Research - effects of brand personalities

Effects of Brand Personality on Brand Trust and
Brand Affect
Yongjun Sung
University of Texas at Austin
Jooyoung Kim
University of Georgia

According to brand personality theorists, brands can be associated with human personality traits through learning and experience. Since consumers have dif- ficulty articulating perceived differences between competitive brands based on the physical attributes, brand personality and image management have been a critical part of a company’s marketing program. As Levy (1985) noted, the task of differentiating brands can be facilitated when consumers relate them to human characteristics, suggesting that communicating a clearly defined brand image enables consumers to identify the needs the brand satisfies (Park, Jaworski, & MacInnis, 1986).

As Aaker (1996) suggested, the entire mix of marketing com- munication variables (e.g., advertising, user imagery, price, packaging, symbols, logos, store location, word-of-mouth) and every other exposure that the brand receives creates brand personality over time. A brand’s personality is stronger and clearer if these elements are deliberately coordinated, if the personality is distinctive, and if the personality is kept consistent over time and media (Batra, Lehmann, & Singh, 1993).

Brand personality is beneficial to marketers and consumers. For marketers, a brand’s personality is an integral component of a brand’s image and equity, and it is related to the brand’s value in the consumer’s mind (Keller, 1993). Brand personality can create and build a bond with the consumer, particularly if the personality is distinctive, robust, desirable, and constant (Lannon, 1993). Marketers thus view a brand personality as an efficient way to distinguish the brand from its competitors, thereby enhancing the marketing effectiveness.

From the viewpoint of consumers, brand personality provides self-expressive or symbolic benefits for the consumer (Aaker, 1999). Consumers often use brands to create and communicate their personalities. According to Escalas and Bettman (2003), consumers use brands to meet their needs, forming connections between their self-concepts and brand images (called self–brand connections). Such con- nections play an important role in creating brand equity and maintaining long- term consumer–brand relationships. Escalas and Bettman (2003) have also suggested that consumers value the psychological benefits of associating with brands because consumers can construct and define their self-concept and pres- ent themselves to others in a variety of social contexts. As asserted by Siguaw, Mattila, and Austin (1999), a well-established brand personality is thought to heighten emotional ties with the brand, increase preference and patronage, and augment a sense of trust and loyalty.

For example, Aaker (1997) demonstrated that a five-factor struc- ture appears to best explain the way American consumers perceive brands across symbolic and utilitarian product categories. Those five dimensions are Sincer- ity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness (Aaker, 1997). Three dimensions (Sincerity, Excitement, and Competence) resemble three human personality dimensions (Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Conscien- tiousness) that are also present in the extant big-five human personality model, whereas two dimensions (Sophistication and Ruggedness) are not consistent with those of the big-five human personality model.  

As discussed earlier, since brand personality is created and maintained in the mind of the consumer as a reflection of the perception of the brand, it can have a meaningful and significant impact on both brand trust and brand affect. Consumer researchers have reported that brand personality increases emotion and affect levels in consumers (Biel, 1993) as well as trust and loyalty levels (Fournier, 1998). Although both brand trust and brand affect can be driven cog- nitively as well as affectively, the present study proposes that some brand per- sonality dimensions relate more to cognitive-level brand evaluations, whereas others have a stronger impact on affective-level brand perceptions.