How to Build a Brand Personality Your Audience Will Love
The most successful brands make an emotional impact, conveying a positive experience to their customers. They define and deliver this positive experience through brand personality—the human component of a brand.
Brand personality should be one of the key components of your overall brand identity. While developing brand personality takes time and effort, the payoff for your brand identity can be measured in more than just financial terms.
Here’s how you can create a human connection with your audience by crafting a brand personality your audience will love.
Focus on who you are
One of the biggest mistakes a brand can make is deciding who they are after launching a campaign. Tailoring a message as things shake out is like playing catch-up. Identify your values and target identity before coming to market so you can highlight your specialties and emotional appeal. After all, you want to sell the entire experience, rather than just a product or service.
Typically, brands fit into five broad categories with common traits. While your brand doesn’t need to rigidly fit into a “box,” you should use the following categories, along with their associated personality traits and strengths, to help you determine your brand personality.
- Competence: Intelligent, dependable, successful. Customers choose competent brands because they know their product or service gets the job done.
- Ruggedness: Hardy, thick-skinned and outdoorsy. Rugged brands can make customers feel powerful and remind them of nature, emphasizing longevity and durability.
- Sophistication: Refined, high-class and polished. Sophisticated brands can make customers feel classy, elegant and glamorous.
- Excitement: Imaginative, intriguing and unique. Brands that focus on excitement push the limits in a playful way, often creating hype and enthusiasm in their audience.
- Sincerity: Genuine, honest and warm. Customers appreciate brands with sincerity because they live up to their promises and always meet expectations.
Consider your competition
While creating a brand personality that reflects your overall values and message is important, you also want to stand out from your closest competitors. Research your competition and find ways to uniquely position yourself in the market. For example, if your competition focuses on sincerity, take a slightly different path and focus on sophistication in your campaigns.
Keep it consistent
Once you’ve settled on your unique brand personality, commit to it. Everything you do from here on out should fall in line with the traits that define your brand.
Going for a funny, down-to-earth personality? Spread humor across your future campaigns. Is your brand more polished and elite? Steer clear of the jokes and speak with a poised, refined tone. If your strategy isn’t resonating with your audience, feel free to tweak your approach to reflect what they want.
Bring it all together
Once you’ve identified your brand personality, you’re well on the path to bringing your full brand identity together. Use your personality traits to inform every facet of your brand, from the color combinations you use in your brand designs to the messages you send in your marketing campaigns.
Successfully developing your brand personality requires keen insight, thorough planning and consistent effort. Need help? Say hello to Spin Creative! We provide the guidance you need to translate your brand’s personality into a new and profitable business, helping you share what you have in common with your audience: human personality.
About Us
Spin Creative is a video production company and creative agency helping marketers create winning video and creative strategies that engage, inspire and activate targeted audiences. Spin is headquartered in Seattle with offices in San Francisco and London, serving brands around the globe.
