and texture to those who must implement the identity building effort. Including promos, packaging, style of interactions, advertising, retailing. Take britannia Little Hearts - from the name onwards, it appears young and perhaps romantic. It isn't packaged like biscuits, but more like chips. The distribution and display follows suit and the communication reinforces all of this.

WHAT VALUE DOES THE BRAND PERSONALITY ADD ?
Here is where we get into the crux of the matter. There is more than one way in which a personality adds value to your brand. Aaker's model will help to highlight this. The 3 models of value delivery in Aaker's framework are Self Expression Model, Relationship Basis Model and Functional Benefit Representation Model: (Aaker calls them Brand Equity Building Models, but in the light of our discussion, we will look at the value to the consumer)

VALUE SOURCES

Self Expression Model
In this model, the brand is either seen by the consumer as the kind of person the user is or wishes to be. In the former case the brand becomes a statement while in the latter case the brand is a self image enhancer. Clearly, there is some value over and above the direct use of the product that the consumer derives. The core target segment of Louis Phillipe shares the values and uses the brand to express their personality, while the extended target group buys into the personality is an aspirational sense.

The self expression also works in more ways than one. Apart from an identity statement which works for some categories it can appeal through feelings engendered by the brand - when using it creates warmth, nostalgia, a family feeling with or without a social context. Sundrop's family situation describes the former while Reebok's "This is My Planet" exemplifies the latter. Finally, and at the highest level, the brand becomes a part of the self, when the consumer loathes separation from the brand. This happens for few categories, including Cars, cigarettes and motorbikes. The Harley Davidson story is perhaps the most enduring example of this - the users of Harley Davidson see themselves as part of the family, tattoo the brand onto their bodies and undertake activities that bring Harley riders together.

Its important to bear in mind that different social contexts, bring out different states of the self. So buying and using a brand may not represent the entirety of a persons personality but a small part of it. The person may feel the need to express a suppressed or small part of his identity. Think of the staid investment banker who buys an Allen Solly shirt. The brand personality therefore, reacts with the personality of the user. Dr Vasudevan, 39, DGM, BPL and G Seshagiri, XX, Dy Manager SAMIR, in their 1995 study, "Brand Personality Positioning Within Value Segments", mention person-personality as being an intermediate construct between brand personality and value delivery. This is even more important in the next value delivery model.

Relationship basis Model
We spoke earlier of escape mechanisms and meaningful friendships earlier. While the self expression model can be an example of the former, the Relationship Basis model applies to the latter.
This essentially means that people may not want to become like the person they feel the brand is, but they may feel a liking or admiration with a person like that, and may desire association with such a person. Porsche was seen in the eighties as the car for the Young and Successful. The flashy, sporty personality of the car was what buyers craved to be. Volks wagon, on the other hand, has always spoken of reliability, as Volvo for safety, so in these cases the buyer sees the car as a friend, although he may not actually want to become reliable, like the Volkswagon
At BPL some months back, a brand personality study revealed that BPL was seen as Madhuri Dixit or a Ruby Bhatia. BPL, however felt that there was a negative aspect to this kind of relationship, as the relationship with film stars is infatuational and transient. So a conscious effort was made to move to a more personality providing a more meaningful relationship. BPL's image of being young and trendy also had its liability of appearing unreliable. Colgate and Close Up offer similar emotional payoffs (Confidence in a close personal interaction) but the difference lies in the relationships they seek to establish - Colgate is the dentist - a professional who can lecture you...Close Up, on the other hand is a friend you can have fun with"
A study by Susan Fournier of Harvard, lists 7 dimensions for measuring and managing the Brand Relationship Quality. These are : Behavioral Independence, Personnal Commitment, Love and Passion, Nostalgic Connection, Self Concept Connection, Intimacy and Partner Quality. This model assumes importance in the light of the situation where 2 people or 2 sets of people may perceive the same personality in a brand, but their relationship with such a personality may be different. This leads to Relationship Segmentation of consumers.

Functional Benefit Representation Model
The personality can also be a vehicle for representing and cueing functional benefits and brand attributes. If done well, it can capture the core value proposition of the brand. This can be achieved through a symbol or mascot like Onida's Devil, Godrej's PUF. The case of Asian Paints' Gattu, on the other hand is one of being "seen but not heard". He symbolises Asian Paints, but at a very superficial level and does not rerally capture the core values of A-Paints, and is reduced to a mere mnemonic and not even that for a brand like Royale. The name of the brand can also cue the personality, refering perhaps, to the country of origin, In case of L'Oreal the French name adds some intangible benefit in the category of cosmetics and hair and skin care. Ideally this should reinforce one of the other two value sources.

Service Personality
It may be worthwhile to mention the stronger role of personalities in a service brand. The reasons are obvious, there are few tangibles for the customer to appreciate, the face of the deliverer differs from point to point and from day to day - infact for office couriers there may be no face at all. In this scenario the Skypak Man, the Maharaja or the DHL Jumbo appear to "tangiblise" the service for the consumer.
Started in 1969, by Dalsey, Hillblom and Lynn to transport shipping documents in advance of the actual shipments, DHL today spans 225 countries, employs 37,000 people and deliers 95 million documents a year. The brand building efforts have kept pace with the business - with ad spend of about 3% of revenue. The brand's position has evolved from being a "document carrier" to a "documents and parcel carrier" in the 70s to "express freight provider" in the '80s to "express logistics provider" in the 90s. This has also been supported by a plethora of research including customer tracking, U&A studies, mystery shopping, performance benchmarking, brand image monitoring, segmentation research and employee surveys.

Clearly, the picture emerges of a strong brand, with well defined core values. Why then did they feel the need to launch a sub-brand - the DHL Jumbo ? Why did they build into a personality with a mascot?

The answer lies in the value delivery mechanism. The company was able to segment the market into "slow and Cumbersome air freight" and "Air freight made easy"- a very high value idea for small exporters needing to demonstrate their product and unable to cope with the hassles of safe packaging and nitty gritty documentation. Around this strong functional benefit, the company devised the brand "Jumbo" to capture the functional benefit in a single strong mnemonic. Importantly, the Jumbo was chosen keeping it mind its applicability as a mascot accross countries and cultures.

The Brand Personality can be a useful tool for segmentation as well. Dr Vasudevan's Study, which uses Cigarettes as an example, segments smokers into 4 categories : Family security driven by destiny, classical hedonists, cautious materialists and street smart smokers. Personality segmentation is practised very successfully by Coats Viyella. Their 3 brands - Allen Solly, Van Heusen and Louise Phillipe retail at roughly the same prices, but they are strongly differentiated by their personalities. The personality of Van Heusen, is "classical, British," while Louise Phillipe is "European, Stylish" and Allen Solly, "Casual, American". Accordingly, the showrooms bear the appropriate look. Even in sponsorships, while Van Heusen sponsors lectures by corporate personalities, Louise Phillipe patronises the arts - theatre and music. Allen Solly associates itself with ecology and other contemporary issues. The consumer may wear more than one brand - as sometimes a particular design or colour may appeal to him - but he does lock into a brand personality.

User Imagery : For Madura Garments, the user of Louise Phillipe is the 35 year old who has achieved some status. The Van Heusen person is younger with a strong corporate orientation. The Allen Solly wearer, is essentially a young person, different from others in his activities interests and opinions, a free spirit who doesn't go by accepted dress codes. Though distinct from brand personality, people's brand choices are often driven by such user imagery. User imagery is the picture the consumer carries of the kind of person who uses a brand like this. There is of course some consonance betwen user imagery and brand personality which can be exploited through testimonial advertising . Was Lalitaji the personality of Surf ? Surf, traditionally has used the testimonial route. M S Banga of Levers feels "Lalita ji represented the woman of the times - she represented the reassurance that buying Surf was a good decision." Usha Bhandarkar, Creative Director, Lintas and the creator of Lalitaji, however, clarifies "Lalitaji was not the personality of Surf, she was an advertising property". However, the user imagery can prove to be a source of dissonance for the brand as well. It is one of the sources of Dissonance. Infact Surf has recognized that todays woman is not looking for reassurance for her actions, but likes to do things independently. The advertising, still of a testimonial nature, captures this change in the surf consumer and the personality of Surf has evolved as well.

Dissonances
Dissonances dog most brand building efforts, because of lack of synergy between all that a brand says and does. As Lux may have a personality of a film star, but when you go to buy it, the stacking and the packaging is much the same as others. One major source of dissonance is often brand personality versus user imagery. For Ruff'n Tuff jeans, while the user aspires to be Akshay Kumar, he sees ordinary people all around him wearing the brand. This is a problem with all aspirational brands.

HOW TO BUILD THE BRAND PERSONALITY
You can call it by the academically correct name of the Act Frequency Theory. Or you can simply say what you do is what you are. The bottom line is that the personality evolves out of every single act of the brand. Hence the truth of the statement "personality building is the same as brand equity building". Usha Bhandarkar maintains that brand personality can be built through "a snatch of music, a set of words or a gesture...as long as it captures a salient property of the brand"
Intel's features, the regular flow of new products and its strong campaign, have created a strong personality, which Debrah Conrad, Intel Asia Electronics Inc. describes as Innovative, Clever, Funny and Irreverant. At the same time, the thrust Intel has placed in many parts of the world, including India, on computer education from a primary level, is bound to have an effect on the personality of Intel, as did the fiasco of the Pentium chip. The Intel Inside campaign plays a special role - as it appears as a sticker on the products of its customers. It builds its own strong personality without taking away from its customers'. Like a best supporting actor. Contrast this with the personaluty of the Intel MMX chip - which immediately brings to mind colours, music, dancing.

We may take a closer look at some of the things which seem to have a stronger bearing, or have a better defined causal relationship with personality evolution.

1. Advertising is clearly a major contributor : from the message in BPL's "believe in the Best ", to creative execution in Britannia 50-50 which, in the words of Vikram Kaushik, VP Marketing and Exports, Britannia Industries Limited, Captures the pleasure of contrasts and speaks to consumers directly in a youthful way. And from testimonials - Surf Excel's current campaign uses regular users of the product, not models or actresses - to celebrity endorsement - accepts Philips' using Tendulkar and Aishwarya Rai are both attempts at making the brand more young and contemporary to the masses. Also relevant, are tone and media-selection.

2. Packaging has a leading role - infact its often the first thing you see about the brand. From Nivea's unisex colouring, to Little Hearts' youthful snacklike packs, the packaging, like the clothes people wear, communicates much about the personality of the brand.

3. Other communication matters: sponsorships - BPL's association with rock concerts has contributed to its young and trendy personality - and point of purchase communication - cutouts of the Devil adorn most Onida outlets.

4. Product Features, Performance & Price makes a difference : Intel's steady stream of innovation, have enabled it to create a strong "clever" personality, which enables it to charge a premium of upto 40% over other microprocessors.
5. Understanding and exploiting Customer-Category Relationship. Take the case of Britannia's Marie. People like to have biscuits with their tea. Marie has become synonymous with tea-time biscuit. The advertising for marie may be humorous, and the personality is that of a happy, funny person, but the humor is a peripheral activity. The core of the brand is seen as a serious transactor.

3 levels of brand personality building
a) The lowest level - or sleeping brands, where no concerted effort is made to build personalities . This is often the case in categories where there is little organised competition, or where the category is in a decline stage - Philips Radios is a brand who's personality is consciously not being built. In most other cases, however, it is an unintended omission or the result of contradictory and confusing signals being emitted by the brand. This is not to say that these brands don't have a personality. If you ask a consumer, he will probably be able to describe to you the person that the brand could become. However these will not be cued by the marketer in any way and will probably be non-uniform and diffused.

b) Building by personality dimensions - where strong personality dimensions are cued - This is where the bulk of the brands operate. As Banga says: "Liril's - freshness keeps coming right back at you all the time ...[also] youth, vitality, energy, ... its a very youthful brand… very energetic, vivacious and full of life. Liril is female." Whether it is Lirils freshness or Dove's mildness or Aramusk's masculinity or Evita's vitamin E, it creates some impression of the personality but leaves the consumer to picture the other traits and appearence of the brand. As a result, consistency along the relevant dimensions is achieved, and not on the peripheral ones.

c) Actually creating a persona, who stands for the brand and becomes a mascot. The Onida Devil and the Air India Maharaja, for example. This works through the functional benefits representation model, as described above. There are few brands which have opted for this more aggressive approach to personality building, which perhaps is why it remains such a strong mnemonic.

The disadvantages of having a mascot is clearly that having once embraced it, its hard to break out of it. It is also, a package deal, as Air India have found out, as certain undesirable traits also may come bundled with the intended ones. The Maharaja also, unfortunately continues to symbolise some of the negatives of Air India and even of the country, as seen by the International Traveller - he is lovable, but he is rotund, possibly old world, easy going, never in a hurry and possibly not very time conscious. On the hand, it is a powerful tool for communicating benefits, and more importantly, changes and new product announcements. It is inherently campaignable and therefore builds a consistent thread through all brand communication, greatly increasing recall and therefore equity. This is therefore the high risk high return option.

THE ONIDA STORY
14 years ago, Onida decided that they would only manufacture products that were of a high quality, that would occupy the top end of the market. They further felt that when you're the best, you shouldn't have to talk features, which anyway are transient in their appeal. Onida decided to adopt a more fundamental approach to their brand strategy. They decided to appeal to the basic human emotions driving the brand. This saw the birth of envy with a face, in Indian advertising. Upto this day, the devil has carried the Onida banner quite admirably. His brashness has become part of his likeable self, while his likeability has increased considerably over the last decade. He has made Onida a brand to reckon with.

Yet, Onida feels that the devil is not the personality of Onida. Though they agree that the devil is more than a memorability device. He does manage, in an instant, to convey all that Onida stands for. He challenges not just the customer, but also the company to embark on an upward spiral of product quality, and in a way, embodies the company's mission. The devil makes Onida a brand that talks to its customers. From rasping "Don't just envy the Onida TV..." to cut outs at the Onida arcades cooing "I knew you'd come !" Even Onida's attempt to become an "International" player, are communicated believably by the devil.

What then, is the personality of Onida ? The answer to this is not unambiguous. Perhaps Onida feels that the personality of the devil is holding Onida back from growing, as a brand. Onida does claim that its black and white TVs have never been blessed by the devil, so it is not correct to say the devil is the personality of Onida. Be that as it may, theres little doubt that if Onida the brand has had a personality over these last few years, it is that of the devil, in his many avatars, be it as part of Mount Rushmore or the kid - in the 14" Colour TV Ad. The Onida Devil was probably relevant when Onida had the best looking and most technologically advanced TV in the market. But today, there is nothing enviable about Onida... and the Devil seems to have no leg to stand on. The question for Onida today is what value is the devil adding? And, can he continue to meaningfully add the same value to the Onida customer? And the question for any marketer, is to what extent should the personality be built? Should one stop at cues and personality factors, or go all the way and put a face to the brand - like a mascot?

Its important to remember one basic point - a niche can only exist if there is a mass market. And the mass market is defined by homogeneity at some level. For a personality to work, there needs to be a very deep level of understanding about the homogeneities and the differences across the market, in consumer needs, feelings, usage, etc. Because at the end of the day, how the signals are decoded is as much a function of the receivers', as the senders' signals.

Brand Personality building is not a 1 year or 2 year exercise. If there is one point of unanimity across companies and across the literature on the subject, it is that building a personality requires achieving a consistency in communication, packaging and all aspects of marketing, for years at a stretch. Great brands like Colgate and Lifebuoy are built over decades. The most important question needs to be answered before the birth of the brand - Why am I giving birth to this brand ? - and that reason must exist into the adulthood of the brand. Ignoring this basic premise, is the route to brand mortality. Vikram Kaushik is especially vituperative while speaking of MBA's seeking quick fixes to brand building - he calls them "Murderers of Brand Assets".

RESEARCHING BRAND PERSONALITY
Typically, researching the personality begins by drawing up an inventory of personality attributes. This can be done through focused group discussions or depth interviews.

This is followed up by quantitative research, where again typically the respondent is made to answer a series of questions based on the imventory of personality attributes. The results are factor analysed, and corresponence maps or multi variate analyses can be conducted, at the end of which, a perceptual map can be constructed, or certain key personality parameters can be obtained, as key differentiators between brands.

Qualitative studies are often preferred while researching personalities. The respondents, in focused groups or indepth interviews, are asked to picture the brand as a person and describe the person. The variations on this central theme are many. If the brand died, what would you feel? If the brand was a film star, who would it be ? If all these brands were at a party, how would they dress and behave ? If the brand was related to you, what kind of relation would it be ? From these responses, the trained qualitative researcher is able to piece together a cogent personality of the brand and use it as a diagnostic tool. A recent study conducted by Star TV threw up the following responses: Star TV Plus as a person was Elite...Attractive & Eye-catching... a marketing executive... a girl in a bikini. Seen as an animal, it was a Lion... a giraffe... snake.

While for researching the personality of an existing brand, the qualitative route is better, the quantitative techniques may provide useful insights into a new brand launch scenario, by exploring gaps in the perceptual map, that the consumer may not be conscious of.

The Kapferer Model of Brand Identity
Kapferer uses the a hexagon to describe brand identity. (Also refered to as the brand prism)
The elements that comprise brand identity in this model are physique, personality, relationship, culture, users reflection and users self projection. Kapferer maintains that of the 6, the personality, culture and self image are internal whereas the physique, relationship and reflection are the externalised attrributes of the same brand.

The Sabre Model of Relationship
The Sabre Model defines a Brand as a uniquely defined relationship. This manifests itself in 2 questions which the brand needs to provide answers for, to the consumer.
1) What do I mean to you ? This answers the basic question of what role the Brand plays in the life of the consumer. It defines the relationship. The promise.
2) What am I to you ? This answers what position the brand is speaking from. It defines what is the personality of the brand.

In order to be able to use this model, however, a deep understanding of the consumer, and especially the consumer category relationship is required; and especially of the consumer category relationship, because often that has to be redefined. To the extent that a brand is able to redefine the consumer-category relationship, it will succeed. And to do this well, it needs a strong personality. Ramesh Thomas feels that Titan has been able to do just this - redefine the relationship between the wristwatch and the wearer, and it has been able to do so thanks in part to its strong personality.

The Brand Personality Scale (BPS) - Jennifer Aaker
A study of 1000 respondents across 114 personality traits covering 60 Brands revealed 5 personality factors. These 5 are able to explain 93% of the differences between brands. Each of the 5 is further divided into facets to provide texture and descriptive insights.

Sincerity
Down to earth : family oriented, small town, blue collar, all American, conventional
Honest : sincere, real, ethical, thoughtful, caring
Wholesome : Original, ageless, classic, genuine, old-fashioned
Cheerful : sentimental, friendly, warm, happy

Excitement
Daring : trendy, exciting, offbeat, flashy, provocative
Spirited : cool, young, lively, adventurous, outgoing
Imaginative : unique, humorous, surprising, artistic, fun.
Up-to-date : Independent, contemporary, innovative, aggressive

Competence
Reliable : hardworking, secure, efficient, trustworthy, careful
Intelligent : technical, corporate, serious
Successful : leader, confident, influential

Sophistication
Upper Class : Glamorous, good looking, pretentious, sophisticated.
Charming : feminine, smooth, sexy, gentle

Ruggedness
Outdoorsy : masculine, Western, active, athletic
Tough : rugged, strong, no-nonsense

In conclusion, let us clearly make the point here that we are never suggesting that personality is an alternative to the functional benefits of the product. The functional benefits are the table stakes. The personality augments this functionality, adds character, likeability, provides a medium for delivering the benefits and turns the product into a brand. It is in a world of increasing parity of functional performance that brand personalities assume greater importance. A marketer trying to trade off functionality with personality must understand the risks and the consequences of such tradeoffs. There is much value to be added by the personality if the functionality is in place - Banga adds, "Building a relationship ... comes from the intangible, from the personality , there must be a fit between yourself and brand personality. Its about being comfortable with the brand and being comfortable about getting up in the morning and seeing it on your dressing table. Its about seeing yourself reflected in the brand - its all these things."