Content summary: There are many specific methods to shape a brand's personality, but they must follow some same basic principles. Based on existing research results, this article summarizes and innovates the principles of brand personality building. The specific summary is: simple yet profound, individual yet unique, rich yet unified, durable yet changeable. Keywords: Brand personality building principles
Compared with the Western world, my country's market economy started late. However, in recent years, with the continuous deepening of my country's market economic reform and opening up to the outside world, and the weakening of the influence of my country's traditional values ????of "emphasis on sex and underestimation of individuality", the individuality of Chinese people has become increasingly liberated. Reflected in consumption, after entering the 21st century, Chinese consumers, especially the "middle class", have gradually strengthened their "self" consciousness in consumption, and personalized self-consumption patterns have gradually emerged.
Lu Taihong even believes that the structure of my country's consumer groups will change significantly in the 21st century, and the young third-generation consumer group will become the main consumer market. They have the following characteristics: the trend of perceptual consumption is rising; they value and highlight personalization; they pay more attention to value than price; and they are increasingly influenced by brands.
However, with the liberation of Chinese people’s personalities and the increasingly personalized consumption patterns of consumers, in addition to paying attention to the functional value of goods, people are also paying more and more attention to the emotional value and self-expression value of product brands, which is gradually From the era of rational consumption to the era of emotional consumption.
To sum up, after entering the 21st century, the individuality of consumers in our country has become increasingly liberated, and the consumption of mainstream consumer groups (especially the young third-generation consumer group) has become increasingly personalized and diversified. From the era of rational consumption to the era of emotional consumption. In such an era, the emotional appeal of brands will increasingly become the focus of competition. Creating a distinctive personality for brands has gradually become an important topic in my country's theoretical circles.
The concept of brand personality
Ogilvy had the germination of the idea of ??brand personality very early. His famous saying "Every advertisement must contribute to the long-term personality of the brand" (1955) is still inspiring today. In a speech to 4A members in the United States in 1955, he once said, "If manufacturers can devote themselves to using advertising to establish the most favorable image and create the clearest personality for their brands, they will surely gain the largest market share." market share, and thus generate the highest profits. … Let us remember that it is the overall personality of the brand, not the trivial product differences, that determines its ultimate position in the market.”
At the same time, Leo Burnett began to work on shaping brand personality as early as the 1950s and 1960s. Several famous brand images created by Leo Burnett at that time and later, such as Marlboro Tough Guy, Green Giant Joely of vegetables, Tony the Tiger of food, etc., are all distinctive and personalized images with humanistic characteristics, and each of them has been honored. Ranking of the top ten brand images of the 20th century selected by the American "Advertising Age".
There are numerous definitions of brand personality. As a well-known scholar of brand personality research, Jennifer Eck gave a clear definition of brand personality based on summarizing other people’s definitions of brand personality, namely Brand personality associated is defined formally here as the set of human characteristics with a brand.
The significance of brand personalization
It is very important for enterprises to create a distinctive personality for their brands, as listed below: < /p>
(1) Brand personality can create brand differentiation
In many product categories in today’s market, it is difficult to differentiate competing brands based on the practical functions of the product. As a practitioner, Ron Mather, a creative advertising director in Sydney, believes that most products rarely have unique selling points, and it is now crucial to give brands some kind of personality. As a "softer" thing that is deeper than a brand image, a brand personality that has been consistently shaped over a long period of time is difficult to imitate. Therefore, brand personality is an ideal tool for creating brand differentiation.
(2) Brand personality is an important part of brand identity
An important concept popular in the marketing industry in the 1990s - Brand Identity, also translated as brand Characteristics or brand characteristics, of which brand personality is an important part.
French brand expert Jean-No?l Caifele believes that a complete brand identity includes six aspects including brand personality; American advertising strategist Lynn B. Upshaw further pointed out that brand personality Brand positioning and brand positioning are the two most important variables or components that display brand identity.
(3) Brand personality can carry out deep emotional communication with consumers
A brand with distinctive human characteristics is like a person, which enables consumers to see a person in it. The shadow of old friends, children's companions, teachers, experts or good assistants in life, etc., thus giving people a natural sense of familiarity, intimacy, trust and identity; brand personality can also deeply communicate with consumers about life attitudes and values. Communication enables people to discover their own shadow. A brand with a unique personality can create a strong connection with a particular value and strongly appeal to consumers who believe that value is important. So, in this sense, brand personality is one of the important factors in establishing brand preference and brand loyalty.
Principles of brand personality building
(1) Simple yet profound
Integrated marketing Professor Don E. Schultz, the father of communication, believes that the public’s mode of receiving information is: forgetting and filtering 99%, and only remembering 1%. Manufacturers think they have told the public about a complete product through advertisements, soft articles, pictures, research reports, etc., but this is just wishful thinking on the part of the manufacturer. David Ogilvy, the father of advertising, has always warned advertisers that advertisements must have a single appeal. Consumers will only remember one thing or a strong concept from an advertisement. Through investigation, we found that the brand personalities of long-standing internationally renowned brands are mostly three to four characteristics, such as Virgin’s “innovation, freedom and anti-tradition”; Smonov’s “mystery, peculiarity and Full of imagination"; the Marlboro brand's "strength and independence", etc.
Although the brand personality requires simplicity, it must have an emotional impact on consumers and make a deep impression. This requires that the brand personality should match the brand personality expected by consumers, thereby establishing a loyal and strong brand relationship. . In the concept of "brand relationship", consumers and brands are regarded as two equally important parts of a relationship, and they will interact with each other, just like the interaction between two people. A good brand relationship is actually a series of related states that satisfy both parties through interaction between the brand and consumers. Therefore, in order to consolidate brand advantages, brand managers must not only create a simple brand personality, but also make the brand personality deeply rooted in the hearts of the target consumers. For example: France's Michelin Tires, with its cute and naive cartoon image of the "Michelin Tire Man of France", makes boring tires look interesting and makes the audience have a deep impression of the Michelin brand while laughing. After a hundred years, French Michelin Tire has become a leader in the world's tire field with absolute strength.
(2) Personality without losing personality
Allport first proposed the personality trait theory in 1937. He divided personality (also called personality) traits into two categories: one is homogeneous traits, which refers to the same traits that are common to most people or a group in a certain social and cultural form. The other type is personal traits, which refer to the unique characteristics of an individual, as shown in Figure 1.
The same is true for a company’s brand personality. In the process of shaping brand personality, it must have its own unique personality, but at the same time it must not violate the majority of people or a group. All have the same characteristics under the same social and cultural form. First of all, there must be content in the brand personality that is not found in the personality of competing brands. As the market economy matures and competition becomes fiercer, there are more and more identical or similar positionings in the same product category. Uniqueness and novelty create differentiation. Unique things are always unforgettable. Secondly, uniqueness does not mean being strange, nor does it mean a personality that ignores the reality or desires of the target group. It should be unique and effective. The basic basis for judging whether the uniqueness of a brand personality is effective is to see whether it deeply attracts and impresses the target group and arouses emotional resonance. This requires brand builders to dig deep into the inner emotional world of the target group and gain insight into the target group's values ??and changes; again, "unique" does not require that all aspects of the brand's overall personality must be completely different from competing brands. As mentioned earlier, brand personality has 3 to 7 traits. Since the target groups of competing brands are basically the same, and brand personality should reflect the overall personality of the target group or their social personality, it is reasonable and not surprising that competing brands have the same part in personality. For example, Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola have the characteristics of "lively and happy" in their personalities.
(3) Rich yet unified
The process of building brand personality must be "dispersed in form but not in spirit". In other words, the tools for building brand personality can be diverse, including packaging, advertising, public relations, etc. However, all tools must maintain the unity of style during use. In other words, all communication tools must adhere to the personality standards of the brand and carry out integrated communication activities for the brand.
Formally speaking, it means that the sentences, styles, pictures, texts, sounds, brand spokespersons, brand symbols, etc. of brand communication should be closely related to the brand's personality, and at the same time reflect and shape a unified brand personality.
Brand is an integrated concept. Adhering to the unity of brand image and brand personality means integrating all resources and working in the same direction. From corporate reputation, media opinion, public reputation to advertising temperament, design style, and every brand behavior should be the accumulation and precipitation of brand personality. In layman's terms, the process of building brand personality is actually the process of accumulating and settling in the direction of the same brand personality from the brand's views (packaging), sayings (advertising) and practices (public relations).
(4) Durability without losing change
For a brand, it is the long-term conscious consistency of the brand's external "words and deeds" that shapes the brand's personality. Long-term sustainability and consistency are also important reasons why other brands cannot imitate in the short term; at the same time, the process of brand development is also a process of constantly "changing faces" and constantly creating a new brand image. Practice tells people that the key is to introduce a brand personality time management mechanism and grasp the balance between "persistence" and "change". "Persistence" means that the brand connotation that is in line with the essence of human nature and ultimate meaning and can last forever under the erosion of time should maintain a certain degree of internal stability; "change" requires that brand building should grasp the pulse of the times and the needs of consumers. Concept change.
Persistence: In the long river of time, adhering to a unified brand image and persistently forging brand personality are also the only ways for some international brands to achieve success. A successful brand image indeed relies on consistent persistence and publicity. For example: Coca-Cola, which has enjoyed a hundred years of glory, has emphasized that it is "delicious and joyful" for hundreds of years and has never changed; Coca-Cola's core formula and the American culture it conveys have not changed significantly after more than 100 years of vicissitudes; Its traditional red background color has remained unchanged, and the core image of the brand has continued. As for Marlboro cigarette advertisements, the themes of cowboys, vast grasslands, and trekking have remained the same for more than 40 years once they were finalized.
Variability: However, it is necessary to enrich the brand personality and create brand freshness to continuously activate the brand's vitality. Frequently "changing faces" to get rid of the embarrassment of brand aging is an eternal theme on the road to corporate brand personality. In order to adapt to the trends of the times and cultural evolution, maintain the value and vitality of the brand, and maintain consumers' loyalty and freshness to the brand, companies often conduct "reviews" and compare each element of brand identity with historical and current trends. Identify and compare images, decide which associations need to be maintained, which need to be modified or added, which brand styles and principles need to be changed, and finally formulate corresponding brand communication activities.
In short, companies are in the process of shaping their brand personality. First of all, it must be ensured that the brand personality created is simple, easy to understand, and easy to remember, and at the same time it must make consumers feel. Secondly, the brand personality must have characteristics that consumers have not discovered but really yearn for, and at the same time, it must have characteristics that the majority of consumers* ** The natural and universal recognition recognized by all parties is the so-called "excellent victory with righteousness"; thirdly, the methods of shaping brand personality should be rich and colorful, and should also have unified principles and directions; finally, the shaping of brand personality It must have stability but also change, and grasp the balance between "durability" and "change", so that the brand can easily develop a stable and outstanding personality without causing brand aging.