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“Oh…what an adorable brand!”…“That brand is so cute!!!”

 

Maybe we have heard those expressions toward brands from people around us. It is not strange to hear people profess their feelings to inanimate and intangible objects such as brands. This occurred because companies are humanizing their brands. There are many ways to humanize your brands, one way of doing it is to create a mascot or a figure. Take a look at the Michelin Man (a humanoid figure consisting of stacked white tyres) from Michelin or Aleksandr Orlov (a Computer Generated Imagery of a Meerkat) from ComparetheMarket.com – an insurance company.  Humanizing a brand goes beyond only developing a mascot or figure. For example, in the case of Aleksandr Orlov, the company or the brand made Aleksandr Orlov as a person (a talking Meerkat) with a nationality (i.e., Russian) with specific personalities (e.g., aristocratic). Thus, the brand personified the mascot.

 

Anthropomorphism and brand personality

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The basic idea of personifying a brand is based on anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is an act of endowing an object (e.g., brand) with humanlike characteristics, emotions, beliefs, intentions, and a mind of its own [i]. In 1997, Jennifer Aaker utilized the big-5 personality traits (i.e., Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism) to personify brand and create a brand personality scale [ii]. As a result, she came up with five dimensions of brand personality.

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The big question is whether you should humanize or personify your brands. Will it benefit your brands?

 

Pros and Cons of personifying your brands

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Assigning personalities to your brands could bring many benefits. For example, a team led by Prof. Sebastian Molinillo found that brand personality dimensions could lead to many favourable outcomes, such as higher brand awareness, trust and loyalty [iii].

 

Nevertheless, a brand manager should be careful as well in humanizing the brand. Although a recent study found positive effects of anthropomorphizing brand, the authors also found negative effects [i]. They found that for individuals who are culturally close (or within the same culture) to the destination brands showed positive reactions, whilst individuals who are culturally distant to the destination brand have lower travel intentions. 

 

How do we build brand personality?

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A study in the Journal of Business Research offers an interesting insight by showing that in order to build brand personality, brand manager could utilize experiences [iv]. In that study, the authors show that to build a responsible brand personality, one could promote sensory, affective, and intellectual experiences. Whilst, to develop an active brand personality, one could promote sensory and intellectual experience. For example, in the case of ComparetheMarket.com, a tv show in Australia (TODAY) interviewed Aleksandr Orlov. Thus, a brand manager could create an interactive event such as this with its customers.

 

References

[i] Kwak, H., Puzakova, M., Rocereto, J. F., & Moriguchi, T. (2020). When the unknown destination comes alive: the detrimental effects of destination anthropomorphism in tourism. Journal of Advertising, 49(5), 508-524.

[ii] Aaker, J. L. (1997). Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of marketing research, 34(3), 347-356.

[iii] Molinillo, S., Japutra, A., Nguyen, B., & Chen, C. H. S. (2017). Responsible brands vs active brands? An examination of brand personality on brand awareness, brand trust, and brand loyalty. Marketing Intelligence & Planning.

[iv] Japutra, A., & Molinillo, S. (2019). Responsible and active brand personality: On the relationships with brand experience and key relationship constructs. Journal of Business Research, 99, 464-471.