Brand Personality: Is Your Company a Betty or a Veronica?

We’ve all been there… Stuck in a room with THAT guy with so much personality it oozes from every pore. If left unchecked, personality can become a weapon of annoyance rather than a demonstration of your true colours. Of course, there is the opposite side of the scales where if you have no personality at all and you just fade into the background.

The same can be said where brand personality his concerned.

Brand personality gives your audience something they can relate to – they don’t buy products & services, they buy into your brand. We talked about brand personality and why you need to make sure you fully develop yours. Now we’re going to talk about how to develop your brand personality.

There are two ways to look at your brand personality: 1) How your brand is currently perceived; and 2) How you would like your brand to be perceived. It is always great to know what you are working towards, but you also need to know where you are starting to find where you need to make changes.

The following is a bit of an exercise to set you on the right path to fully developing your brand personality.

Rate from 1 – 10, filling in the blank.

My company is ______:

Get off the fence

If you have a lot of 5’s and 6’s, it likely means that you are sitting on the personality fence because you just don’t really know who you want to be. If you are confused about who you want to be, how is your audience supposed to connect with you?

This is a great time to look at your competitors, the types of communications your target audience seems to respond to best, and the general overview of the industry including a discussion of trends.

Jackie vs. Marilyn… Betty vs. Veronica… Superman vs. Batman

It doesn’t matter whether you are a 1 or a 10 because they are both amazing, but they will appeal to different audiences. Your brand personality will help determine how you get your brand message out to your audience.

Lower end of scale: Your business tends to do things at a fast-pace. There is less of a bureaucratic process to get things done and you have embraced the entrepreneurial spirit whole-heartedly.

• Communication style: Communication is all about collaboration for you and when you interact with your target audience, your communication style is energetic and engaging.

• Medium: You would most likely use a lot more images, videos, and new media to get your message across on creative channels rather than more traditional methods.

• Brand story: Your brand story is aspirational and emotionally charged, easily connecting with your target audience on a personal level.

• Long-term thinking: To keep up with your personality, your messaging and content will need to be refreshed on a regular basis to make sure you are on the cutting edge of your industry.

Higher end of scale: You are more focused on the traditional aspects of planning and doing business. You have a way of doing things that works for you and processes in place to support it (or you are working towards that!).

• Communication style: You rely heavily on information sharing with a more professional, understated, and formal tone.

• Medium: You would likely use more traditional channels to communicate with your audience, focusing on long-form content, print work, and business-focused online channels rather than social sharing.

• Brand story: Your brand story is based on company values and knowledge. You connect with people on a more fundamental level.

• Long-term thinking: Because you have chosen a more traditional and classical approach, your approach will not have to be updated as often. You will stay the course and build a solid foundation.

A mix on the scale: Your brand, while you have strong opinions in certain areas, doesn’t fit into any mould – You have a unique brand personality. You have the opportunity to pull from different aspects of each side of the scale to fit your target audience directly.

Did anything surprise you about your brand personality findings?