What is Brand Personality? Definition & Examples

by Aashish Pahwa · Last updated on October 13th, 2019,

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Just like humans, a brand has a personality and it refers to how it behaves. Brand personality is something customers can relate to. It is how a brand expresses itself.

Table of Contents

1 What Is Brand Personality?
- 1.1 Jennifer Aaker Brand Personality Model
2 What Leads To Brand Personality?
3 Examples of Brand Personality

What Is Brand Personality?

Brand Personality refers to brand personification. It is the set of human traits/characteristics assigned to the brand. A brand personality comes into existence when human-like adjectives like unique, caring, funny, trustworthy, creative, straightforward, dishonest, rebel, etc. are assigned to a brand.

Jennifer Aaker Brand Personality Model

Jennifer Aaker combined these set of adjectives into five core dimensions. These are:

Sincerity
Excitement
Ruggedness
Sophistication

What Leads To Brand Personality?

Branding Strategies: The name, logo, colours, fonts and other branding strategies affect the brand personality.
Marketing Activities: Marketing activities like taglines, product packaging, and marketing communication strategies have a huge role in defining a brand’s personality.

Examples of Brand Personality

Here are a few examples of brands with out of the box brand personalities:

Brand Personality of Woodland

Woodland got the ruggedness, outdoorsy, and ready for adventure personality through its products (hard boots – meant for adventure) and smart marketing strategies. They also used the colour green, which represents nature, to build a personality of being outdoorsy.

Brand Personality of Harley Davidson

Harley Davidson has been a rebel from the start. The promotional campaigns (naming motorcycles as mean machines), the logo, and use of bright and dynamic colours have helped them build this personality.

Also Read: What Is Brand Purpose And Why Is It Important?

Brand Personality of Marlboro

Marlboro got a personality of being tough through its different marketing strategies, which included ‘The Tattooed Man’, ‘Marlboro Cowboy’, and ‘The Marlboro man’.

Brand Personality of MTV

MTV tried to position itself to be different from the usual music videos channel. The concept of VJ’s followed by cool logos and taglines, like ‘I want my MTV’ & ‘MTV is here’, helped them stand out.