The people you enjoy spending time with the most probably have some exceptional character traits. These could include being energetic, fun, compassionate, thoughtful or even quirky.
Your favourite brands often have those qualities too, but it's not always clear by the way they market themselves.
A company is usually made up of multiple people, of course, so the concept of having a “personality” is a little different in this case. It’s a good idea to think of personality in marketing, though, because you’re developing one — whether it’s intentional or not.
The way a brand talks about its products, the target market it hopes to reach and even its values all blend into something customers will use to recognize it.
If the customer experience you offer is consistently helpful and friendly, you’ll start to be perceived that way. Customers will talk about those personality traits with their family and friends. This is a form of “word of mouth” marketing that’s organic and powerful.
If the customer experience you offer has a history of being slow, unresponsive or unfriendly, however, the personality you develop in your marketing may be the only way to shift negative perceptions. (This is assuming you’ve actually made improvements to those customer experience issues behind the scenes, of course.)
Your brand’s personality doesn’t just manifest itself in a single marketing campaign or piece of advertising creative. It’s something that informs every single campaign, providing a consistent, high-level message that a campaign or other marketing tactic will build upon.
Rather than simply allowing your brand to develop its personality by accident, it’s better to think about it from the outset as part of a comprehensive marketing strategy.
In other words, make specific choices on the traits and qualities that you want to express to the world, rather than have the market decide on them for you. These are some of the approaches you can use to go about it:
Envision the ideal match for your customer persona
You may have already created one or more personas for marketing purposes. These are the fictitious representative examples of the kind of people you believe will be interested in your products and services.
The most successful companies tend to make these as detailed as possible, so that they can imagine all their customers’ potential needs, desires and pain points. Your marketing personality could begin with a very similar exercise.
Take your customer persona and think about the kind of person — not just a brand — who would be most helpful to them. The kind of person who would know the best products and services to recommend to them, or who would offer them inspiration and support of some kind.
Some brands have actual mascots that represent this kind of personality, like the ones you sometimes see on cereal boxes. You don’t have to go that far, but the more vivid you imagine your brand persona, the more likely it’s going to make your company the kind your customer persona would like to meet.
Define the actions that will bring the personality to life
Lots of companies draft brand guidelines that include something about tone. They might say, for instance, that they want their brand’s marketing materials to convey the sense that the company is trustworthy or authoritative.
A customer might look at that intended tone and say, “Prove it!”
Nobody walks around describing their personality to others as a way of demonstrating the kind of person they are. You show it by your actions, and marketing is no different.
You should be thinking through everything from slogans to colour palettes to ensure that your personality is subtly suggested and reinforced.
It’s kind of like dressing up for work. You may have great skills, but people are sometimes quicker to assume the best when you’re wearing something clean and professional when you’re on the job.
Of course, talking about your brand personality is okay when it’s providing context around your actions. If your company is participating in some kind of charitable or philanthropic activity, for instance, you can explain that part of the rationale is that the brand deeply cares about a specific cause.
Just make sure your actions reflect your marketing personality, and vice versa.
Make your marketing personality multidimensional
Just as an individual personality is made up of several different facets— no one is perky all the time — the personality of your brand may be slightly different depending on what you’re trying to convey.
Think of a healthcare brand that needs to be reassuring and fairly serious in terms of its marketing personality in most cases, for instance. When it comes time to have a marketing campaign designed to attract top talent, you may need to highlight aspects of your brand personality that are more fun and light-hearted to suggest it’s a great place to work.
A more entertainment-oriented brand might have a marketing personality that makes use of humour. If it’s giving back to the community in some way, though, it might have to adopt a more serious tone to show it has deep principles at its core.
Your marketing should have a specific personality, but it will likely evolve as your company grows and changes over time. This is just like what happens to us as people when we mature and (hopefully) become wiser with age.
Just remember that the point of a personality is to help nurture relationships with other people. That’s what the best marketing should do, too.
