Presenting the core qualities of your brand personality, and avoiding the pitfalls

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Author: Rahul Rajpal Student number: 10854304

Thesis Supervisor: dhr. drs. Roger Pruppers Date of submission: 29 June 2015

Presenting the core qualities of your brand

personality, and avoiding the pitfalls

Master’s Thesis - MSc. Business Administration

(Marketing Track)

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Statement of Originality

This document is written by Student Rahul Rajpal who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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By either incorporating real people (Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads), or animated characters (Pillsbury, Mr. Muscle, M&M’s) to represent the brands, these advertisements have endowed their respective brands with distinctive personalities, making them come alive. For e.g. in Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads, PC has been demonstrated as possessing a traditional, formal, boring, and rather awkward personality, while Mac has been represented as possessing a casual, fun, informal, hip, and cool personality.

Such personification techniques have been extremely effective in appealing to consumers, and therefore a key advertising strategy for many firms. It has been suggested that people seek to form close relationships with brands, and brands can

serve as a relationship partner if they are able to behave as an active member in the consumer-brand relationship, i.e. if they are able to reciprocate and respond to consumers (Fournier, 1998). This tendency of people to form relationships with brands stems from a phenomenon termed anthropomorphism - people’s tendency to see inanimate objects as possessing human-like characteristics (Aggarwal & McGill, 2007). Some other examples of anthropomorphism include naming objects of personal possession

like cars, bikes, houses, etc. _{Figure 2: Example of Anthropomorphism -} According to her owner, this car has beautiful

eyes Figure 1: Ads of different brands communicating distinctive personalities; Image

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It therefore appears as though brands are not considered as merely inanimate constructs that lack vitality and are meant to differentiate companies and their products, but rather as living beings with distinct human-like personality traits. Consumers widely seek to form relationships with brands, and feel that brands can add meaning to their lives (Fournier, 1998).

1.1.1 Research topic - Brand personality

As mentioned above, the notion that brands seem to possess distinct human-like personality traits and characteristics has long existed in marketing and branding literature. “If the brand were to come alive as a person, what would it be like? What would it do? Where would it live? What would it wear? Who would it talk to if it went to a party (and what would it talk about)?” (Keller & Richey, 2006, p. 74). These are some of the most commonly asked set of questions when determining the personality traits associated with a brand.

While brand personality as a construct had existed in marketing, branding, and advertising literature, it’s importance was highlighted when Jennifer Aaker formally defined the term as “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand” (J. L. Aaker, 1997, p. 347), developed the five dimensions of brand personality, namely - Sincerely, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness (Aaker, 1997). Currently, much of the existing body of brand personality research stands at the crossroads of four main sub-categories. Azoulay (2005) identified three of these sub-domains as - development of scales and dimensions to measure a brand’s personality, studying the consequences and impact of a brand’s personality on consumers’ behavior towards the brand, and understanding the extent to which congruence between a brand’s and consumers’ personality influences their brand choice (Azoulay, 2005). However, besides the three sub-domains identified by Azoulay (2005), another sub-stream of literature in brand personality research involves studying the antecedents and sources of a brand’s personality (J. L. Aaker, 1997; Eisend & Stokburger-Sauer, 2013; Grohmann, 2009; Maehle & Supphellen, 2011).

While all these existing sub-streams of research in brand personality literature have added tremendous value and greatly advanced this construct until now, they have also somewhat limited the scope of brand personality research, since most of the work done on this construct has not been able to venture outside the boundaries created by these sub-streams.

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Page 3 of 137 1.1.2 Research gap in brand personality literature

Existing literature has paid significant attention to how consumers perceive a firm’s brand personality; however, how a firm actually intends its brand personality to be perceived by the consumers (i.e. a strategic perspective) has largely been neglected (Malär, Nyffenegger, Krohmer, & Hoyer, 2012). In their research, Malär et al. (2012) have underscored the relevance of a strategic perspective on brand personality research by pointing out that a successfully implemented brand personality can positively affect consumers’ loyalty towards the brand, and hence the firm’s market share. However, one of the limitations of Malär et al’s research is that it does not point out how consumers process, and react to the different ways in which a firm communicates its brand and intended personality (Malär et al., 2012).

Moreover, no clear principles exist yet in brand personality research for strategically positioning a firm’s intended brand personality such that it occupies a desired or favorable position in consumers’ minds. While several ideas and principles exist for positioning an organization’s brands, in general (Keller, 2013; Keller, Sternthal, & Tybout, 2002), such ideas have not been carried over to brand personality research to explore whether a firm can position its brand personality similar to how it can position its brand. This research therefore intends to fill these two gaps by developing a framework which studies differences in consumers’ perception of a firm’s brand personality, depending on how it is communicated by the firm, thereby allowing brands to frame their personality messages effectively. For this purpose, this research simultaneously considers both a consumer behavior, as well as a strategic perspective on brand personality.

Besides the above mentioned two gaps in the literature, another surprising trend to be noted in brand personality research is that barring Aaker’s research on the development of brand personality scale that incorporated insights from (human) personality psychology research (J. L. Aaker, 1997), subsequent literature on brand personality has not incorporated any new insights from other domains. This comes as a surprise, since brands have since been widely acknowledged as being anthropomorphized and possessing human-like characteristics. If this is really the case, then a wide body of literature exists in the field of personal and organizational development that might possibly endow brand personality research with relevant insights, and further solidify the parallel drawn between brands and humans.

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One such tool that has been developed in personal and organizational development literature is the Core Quadrant (Ofman, 2001), which highlights the importance of understanding one’s Core qualities, Pitfalls, Challenges, and Allergies. The essence of this model is to enable people to discover their own, as well as others’ strengths and challenges, and learn from the people they dislike the most (Ofman, 2001). With a slightly different interpretation however, this tool could also be used as a self-presentation tool, making people aware of how they could present their unique and positive personality trait (core quality) to others by having the right ‘balance’ of certain personality traits. Consider for example a person with a Core Quality of ‘confidence’. This person might very easily be perceived by others as being ‘arrogant’ (his/her Pitfall) if he/she doesn’t seem to balance the quality of confidence with ‘modesty’ (his/her Challenge). Could such an idea be extended to brands? Do brands, like humans, need to strike the right balance between certain personality traits to be perceived positively by consumers? Such ideas will be explored in this research in detail.

1.2 Problem definition

The objective of this research is two-fold. The first objective is to fill the existing two gaps in brand personality literature - regarding the lack of knowledge on how consumers process, and react to the different ways in which a firm communicates its brand and intended personality, and regarding the absence of ideas and principles for strategically positioning an intended brand personality. A second objective of this research is to advance, and broaden the scope of the existing brand personality research beyond its existing boundaries by interweaving and applying principles from domains that have previously not been considered in brand personality literature, namely - personal & organizational development, and strategic brand positioning. For this purpose, the following problem statement has been developed.

1.2.1 Problem statement

How can principles from personal & organizational development, and brand positioning literature guide effective positioning of a firm’s intended brand personality in its consumers’ minds?

1.2.2 Sub-questions

The problem statement can be split into the following sub-questions:

 How can a parallel be drawn between the literature on personal & organizational development and brand positioning?

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 How can these insights from the two above mentioned domains be collectively

applied to brand personality literature in order to guide a strategic positioning of brand personality?

 How do consumers process, and react to the different ways in which a firm communicates its brand and intended personality?

 How can consumers’ attitudes towards the brands be influenced depending on the manner in which brands communicate their personality traits?

1.2.3 Delimitations of the study

The purpose of this research is not to suggest incremental improvements in the existing body of brand personality research, but to try to add substantial value to it by incorporating new insights from literature domains such as personal and organizational development, and brand positioning. Personal and organizational development is a domain which explains how both human beings and organizations can develop and improve themselves, so that they can realize their true potential. Being previously unconsidered in brand personality research, such

literature might provide a fresh perspective to this domain, and further solidify the parallel drawn between brands and humans.

Moreover, while a key aim of this research is to enable strategic positioning of firms’ intended brand personality, it does not intend to develop new principles for this purpose. It merely intends to interweave and apply existing insights from brand positioning literature, which has previously not been incorporated in brand personality research. Another point worth noting is that this research does not try to explain how firms can create a (strong) brand personality in the first place, since the focus is on positioning an existing brand personality. Also, no new brand personality scales or dimensions will be developed for the purpose of conducting this research, but existing scales or dimensions from prior brand personality research will be used and applied.

1.3 Contribution

1.3.1 Theoretical contributions

The intended theoretical contribution of this research is two-fold - Firstly, this research intends to fill the existing gaps in brand personality literature regarding the lack of knowledge on how consumers process, and react to the different ways in which a firm communicates its brand and intended personality, and regarding the absence of principles for strategically positioning a firm’s intended brand personality. Secondly, this research intends to advance,

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and broaden the scope of the existing brand personality literature beyond its existing boundaries by interweaving and applying principles from domains that have previously not been incorporated in brand personality literature, namely - organizational and personal development, and strategic brand positioning. Personal and organizational development domain explains how both human beings and organizations can develop and improve themselves, and strategic brand positioning domain explains how firms can position their brands. Therefore, such literature might further solidify the parallel drawn between brands and humans, and endow the existing brand personality research with relevant insights.

1.3.2 Managerial contributions

The primary managerial contribution of this research is to enable firms to effectively position their brand personality, such that it occupies an intended or favorable position in the minds of their consumers which ultimately leads to positive attitude towards the brand. Prior brand personality research has pointed out numerous advantages of brand personality for firms, such as direct and indirect consequences on various dimensions such as trust, attachment, commitment, attitude, and affect towards the brand (Eisend & Stokburger-Sauer, 2013; Louis & Lombart, 2010; Sung & Kim, 2010). Also, being uniquely associated with a brand, its personality can be an effective means of differentiation from competitors, and therefore a source of competitive advantage for the firm (Siguaw, Mattila, & Austin, 1999).

Furthermore, research on congruence of brand’s and consumers’ personalities has demonstrated that consumers often choose brands with similar personalities to theirs across various products (Lin & Huang, 2012). Therefore, a successfully implemented brand personality - such that the firm’s consumers perceive the brand personality similar to what is intended by the firm can positively affect consumers’ loyalty towards the brand, and hence the firm’s market share (Malär et al., 2012). Ultimately, a well-communicated brand personality to the consumers by the firm can foster personal relevance to the consumers, enabling formation of close relationships with the brand, and hence stimulating Brand Resonance (Keller, 2001).

1.4 Structure of the thesis

The research will begin with reviewing the existing body of literature on Brand personality (Chapter 2), since this construct is the central theme around which this research is organized. Since the existing brand personality research lacks clear principles of strategic positioning of a firm’s brand personality as pointed out above, literature on the topic of Brand positioning

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will be reviewed in the subsequent chapter (Chapter 3). Furthermore, in order to help further strengthen the parallel drawn between brands and humans, Chapter 4 will review the literature on Personal and organizational development, exploring ideas and insights from this domain that might endow brand personality literature with useful insights. Following the literature review, the research will continue with the first study (Chapter 5), which aims to test the applicability of the insights from the domains of personal and organizational development and brand positioning to the broader domain of brand personality. Following this initial study, a second study (Chapter 6) will then aim to explain how the combination of the above mentioned insights can guide effective positioning of a firm’s intended brand personality in consumers’ minds. Collectively, Chapter 5 and 6 will aim to answer the research question and sub-questions that have been presented in the paragraphs above.

Finally, the research will be concluded with General discussion and implications (Chapter 7) and Conclusions (Chapter 8).

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2 Brand personality

Chances are that when the word “personality” is mentioned in any conversation, one would quickly assume that the subject of the conversation is a human being. Although, it is well known that all human beings possess individual personality traits, such traits are not exclusive to us humans. Inanimate objects can also be associated with distinct personality traits; in fact, it is well acknowledged that people have a tendency to see inanimate objects as possessing human-like characteristics - a phenomenon termed anthropomorphism (Aggarwal & McGill, 2007). Anthropomorphism can explain why some people tend to name objects of personal possession such as cars, bikes, houses, etc.

From a marketing perspective, one such an inanimate construct that has been widely anthropomorphized over the last several decades has been brands. Whether it be advertisements demonstrating brands as real people (e.g. Apple’s “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” ads), or as animated characters (e.g. Pillsbury, Mr. Muscle or M&M’s ads), or whether it be marketing, branding and advertising literature, brands have long been acknowledged to possess distinctive personality traits, as if they were alive.

2.1 Conception of, and early research on brand personality

The concept of brand personality was conceived as early as 1955, when Gardner and Levy acknowledged the importance of the image, character, and personality that get associated with brands resulting from the firm’s advertising communication activities, and advocated that a brand be conceived as more than simply a means to differentiate among the producers of products (Gardner & Levy, 1955). Research on brand personality has also been done in advertising. Plummer (1984), for example, pointed out that a firm can benefit by communicating its brand’s personality to its consumers, enabling them to “see the brand in themselves”, or “see themselves in the brand” (Plummer, 1984, p. 81). Plummer also noted that a brand personality consists of two “faces”, called “Brand personality statement” - how the firm wants its consumers to perceive its brand, and “Brand personality profiles” - how the consumers actually perceive the brand (Plummer, 1984, p. 80). Furthermore, Keller (1993) described brand personality as an attribute originating from user and usage imagery attributes, and highlighted its role in consumers’ self-expression. It is also addressed how brand personality attributes “reflect emotions or feelings evoked by the brand” by means of the associations that get attributed with the brand (Keller, 1993, p. 4). This self-expressive function of brand personality was also brought to attention earlier by (Belk, 1988), who

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described that the personality or image of a brand can enable consumers to express themselves.

2.2 The first brand personality scale

While the early research on brand personality in marketing, branding, and advertising literature brought about attention to the construct and underscored its importance, much of this literature either used the construct interchangeably with, or embedded it within the wider concept of brand image or user/usage image (Gardner & Levy, 1955; Keller, 1993; Plummer, 1984). Moreover, this early stream of literature also lacked a consensus on a clear definition of the construct, and its actual contribution to theory and practice.

The one research that brought about such clear definition of brand personality, along with its defining dimensions was Aaker’s (J. L. Aaker, 1997). In Aaker’s research, she not only formally defined the term brand personality as “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand” (J. L. Aaker, 1997, p. 347), but also developed a framework which drew a parallel with the so-called “Big five” dimensions of human personality in personality psychology research (J. L. Aaker, 1997). According to Aaker, consumers perceive that brands have five distinct personality dimensions, namely - Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness. The most important implications of this research were that it highlighted the necessity of looking at brand personality at the level of its multiple

dimensions, and not at the aggregate level of the construct as a whole.

Aaker’s brand personality scale had been the first of its kind and added great value to brand personality literature, as many studies have made use of this scale to examine the antecedents and consequences of brand personality, underscoring both the drivers, and the direct and indirect impact of brand personality on various dimensions such as trust, attachment, commitment, attitude, and affect towards the brand (Eisend & Stokburger-Sauer, 2013; Louis & Lombart, 2010; Maehle & Supphellen, 2011; Sung & Kim, 2010). These ideas will also be explained in the subsequent paragraphs in detail.

2.3 Replication of Aaker’s scale across cultures and product markets

Aaker’s brand personality scale has also served as the basic foundation for replication in various cultural contexts. For example, Jennifer Aaker, Benet-Martinez, and Garolera (2001) studied the extent to which the basic dimensions of brand personality, as developed by J. L. Aaker (1997) for the United States can be generalized across Spanish and Japanese contexts, and concluded that a set of brand personality dimensions (Sincerety, Excitement, and

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Sophistication) are common to all three countries, while a few other dimensions are culture-specific (Ruggedness - American, Peacefulness - Japanese, Peacefulness, Passion - Spanish) (Jennifer Aaker et al., 2001). In the Netherlands, the culture-specific brand personality dimensions were found to be Gentle, annoying, and distinguishing (Smit, Van den Berge, & Franzen, 2003), while in Korea, they were found to be Passive likeableness and Ascendancy (Sung & Tinkham, 2005).

Besides being tested for its applicability across various countries, Aaker’s scale has also been replicated across product markets and categories. For instance, Sung, Choi, Ahn, and Song (2015) attempted to test the applicability of this scale to luxury brands in the fashion, automobile and retail sectors, and found that in addition to the Sincerity, Excitement, and Sophistication dimensions, three other dimensions, namely - Professionalism, Attractiveness, and Materialism are uniquely applicable to luxury brands. Moreover, Aaker’s five brand personality dimensions also proved to be robust in the economy hotel sector (Li, Yen, & Uysal, 2014).

2.4 Criticism of Aaker’s brand personality scale

Despite its significant contribution to the brand personality literature and widespread replication in numerous empirical studies across different cultures and product-market contexts, Aaker’s scale has not remained free from criticism. The major criticism came from Azoulay and Kapferer (2003), who first of all questioned Aaker’s “loose” and “broad” definition of the construct of brand personality. According to them, including the term ‘human characteristics’ in the definition of brand personality may mean that brands can be attributed with any and all human attributes, including non-physical ones such as inner values, intellectual abilities, physical traits, social class, gender, etc. - attributes which have even been excluded from the human personality definition and scales in psychology

literature, from which Aaker derived the idea of brand personality dimensions in the first place (Azoulay & Kapferer, 2003, p. 150). Consequently, they proposed a new, stricter definition of brand personality as “the set of human personality traits that are both applicable to and relevant for brands” (Azoulay & Kapferer, 2003, p. 151).

Secondly, Azoulay and Kapferer questioned the validity of Aaker’s scale, arguing that the scale does not actually measure brand personality, but in fact measures attributes of brand identity and even product performance, since asking people to describe the personality traits they would normally associate with a particular brand would result in people naming the

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brands best associated with their product categories (E.g. considering Energy drink brands as possessing Energetic personality, and Electronic equipment as possessing Up-to-date

personality traits) (Azoulay & Kapferer, 2003, p. 153). Moreover, Azoulay and Kapferer (2003) argue that such a method can enforce people in naming brands for which they possess typical user or usage imagery associations - which are characteristics of brand identity - and not brand personality.

With their criticisms of Aaker’s existing brand personality scale, Azoulay and Kapferer (2003) brought up some very important points for brand personality researchers to consider when replicating this scale in their empirical studies. Moreover, their newly proposed, more apt definition of brand personality led to further clarification of the construct. However, these criticisms and conceptual clarifications of Azoulay and Kapferer (2003) did not suggest ways for, or lead to any immediate improvements in the methodology or measurement techniques of brand personality dimensions. It was only until recently that a new brand personality scale was developed by Geuens, Weijters, and De Wulf (2009) based on the definition of brand personality which Azoulay and Kapferer (2003) proposed.

2.5 Development of new brand personality scale

Acknowledging the rising criticism of Aaker’s scale in brand personality literature, Geuens et al. (2009) developed a new brand personality scale consisting strictly of personality items based on Azoulay and Kapferer’s definition of brand personality. According to their study, the new dimensions of brand personality are - Activity, Responsibility, Aggressiveness, Simplicity, and Emotionality (Geuens et al., 2009).

While only three of Aaker’s five brand personality dimensions related to the “Big five” dimensions of human personality - for Sincerity (similar to

Agreeableness/Conscientiousness), Excitement (similar to Extraversion), and Competence (similar to Conscientiousness/Extraversion) dimensions, the brand personality scale

developed by Geuens et al. (2009) had a five-factor structure similar to the “Big five” human personality dimensions (Geuens et al., 2009). Moreover, this scale also tested its reliability and validity rigorously, such that it can be used for studies across multiple brands of different product categories, or within a specific product category, on the level of an individual brand, or for studies across different cultural contexts - something which Aaker’s scale had only partly been able to do (Geuens et al., 2009).

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Page 12 of 137 2.6 Brand personality research - as it currently stands

Besides development of brand personality scales, there exist three other major sub-streams of research in the field of brand personality research, as mentioned below. The first two of these have been previously recognized by Azoulay (2005), however, the last has recently regained the attention of brand personality researchers.

 Understanding the extent to which congruence between a brand’s personality and that of consumers’ influences their brand choice

 Studying the consequences and impact of brand personality on consumers’ behavior towards the brand

 Studying the antecedents and drivers of brand personality.

Subsequent paragraphs will briefly describe the developments in each of these sub-streams.

2.7 Antecedents or drivers of brand personality

Of the four sub-streams of literature on brand personality mentioned above, the one that has received relatively little attention has been studying the antecedents or sources of brand personality - i.e. what gives rise to a brand’s personality or its certain dimensions.

While proposing the dimensions of brand personality, Aaker herself pointed out a few sources or drivers of brand personality in the form of consumers’ user imagery associations, companies’ CEOs, endorsers, or spokespeople, typical users of a brand, or even product-related attributes, brand logos, advertising styles, etc. (J. L. Aaker, 1997). However, research on examining the antecedents of brand personality had been quite limited in the literature, especially since much attention has been to three sub-streams of brand personality.

Nevertheless, a few studies have made importance contributions in this field by examining whether or not introduction of brand extensions has any effect on brand personality

(Diamantopoulos, Smith, & Grime, 2005), and studying the effect of gender of a brand spokesperson on the gender dimensions of brand personality (Grohmann, 2009), effects of user imagery and price on certain dimensions of brand personality (Lee & Back, 2010), and effects of advertising with hedonic benefit claims, branding, country of origin, and self-brand congruent consumer personality (Eisend & Stokburger-Sauer, 2013).

Moreover, Maehle and Supphellen (2011) provided an important contribution towards this end by studying the impact of various sources on different dimensions of brand

personality. They concluded that various sources affect the different dimensions of brand personality separately, thereby reiterating Aaker’s conclusion that brand managers should

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focus on specific dimensions of brand personality, rather than the aggregate construct (J. L. Aaker, 1997; Maehle & Supphellen, 2011).

2.8 Consequences and impact of brand personality

This sub-stream of research in brand personality literature, which deals with studying the importance of brand personality, has received significant attention in the brand personality literature. In fact, it has existed since even before Aaker’s seminal work in the field. The early contribution in this field came from Belk, who underscored the self-expressive benefit of the personality or image of a brand for consumers (Belk, 1988). Moreover, D. A. Aaker (1996) brought to attention the role of brand personality in evaluating brand equity over products and markets, and in serving as a basis for customer/brand relationships and differentiation (D. A. Aaker, 1996).

However, more concrete research on studying the consequences of brand personality on consumers’ behavior towards the brand was carried out after the work of J. L. Aaker (1997). The first of such studies was the one by Kim, Han, and Park (2001), in which they concluded that attractiveness of the brand personality directly affects positive word-of-mouth reports and indirectly affects loyalty towards the brand (Kim et al., 2001).

More recently, there have been several other studies which have shown both direct and indirect consequences of brand personality on various dimensions. For example, brand personality has been concluded to have an impact on attitude towards the brand, enhancing commitment to the brand, stimulating positive brand image, and facilitating purchase intentions (Eisend & Stokburger-Sauer, 2013). Similarly, brand personality has also been found to have an impact on facilitating trust, attachment, and commitment towards the brand (Louis & Lombart, 2010). Moreover, brand personality can also increase trust in the brand, evoke brand affect, thereby stimulating loyalty for the brand (Sung & Kim, 2010).

2.9 Congruence of consumer and brand personality

This sub-stream of research in brand personality literature deals with exploring the effects of congruence between a brand’s and consumers’ personality on consumers’ brand choice (Azoulay, 2005). The early research in this field came from Jennifer Aaker (1999), who concluded that congruence between consumers’ and brands’ personality can have an impact on consumers’ brand preferences, however, such an impact is situation-specific. In situations where consumers are able to express themselves and their self-concept through the use of brands better, brand personality can positively influence consumers’ attitude towards the

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brand (Jennifer Aaker, 1999). The research by Phau and Lau (2001), although having a slightly different line of reasoning to Aaker’s research, drew very similar conclusions. They concluded that consumers’ preference levels for a given brand actually play a significant role in determining how they perceive the brand’s personality. If consumers strongly prefer a particular brand, then their actual, ideal, or desired personality traits influence the perception of the brand’s personality, again bringing to attention how brand personality is often used as a means by consumers to express their own individual personality, either actual, or desire (Phau & Lau, 2001).

Moreover, Mulyanegara, Tsarenko, and Anderson (2009) found that consumers with specific personality traits prefer brands with certain brand personality dimensions. For instance, consumers with Conscientious personality trait prefer brands with personality traits associated with trust to reflect their reliable personality traits; similarly, Extroverts prefer sociable brands to reflect their outgoing nature (Mulyanegara et al., 2009). Furthermore, they concluded that preference of brands to reflect self-expressive personality traits is stronger for male consumers than female consumers (Mulyanegara et al., 2009).

2.10 Gap in brand personality literature

Existing literature has paid significant attention to how consumers perceive a firm’s brand personality; however, how a firm actually intends its brand personality to be perceived by the consumers (i.e. a strategic perspective) has largely been neglected (Malär et al., 2012). In their research, Malär et al. (2012) have underscored the relevance of a strategic perspective on brand personality research by pointing out that a successfully implemented brand personality can positively affect consumers’ loyalty towards the brand, and hence the firm’s market share. They conclude that a brand personality is successfully implemented if the firm’s consumers perceive the brand personality similar to what is intended by the firm - i.e. a strong fit exists between a firm’s intended and realized brand personality. To this end, they highlight five antecedents that can create such a fit - singularity of the brand’s personality profile, competitive differentiation of the brand, credibility of brand-related communication activities, product involvement, and prior brand attitude (Malär et al., 2012).

However, one of the limitations of Malär et al’s research is that it does not point out how consumers process, and react to the different ways in which a firm communicates its brand and intended personality (Malär et al., 2012). Moreover, no clear principles exist yet in brand personality research for strategically positioning a firm’s intended brand personality

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such that it occupies a desired or favorable position in consumers’ minds. While several ideas and principles exist for positioning an organization’s brands in general (Keller, 2013; Keller et al., 2002), such ideas have not been carried over to brand personality research to explore whether a firm can position its brand personality similar to how it can position its brand.

2.11 Place of this research in brand personality literature

Since the development of Aaker’s brand personality scale, most follow-up research on the construct of brand personality in its various sub-streams has tried to fill existing gaps in the literature. There is no doubt about the fact that the contributions of all these studies have been extremely valuable to brand personality literature, and have advanced the construct to a great degree until now. However, most of these studies can be considered as incremental improvements in the existing body of research, that have been unable to venture outside the boundaries created by the existing sub-streams of research. This has inevitably made brand personality research repetitive and ever so slightly monotonous. Somewhere along the line since Aaker’s research, the construct of brand personality seems to have lost its core idea - i.e. the parallel drawn between brands and humans. Too often, studies have analyzed the construct and its definition with strict, skeptical eyes. Borrowing insights from the domain of (human) personality psychology research, a major contribution of Aaker’s research in developing the brand personality scale was to establish a parallel between brands and humans (J. L. Aaker, 1997). It is hence quite surprising that most follow-up studies have not made efforts to take this parallel a step further, or to solidify this parallel.

If brands have been widely acknowledged as being anthropomorphized and possessing human-like characteristics, then a wide body of literature existing in the field of personal and organizational development might possibly endow brand personality research with fresh and relevant insights. This might enable brand personality researchers to venture outside the restrictive boundaries in the current literature. Therefore, besides the intention of filling the existing two gaps in brand personality literature - firstly regarding the lack of knowledge on how consumers process, and react to the different ways in which a firm communicates its brand and intended personality, and secondly regarding the absence of ideas and principles for strategically positioning an intended brand personality, this research seeks to advance, and broaden the scope of the existing brand personality research by interweaving and applying principles from domains that have not been incorporated so far in brand personality literature, namely - personal & organizational development, and strategic

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brand positioning. Subsequent chapters will provide a detailed literature review on these two domains.

3 Brand positioning

3.1 What is ‘positioning’?

In the context of branding, the term ‘positioning’ has had slightly different connotations in different streams of literature. D. A. Aaker and Shansby (1982) consider positioning as an ‘impression’ which results from the combination of many different associations that the firm brings together, and argue that positioning very often requires the use of competitors as a ‘frame of reference’. Keller describes positioning as a brand’s unique selling proposition that gives the customers a compelling reason to choose a particular brand, thereby providing the brand with a sustainable competitive advantage (Keller, 1993). Keller and Lehman describe brand positioning as a means to establish key brand associations in the consumers’ minds in order to differentiate the brand from competitors and attain competitive superiority or advantage (Keller & Lehmann, 2006). A more recent and perhaps more complete definition of positioning has been given by Kotler, Keller, Ancarani, and Costabile (2014), who define ‘Positioning’ as “the act of designing a company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the minds of the target market, with the goal of locating the brand in the minds of consumers to maximize the potential benefit to the firm” (Kotler et al., 2014, p. 276).

With all these different connotations of brand positioning, it becomes quite apparent that there is no single universal definition available for the construct of brand positioning. However, from all the above mentioned connotations, positioning can be considered as a strategic move for a brand in order to achieve a unique and intended place in its consumers’ minds so as to be able to differentiate itself from its competitors. The brand positioning strategy can be considered effective if consumers hold strong, favorable, and unique associations about the brand in their minds after the positioning strategy has been deployed by the brand (Keller, 1993, 1999). Subsequent sections will explain such associations and their role in brand positioning in detail.

3.2 Importance and consequences of brand positioning

Aaker and Shansby underscore the positioning decision as a crucial strategic decision for a company or brand since the position can be central to customers' perception and choice about the brand and the firm (D. A. Aaker & Shansby, 1982). Positioning is also considered quite

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important for a firm, as it sets the tone for what the firm or the brand should and should not do with its marketing activities (Keller & Lehmann, 2006). Moreover, an effective

positioning of a brand is considered a part of the firm’s overall marketing strategy, and helps communicate the brand’s essence to the consumers, enabling them to achieve their goals in a unique way (Kotler et al., 2014).

Various studies have pointed out important consequences (both direct and indirect) of brand positioning on several important variables. A firm’s brand positioning indirectly (via advertising and communication activities) affects the brand’s desirability and price sensitivity among consumers (Boulding, Lee, & Staelin, 1994). Moreover, the study by Jewell and Barone (2007) demonstrated that competitive differentiation achieved by a brand through within-category or out-of-category comparisons with its competitors as part of a brand positioning strategy can impact consumers’ attitudes towards the brand. Kalra and Goodstein (1998) concluded that a positioning strategy can impact the relationship between a firm’s advertising communications and consumers’ price sensitivity. It can also be noted that a brand’s positioning strategy affects the favorability, strength, and uniqueness of associations that customers hold in their minds about the brands, which can impact the brand’s image, and ultimately the customer-based brand equity of the firm (Keller, 1993). Moreover, Keller (2000) includes a properly positioned brand as one of the “top ten traits” of the world’s strongest brands.

3.3 The role of associations in Brand Positioning

Keller defines Brand positioning as being about “creating the optimal location in the minds of existing and potential customers so that they think of the brand in the right way” (Keller, 1999, p. 44). Such a position can be created in consumers’ minds by establishing certain associations about the brand.

Brand associations are described by Keller as the associations that are either created or reinforced in consumers’ minds by the firms' brand positioning activities (Keller, 1999). A firm’s marketing or positioning strategy can be translated externally (in the form of brand associations) for its consumers to convey what the brand stands for, and represents (Keller, 1999). Moreover, a firm can achieve customer-based brand equity when the consumers are familiar with the brand and hold favorable, strong, and unique associations about it in their memory; the role of such associations is explained in the following paragraph.

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Page 18 of 137 3.4 The importance of differentiation in brand positioning

While in theory it can all sound quite simple for a firm to achieve a unique and intended place in its consumers’ minds by communicating its brand’s unique points, it is often quite hard to do so in practice, especially since a firm can (and will) encounter numerous competitors who are also trying to do so. Therefore, the need to differentiate from competitors plays an

important role in a firm’s ability to position its brand as it intends.

D. A. Aaker and Shansby (1982) highlight that comparison with competitors can prove to be a good positioning strategy for a firm, since not only can the image of a well-established competitor provide the firm with a frame of reference, but it can also make the firm’s customers believe that the firm is better than (or at least as good as) its competitor(s). Therefore, competitors play a major role in the development of a positioning strategy, which consists of six steps, namely: identifying both direct and indirect competitors, determining how the competitors are perceived and evaluated, determining the competitors' positions, analyzing the customers, selecting the position, and monitor the position (D. A. Aaker & Shansby, 1982).

However, a firm does not always need to make direct comparisons with competitors in order to differentiate its brand. It can also communicate its unique points or differences implicitly without a competitive point of reference (Keller, 1993). Points of Difference (PoD) are associations that are unique to a brand; these associations are therefore quite important and should not be ignored by a firm while positioning its brand (Keller, 2013).

As previously highlighted by (Keller, 1993, 1999) , a brand positioning strategy can be considered effective if consumers hold strong, favorable, and unique associations about the brand in their minds after the positioning strategy has been deployed by the brand. Establishing distinguishable points of difference from competitors can enable a brand to create such associations (Keller et al., 2002).

Strong brand associations are those associations which are triggered easily in consumers’ minds and come up relatively quickly when compared to other associations in their associative networks about the brands (Keller, 2013). Of course, not all strong brand associations are bound to be favorable. There can be several instances where people may immediately associate a brand with something unfavorable or negative at its very mention. For instance, even several years after the mishap, many consumers still strongly, yet unfavorably associate BP with the oil spill disaster. Favorable associations are associations

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that consumers evaluate positively about the brand, and can be established by convincing customers that the brand is personally relevant to them, able to solve their needs (Keller, 2013). Lastly, unique associations are associations that, as the name suggests, are uniquely attributable to a brand and not with any other competing brands (Keller, 2013). They are a brand’s unique points which the brand’s competitors do not, or cannot possess - what Porter would describe as a brand’s “competitive advantage” (Porter, 1991, p. 101).

Therefore, a brand can successfully be able to differentiate itself from other competing brands if it is able to achieve strength, favorability, and uniqueness of the associations that consumers hold regarding the brand in their minds. However, the question that then arises is how a brand can manage to achieve such favorable, strong, and unique associations. There are two important criteria in order to ensure that a brand’s point of difference can result in unique, favorable, and strong associations - “Desirability”, and “Deliverability” (Keller et al., 2002, pp. 84, 85).

Desirability criteria is met when a firm can ensure that the associations which it wants its consumers to perceive as PoDs are considered “personally relevant” and “believable” by consumers - meaning that these PoDs are fundamental in satisfying consumers’ needs, and consumers can accept that the firm would actually be able to deliver on its claimed benefits (Keller et al., 2002, p. 84). On the other hand, Deliverability criteria is met when a firm can ensure that the associations which it wants its consumers to perceive as PoDs are “feasible”, “profitable”, and “preemptive/defensible” for the firm - meaning that the firm actually possesses resources to be able to deliver on its promised claims, and that too in a manner which can generate sufficient profits for the firm, while ensuring that competitors are unable to imitate such claims (Keller et al., 2002, p. 85).

When a firm is able to ensure that the associations which it wants its consumers to perceive as PoDs are desirable and deliverable, these associations can become strong, relevant, and unique to a firm, resulting in a unique and differentiated position for the firm’s brand (Keller, 2013; Keller et al., 2002). Ultimately, associations that are strong, favorable, and unique can enable a brand to achieve favorable customer attitudes, thereby establishing strong relationships with its customers, ultimately leading to the creation of brand resonance between the brand and customers (Keller, 2001).

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Page 20 of 137 3.5 Is differentiation enough?

While brand positioning has traditionally been concerned with being unique and differentiating in order to set brands apart from competitors, such PoDs alone are not sufficient to establish a strong brand position (Keller et al., 2002). Contrary to conventional approach to brand positioning, it has been argued that there exist two other aspects of

competitive positioning which a firm must consider, namely: Frame of reference - identifying the target consumers and existing competitors, and Points of Parity (PoP) - The attributes on which the brand is similar to competitors (Keller, 2013; Keller et al., 2002). These three elements - PoP, PoD, and frame of reference, are therefore considered as essential tools to effectively position a brand in consumers’ minds (Keller, 2013). While PoDs have been described in detail in the previous section, subsequent paragraphs elaborate each of the other two elements.

A frame of reference is one of the brand positioning tools which when communicated to the consumers helps create associations in their minds regarding the benefits they can expect by using the brand, and establish the competitors against which the firm competes to offer them the products associated with the firm’s brand (Keller, 2013; Keller et al., 2002). However, before a firm can communicate the frame of reference to the consumers, it must first be clearly defined. Establishing a frame of reference can be accomplished in two steps: by identifying and defining the target market (classic segmentation and targeting processes), and by identifying the competitors which the firm will compete with for its defined target market (Keller, 2013).

A frame of reference essentially defines the brand’s boundaries of operation (by defining the relevant customers and competitors), and hence enables the firm to establish the types of associations which can be considered as its points of parities and points of

differences relative to other brands (Keller, 2013). Moreover, since in many cases, a frame can be defined by the category of product which the brand offers, establishing a frame of reference allows a firm to broadly consider its scope of operation and hence consider both direct as well as indirect competitors as ‘competition’ (Keller, 2013; Keller et al., 2002).

Points of Parity (PoP) are associations that are not necessarily unique to a brand and might in fact be shared with other brands (Keller, 2013). One of the main purposes of establishing PoP with other brands is to enable the brand’s target customers to consider the brand a “legitimate and credible player” within the established frame of reference (Keller et

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al., 2002, p. 82). Such PoP are called “Category points of parity” (Keller, 2013, p. 84). They can simply be considered as the minimum set of requirements a brand must fulfil to pass consumers’ test of a brand’s belongingness to a certain product category.

Besides the category PoP, there are two other types of PoP that can be established by a brand. The first of this type are the “Competitive” PoP, which are designed to negate competitors PoD (Keller, 2013, p. 84). These can essentially be used by a brand to achieve parity with competing brands where they are trying to achieve an advantage over it, in order to stay relevant within the consumers’ frame of reference. The second type of PoP are called “Correlational” PoP, which are the potentially negative associations about the brand that may originate as a result of the presence of other more positive PoD associations (Keller, 2013, p. 84). For instance, consumers might easily be convinced that a car brand that is strongly positioned on “safety” PoD association will probably be “less powerful”, or meals that a brand offers which are “healthy” will probably be “less tasty” (Keller, 2013, p. 84).

In order to overcome this problem or conflict between the perception of points of parity and points of difference to the consumers, Keller (2013) suggests that a brand might not necessarily need to convey points of parity which are exactly the same as competitors, there is however a “range of tolerance or acceptance” within which the firm’s demonstration of points of parity are considered acceptable by the consumers (Keller, 2013, p. 84).

Therefore, in order to effectively position a brand in consumers’ minds, a strike of right balance is required among all three elements (frame of reference, PoP, and PoD) of the brand, along with a sound consideration of when and what attributes of the brands consumers might perceive as mutually exclusive (Keller et al., 2002).

Furthermore, Keller et al. (2002) suggest three ways in order for brands to ensure that the associations that want consumers to have in their minds do not contradict each other - or become Correlational PoP. The first way they suggest this problem can be rectified is by “Sequencing” the two seemingly contradictory associations separately in all of the firm’s communication activities, as consumers are much less likely in this situation to devote time and psychological resources to connect multiple brand associations (Keller et al., 2002). The second way to rectify this problem is by providing credibility to the claims from external sources such as celebrity brand endorsers (Keller et al., 2002). Finally, if possible, Keller et al. (2002) suggest brands to be able to stand their ground by claiming that the contradictions are actually complements.

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In today’s world, where each and every brand is seemingly trying hard to

communicate to its consumers how it is different from its competitors, giving considerable attention to a brand’s frame of reference and points of parity, as suggested by Keller et al. (2002) might sound counter-intuitive in a firm’s efforts to position its brand effectively among consumers’ minds. However, the experimental study conducted by Romaniuk and Gaillard (2007) across 94 brands in eight markets confirms that the presence of unique associations about a brand is not positively related to stronger brand preference by consumers. The main implication that emerged from this study was that brands need not entirely focus on having unique associations, but rather also on satisfying the criteria of performing well on the general category needs which are deemed as necessary by the consumers; this builds up a favorable network of associations in consumers’ memory regarding the brand, and in turn creates unique associations about the brand in consumers’ memory (Romaniuk & Gaillard, 2007). This implication supports the view of Keller et al. (2002), and Keller (2013) regarding the effective positioning of brands.

Similar conclusions were also made by Romaniuk, Sharp, and Ehrenberg

(2007),whose studies across seventeen markets concluded that consumers do not perceive a specific brand as being ‘differentiated’ from other brands that they buy unless there is a great deal of functional difference in the benefits that the brand offers, especially on price and/or location characteristics. Moreover, despite this lack of perceived consumer ‘differentiation’, these brands continue to be bought, with many being successful and profitable (Romaniuk et al., 2007).

Therefore, from Keller’s work on brand positioning and experimental studies

demonstrating the ineffectiveness of differentiation by itself, it can be concluded that besides the well-known points of difference (PoD), an effective brand positioning requires careful consideration of a brand’s frame of reference and competitive Points of Parity (PoP) associations; the need for a brand to be able to generate certain PoP associations in its consumers’ minds is so compelling that a brand’s PoD may even be rendered irrelevant by consumers if it has not demonstrated a certain level of PoP to its consumers (Keller, 2013; Keller et al., 2002; Romaniuk & Gaillard, 2007; Romaniuk et al., 2007).

Presenting the core qualities of your brand personality, and avoiding the pitfalls