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Product Personality
Posted By: siddharth4379* on 11/22/2004 6:23 PM (CST) 250 Points
Some theories have maintained that products have "personality". If this is true, how did they obtain their personalities ? How can the marketers use this phenomenon

Posted by: W.M.M.A. Accepted Answer
11/22/2004 6:29 PM (CST)
Pillsbury is a prime example. Branding, as it is termed, is a joint effort between management and usually a consulting firm or, an in house brand manager.

Let's do this first.
Go to the "Search Questions" section, just to the right of this post. Enter "Branding" as your key search word, and learn all you can learn about this topic.

Also visit: www.saatchi/saatchi.com and link to their CEO's site: www.saatchikevin.com. He virtually created trademarks, now lovemarks.

Also go to Google and enter: Philip Kotler. You will soon become brilliant on the topic of marketing/branding.
Good Luck
Randall
WMMA
 
Posted by: SteveByrneBranding Accepted Answer
11/22/2004 7:48 PM (CST)
Hi siddharth4379,

Here’s case study for Band-Aid’s brand personality --

“How would you describe Band-Aid as a person? In the personage of Earle, he is the archetype personified as The Caregiver. He is nurturing, compassionate, caring of his wife and living a life of service to others. They are not merely Earle's traits as few customers will ever know Earle's story - they are now Band-Aid's traits. Band-Aid is The Caregiver.
The Band-Aid brand stands for the strong emotion of caring. The brand and caring emotion even extended themselves into popular culture in 1984. In that year, recording artists got together to fight an African famine crisis. The name they chose for this effort was Band Aid, a powerful confirmation of the brand's emotional connection.”
Source:
http://www.schraff.com/adv/helpdesk/brand_is.php

best of luck,
- Steve
 
Posted by: D4Demand Accepted Answer
11/22/2004 11:47 PM (CST)
Brand personality is a concept also written about by David Aaker (my all time fave) of Prophet.com.

The brand personality is also descibed in Aakers book "Building Strong Brands" You can pick up the book at most university and public libraries and read it for free.

Or you can read the brand personality Chapter for free right now at:
http://groups.haas.berkeley.edu/marketing/PAPERS/AAKER/BOOKS/BUILDING/brand...

Aaker teaches at Berkeley so you are not breaking and IP laws by doing a download.

Aaker says it best so I won't try.
 
Posted by: plasticfrog* Accepted Answer
11/24/2004 7:09 AM (CST)
I can give you an excellent example of brand personality. Apple.

The personality of a brand is the impression that brand makes on you. I would suggest Apple has the personality of an upmarket innovative brand. It's regarded as stylish, yet easy to use and excellent quality. I think this yet have never actually used an Apple.

My impression is the personality given to the brand by their branding and marketing.

To answer how you can use this is simple. Give your brand a personality that matches your product or service.

For example:
Speed: Dominoes used to advertise Delivered in 30 mins or it's free.
Their personality spoke to their fast pace and efficient service.
Quality: Mercedes really owns this personality in the car market.

Set your product or service up and focus on one specific personality or message. Mention it on all your ads and really drive that home to the market then you own that little piece of their minds and generates recall.

John
 
Posted by: mcherif* Accepted Answer
12/9/2004 3:57 AM (CST)
Hi,

Not all products have a personality, nor should all products have one. It will depend on the industry. However, any successful brand in the consumer goods industry will need to have to a certain extent a personality, simply because the physical benefits are not enough to create a loyal relationship between the consumer and the product, you need a brand for that.

Creating a personality can help achieve this. To do so, you need to start understanding from your target consumers (through research)
- what are the current perceptions about your product? Are they matching their needs?
- what is the current user imagery?, e.g.: asking your target consumers who they think is using your product
- do your target consumers already perceive a personality around your product? (but unless you had a clear and consistent positioning for a certain time, it won’t be the case)

You also need to define internally what kind of personality you would like your product to have. This will depend on what you know or think your target consumers will appreciate (ex: if you’re after high income, luxury driven consumers, you will aim at a classy, prestigious personality).

The main challenge is then to combine what your target consumers think you are with what you want to be. More often than not there will be a gap between the two, and beware, you can’t stretch too far from where you are, unless you are ready to re-start from scratch and make considerable spend to re-create an image.

Once you have agreed on the kind of personality you would like your brand to have, you need to design all your communication to reflect this and to ensure your target consumers will have this image in mind. You can check this via focus groups by asking them: if our product was a person, what kind of person would it be…

Hope this will help…

Mehdi
 
Posted by: Brainiac* Accepted Answer
12/25/2004 4:12 PM (CST)
A product doesnt have a personality. A brand does. And developing this "personality" or image takes time, effort and money. Ronald McDonald is a personality. Many a times, to gauge the personality that a brand has, we conduct surveys asking people to talk about the brand as if it were a person. What clothes would it wear? Where would he eat? What are his or her likes or dislikes etc.?
Marketers use this phenomenon to help develop a relationship between the brand and the customer. So you see Ronald McDonald laughing and smiling and eating with kids. You see a Citibanker taking care of your financial needs etc. It helps the brand connect to the customer at a personal level. It helps give the brand a face or an identity. Brand Ambassadors associated with a brand help strengthen the brand personality.
 
Posted by: Sanjeev Kumar Vyas Member Response
12/30/2004 11:03 PM (CST)
Hi siddarth,
Well Yes products have personality and they get it from the company management and brand managers.
Company management decieds the features and the benefits the product and brand managers use these features and benefits and give them emotional feelings thus giving them personality.
Marketer use this phenomenon to form a emotional bond between the customers and the product. the more emotional the bond the more loyal the customer.
Regards
Sanjeev
 
Posted by: Shidean* Member Response
12/31/2004 3:47 AM (CST)
Are there any elements of "brand personality" in a B2B environment, where a manufacturer is looking for distributors and there's no direct link with consumers?
 
Posted by: mgoodman Accepted Answer
12/31/2004 10:42 AM (CST)
Every brand has some personality -- its brand image, if you will. If there isn't an overt attempt to impart a personality (through advertising, promotion, publicity, packaging, etc.), then the image (or personality) is likely to be of a very bland, non-specific nature: "It just kind of 'there.'" (I know some people with this kind of personality too.)

The important thing to remember is that the "personality" exists in the minds of the audience -- usually the customer base. It is not something intrinsic to the product itself.

Really strong brands often have their personalities, or brand images, so skillfully intertwined with the product and package itself that it's hard to separate them. That's the goal for serious marketers when they create a brand. More often, we inherit existing brands and do our best to reverse engineer the brand image into the product, or vice versa.
 
Posted by: Val (Moderator)* Moderator Response
1/3/2005 4:28 PM (CST)
Hello all. I am closing this question, since its more than two weeks old. We do this to make sure members' contributions are rewarded in a timely manner and to improve the visibility of newer questions. Thanks, so much, for participating!

Val (Moderator)
 


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