Creating a point of difference, attracting like-minded customers and creating a cultural buzz around your brand are compelling reasons for developing a bit of personality. Well-defined character traits, style, attitude etc should underpin and define everything you do whether it's your communications, design, company ethics, promotional offering/mechanic and the brands, causes or celebrities you choose to associate with.
So, where do you get your personality from?
Nature: Where does anyone get their personality from? Part of it is driven by the very nature of your product or the reason behind a product's inception in the first place. Clearly if you have an established brand there will be certain characteristics inherent in your name already. If you like those characteristics then that is a ready platform to build on. If not, or the character has fallen behind the times it is still possible to re-brand or relaunch. (e.g. McDonald's dropping Ronald McDonald for the hipper "I'm Loving It" vibe)
Nurture: Part of the personality is driven by traits that would appeal to your target audience. For banking / Insurance you want security, dependability and trust but for a children's snack brand anarchy, irreverence and boldness will push the right buttons.
How can the personality manifest?
- A Physical Character: literally embodying the brand or logo e.g. Peperami Animal, Churchill Dog, Andrex Puppies and the inevitable Meerkat.
- Communications: from packaging and point of sale through to YouTube and even in-flight announcements.
- Your ethos: practise what you preach. If you're positioning is all about health, fairness and sustainability this should be reflected in your supply chain, how you work with your suppliers.
- Promotional mechanics: how a consumer participates in your promotion is enhanced if it plays on your brand's characteristics - say a heat and reveal on a hot beverage, using a bottle cap for a free swim - or Schwim Caps as they were known
- Collaborations: you might consider a cheeky brand ambassador like Gary Lineker or a hot tie up with Spotify. You gain kudos, respect and appeal by association.
- Causes: The most obvious example is McVities Penguin, who have made a long term commitment to P..P..Protect the Penguin. They've featured associations with WWF and offered Penguin Adoptions as an instant win.
- Sponsorship: A handy option, but by no means exclusively, for those brands or services which are less glamourous, haven't got presence on supermarket shelves or other avenue for expressing themselves or they just plain ain't allowed to by law. We're talking financial services, furniture, mobile networks etc.
- Social Networks: These many and varied channels can perform spectacularly if done properly and hey, they've got all the tools you need right there to get started straight away. Posting photos, videos, regular commentary, engaging with consumers, apps, games, promotions. It's all possible. BUT, and it's a big BUTT, your social media strategy shouldn't be planned lightly. If you start it, you need to apportion the resources to keep it going. Nothing looks worse than a Twitter feed or a Facebook page which hasn't been updated 2 months. Cheaply earned Likes and Follows count for nothing if you don't keep the consumer engaged.
Here are a few of our favourite brand personalities...
Innocent's humour, friendliness and enthusiasm is plain for everyone to see. Their stunningly simple promotion The Big Knit will have raised a total of over £1 million for Age by the end of this year's campaign. It engages consumers, creates stand-out on shelf and raises money for a great cause, all with personality and humour. And that just says it all about this amazing personality.
Kulula the South African no-frills airline could be seen as mildly reckless or cavalier injecting humour into passenger safety announcements, but it seems to work. Whether it's the amusing livery on their fleet of aircraft or the in-flight announcements, Kulula deliver bags of laughs as well as hopefully delivering your bags at your destination. Here are some real life examples of Kulula's announcements:
- "Kulula Airlines is pleased to announce that we have some of the best flight attendants in the industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight!”
- “Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to smoke, the smoking section on this airplane is on the wing. If you can light ‘em, you can smoke ‘em.”
- “Thank you for flying Kulula. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride.”
The Peperami Animal has been around since 1993 and the 'It's a bit of an animal' slogan has formed the backbone of their marketing ever since. Their 'Win a Fanimal' campaign was an inspired piece of subversive marketing to capitalise on the World Cup without being a sponsor. I'll let the Animal explain their ethos: "Throw me, hit me, squeeze me – I can take it, I’m a bit of an animal – and I’ll unleash the rants. Those lentil eating, veggie foreign teams won’t know what hit ‘em."
So, if you're considering a change of personality or giving birth to a new brand entity, whatever you do - be bold. Stick with what you believe in and, like the Peperami Animal, your brand personality will soon take on a life of it's own. Good Luck!
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