5 Dimensions of Brand Personalitygiven by JENNIFER AAKER

Jennifer Aaker• General Atlantic professor of marketing at the

Graduate School of Business,• Ph.D. in Marketing, Ph.D. Minor in Psychology,

1995 (Stanford University)• Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, 1989

(University of California, Berkeley) RESEARCH INTERESTS• Time, Money & Happiness • Culture • Emotions • Psychology of Brand Relationship

• She also works on

(a)giving - getting people to give (b) culture - i.e., how individuals across

distinct cultural contexts feel, think and experience events in different (and sometimes very similar) ways, and

(c) the psychology of consumer-brand relationships.

Hi

It seems that this NANO above is talking to

the consumer in this ad. (Don’t you almost want to say “Hi”

back?)

Brand Personality

Brand personality refers to the set of human characteristics associated with a brand (Aaker 1997). Brand Personality provides an emotional identity for a brand and encourages consumers to respond with feeling and emotions towards the brand.

E.g. limca representing freshness, Nike as the athlete in all of us,Maggi-2min noodles.

Basically Brand personality reflects how people feel about a brand, rather than what they think the brand is or does.Consumers perceive the brand on dimensions that typically capture a person’s personality, and extend that to the domain of brands. The dimensions of brand personality are defined by extending the dimensions of human personality to the domain of brands.

Jennifer Aaker’s paper, “Dimensions of Brand Personality”(1997),contributes a way to measure the

much talked- about and interesting notion of brand personality.

The objective of her study is to identify brand personality dimensions as perceived in the consumers’ mind.

Her study of 631 subjects rated 37 brands on 114 personality traits. She presents a valid and reliable framework, which measures brand personality from.

The construct exists via five core dimensions, each divided into a set of facets.

Measuring Brand Personality

Brand Personality Framework

According to Jennifer Aaker (1997), the pattern suggests these brand personality dimensions might operate in different ways or influence consumer preference for different reasons.

Whereas Sincerity, Excitement, and Competence represent an innate part of human personality,

Sophistication and Ruggedness tap dimensions that individuals desire but do not necessarily have.

5 Dimensions TRAITS DESCRIPTIONSINCERITY Service is perceived as honest, genuine,

cheerful, domestic

EXCITEMENT Customer perceived service as daring and spirited

COMPETENCE Service is perceived as responsible, reliable, efficient and dependable

SOPHISTICATION Customer perceived service as charming, glamorous and romantic

RUGGEDNESS Service is perceived as strong and tough

Measuring the Validity of

5 Dimensions

COLGATEToday, Colgate is a household name in India. Colgate brand was selected for the study as it is the No.1 brand in India (Economic Times, 2004).Consistently superior quality, continuing innovation, and value-for-money products emerging out of the advanced technology employed, have enabled Colgate to be voted as ‘The Most Trusted Brand’ in India across all brands.

Validity of Dimensions

Sincerity Dimension

The items—realistic, sentimental, and down to earth under the Sincerity dimension are more relevant for colgate. But sincere and wholesome are not applicable for colgate.

Exciting Dimension

The items—cool, contemporary and imaginative—are not applicable to Colgate brand

Competence Dimension

The item—successful—under Competence dimension is not applicable to Colgate brand.

Sophistication dimension The items – charming, smooth and glamorous under sophisticated dimension are

morerelevant for colgate. Also the items- upper class , good looking and feminine are not applicable to this brand.

Ruggedness dimension The item—masculine—under the

Ruggedness dimension is not applicable to this brand.

The Soft DrinksBrand Recall: The highest recall was of the brand

Thums Up with 32.84% followed by Pepsi with 31.86% and Coca-Cola had a recall of 28.92%. Brands like 7up, Mountain Dew, Sprite etc. had a recall of 6.38% altogether.

Top of the mind: For Coca Cola, color red, refreshing and ‘thanda’ were the terms topping the charts.

For Pepsi, the keyword ‘Youngistan’ from its tagline was most recalled. ‘Sweet’ and ‘blue’ were other terms associated with the brand. ‘

Strong’, ‘Akshay Kumar’ and ‘thrill’ were on top of the mind recall of the respondents for the brand Thums Up.

Measuring the Dimensions

Down to Earth: Pepsi was considered to be the least on ‘down to earth’ vis-à-vis other cola brands. Coca Cola scored neutral whereas the response for Thums up was quite evenly spread out across all the parameters.

Honest: Coca-cola was considered to be most ‘Honest’ brand followed by Thums Up and Pepsi was rated least on this brand attribute.

Wholesome: Thums Up is the brand that is considered most wholesome followed by Pepsi. Neutral responses were given to Coca-cola.

Cheerful: Pepsi is considered the most cheerful brand closely followed by Thums up and Coca-cola, but on the whole all the three brands were considered to be ‘cheerful’.

Daring: Of all the three cola brands Thums Up was the only brand that was highly associated to being ‘daring’.

Spirited: All the three brands were regarded as ‘spirited’ in nature. Thums Up was the least amongst the three.

Imaginative: Coca-cola was rated as the ‘imaginative’ brand.

Up-to-date: All the three brands are considered up- to- date.

Reliable: Coca-cola and Thums Up were rated as highly reliable. Neutral responses arose for Pepsi.

Intelligent: Coca-cola scored the maximum in this parameter.

Successful: Coca-cola and Thums Up were rated to be highly successful.

Upper Class: All the three brands were regarded ‘Upper class’ as their brand personality attribute.

Charming: Thums Up was not regarded as ‘charming’. Amongst the three, Coca Cola scored the maximum in this parameter whereas Pepsi scored neutral.

Outdoorsy: Thums Up is an ‘outdoorsy’ brand while Coca-cola and Pepsi are rated neutral on this attribute.

Tough: Thums Up is considered a ‘tough’ brand, Coca Cola the least ‘tough’ and Pepsi neutral on this attribute.

Over all Brand Personality: All the three brands have shown distinguished brand personalities. Coca-cola scored most on the broad attribute ‘Sincerity’. The rest two colas maintain a average rating on sincerity scale. All the three brands score similar score in ‘Excitement’ attribute. Coca-cola and Thums Up are high on Competence than Pepsi. Coca Cola and Pepsi are considered ‘Sophisticated’ while Thums Up the least sophisticated brand. Thums Up is rated high on ‘Ruggedness’ scale relative to other Colas.