Brand Personality Analysis - Assignment Example

Brand Personality Analysis Name: Institution: Instructor: Course Code: Date: 1.0 Introduction Brand personality is one of the most important aspects of the brand image for key product brands. Most product brands are often positioned in the market based on certain human personalities or qualities such as competent for instance diligent or intelligent; sophistication for instance glamorous or good looking; excitement for instance cool, trendy or fashionable; ruggedness such as masculinity or tough; or enchanting such as femininity (Bouhlel, 2011). It is the brand personality that sets a brand apart and makes it competitive against others like it in the market. It is also important as it often appeals to consumers who wish to enhance, affirm or express their sense of self or their personalities using the brand personality of the products they use (Park, & Roedder, 2010). In this sense, a brand personality is imperative for the success of a brand in the market. This paper reviews the theory of brand personality and uses this theory to analyse the brand personalities of Apple, Nokia, Samsung within the electronics industry, evaluate on whether the brands are reflective of their appropriate personalities to attract their target markets, and provide recommendations for one of the products. In this sense, by understanding the brand personalities of these three brands, then it would be easy to understand how they are competitively placed in the market and how they emotionally appeal to customers they target. 2.0 Literature Review on the theory of Brand Personality Brand personality has been defined as “a set of human characteristics associated with a brand” (Mahle & Supphellen, 2011:96). Brand personality is a critical emotional part of a brand image aside from other parts such as brand culture, brand positioning, brand vision, or brand identity which are critical in building a brand image (Sung and Kim (2010:645). Consumers find it easy to associate brands with their personalities such as tough, charming, honest, cheerful or adventurous. For instance Plummer (cited Kim, Han & Park ,2001:197) analysed how different soft drink personalities impacted the choice of drink to take, noting that characters such toughness or cheerfulness imbued within a soft drink often align with the consumers personalities. Such characters associated with customers have been found to be relatively distinct and enduring (Mahle & Supphellen, 2011:96). Brand personalities are not only essential to marketers for developing effective tactical marketing campaigns (Blythe, 2007), but are also important to consumers as consumers are able to self express their personalities based on the brand personalities (Aaker, 1999). The view that consumers often use brands to express their personalities have been supported by Escalaa and Bettman (2003) who note that indeed consumers develop a connection between brand images and their self concepts and by using brands that have similar personalities to their seek not only to enhance their personalities and define them within give social contexts but also communicate them. For instance, a brand personality for a brand such as Rolex has both prestige value and places the wearer of such a product within certain social context: higher class income group. It depicts the personality of the person wearing it classic and glamorous. Indeed Sung and Kim (2010:647) show that an established brand personality is critical as it augments brand trust and loyalty where upon a consumer becomes attached to a brand. While they noted that some aspects of brand personality related more to trust, or dimensions related more to brand affect and loyalty. In this research, brand personalities such as ruggedness and sincerity related to trust while others such as sophistication and excitement related more to the brand affect. Since brand personalities are imbued with the personalities of the consumers of such brands, quite a number of research have sought to define brand personalities based on human personality research. One of the highly used personality measurements that have been widely explored is the five factor personality model referred to as the big five. In this model, the five personality traits within the model which include extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness, have also been widely expressed in brands. For instance McCrae ad Costa (1987) show that the big five personality traits can also be associated with brand personality based on target consumer preferences, while Fournier and Yao (1997) demonstrate in their research how brand personalities can be humanised based on human personalities. Others with similar research are Mulyanegara, Tsarenko, and Anderson (2009) and Pantin-Sohier (cited in Bouhlel, 2011:216) who found that brand personalities can be conscientious, friendly, extrovert, exotic, modern, and so forth based on the human personality trait theories. Other researchers though have refuted this and rather instead developed brand personalities that best explain how brands are perceived by consumers. For instance, Aaker (1997) following human personality and trait model developed a 42-point brand personality scale where the scale had five key distinct brand personality dimensions: sophistication, competence, excitement, sincerity and ruggedness. From these other brand personality facets could be established. For instance sincerity includes personalities such as cheerful, wholesome, honest or down to earth, while competence includes successful, intelligent, diligent and reliable. Excitement includes facets such as imaginative, daring, spirited, and sophisticated shows charming, and upper-class. Ruggedness on the other shows toughness, outdoorsy and masculinity. Aaker’s work has been supported by other subsequent researches such as Caprara, Barbaranelli, and Guid (2001) who found in their research that the big five model was not replicated when brand personalities were being defined where by though the concepts of brand and human personalities may be viewed similarly, they vary in the roles they play and their antecedents, and Mahle & Supphellen (2011) who based on the five models sought to understand how brand personalities are formed. Their conclusions showed that managers borrowed on its target consumer’s personalities to define both the generic and specific dimensions of the brand. Aaker’s five point model for brand personality has become widely used and accepted in academic literature, and will be the base upon which Apple, Nokia and Samsung’s brands will be evaluated. As shown in the conceptual framework below, the essence of brand personality is defined both by the personalities of the customers targeted and the identity that the product assumes. These are then expressed visually, through the physical appearance of the products and the way they function, through communications such as advertising or marketing activities and messages, and through the way they behave and function, and the benefits that such brands bring to their users (Maehle, & Supphellen, 2011:107). Source: Visual Branding, 2011 High brand value and equity are achieved when customers have strong and positive links to a brand. Implicit self theories have show that consumers are often attracted to unique and distinctive brands which they use to affirm their sense of self, and perceive themselves in positive light. Indeed Park and Roedder (2010:664) note than appealing brand personalities often “rub off” on the consumer’s. In this the customers use such brands to enhance their self perceptions and views. Based on the above research of brand personality theories, it can be noted that brand personality is indeed crucial for the success of a product 3.0 Brand Personality Analysis 3.1 Apple 3.1.1 Brief introduction Apple Inc. is a leading company in innovative products which continually redefine markets in the computer industry. Their products such as iMac and iPod have a loyal consumer fan following. Their business model is as unique as its products using seamless vertical integration techniques, innovative industrial design and synergies that give them a competitive advantage over their rivals in the industry. The Apple brand is among one of the most recognized in consumer products and enjoys a high level of awareness in the industry. the various Apple brand products and service portfolio are hardware products such as laptops, desktops, server and storage products and other related devices; software products and computing technologies such as Mac OS X software program and iPhoto; Music products such as iPod and iTunes; Internet software products such as web browser; Wireless connectivity and networking products and Apple branded peripheral products. Technology and product design are the core capability and competency of Apple with emphasis put on producing unique highly technological innovative products. The Apple brand is one of the most valuable brands in the world valued at $ 153.3 billion (Elmer-DeWitt, 2011; MacWilliams, Bishop & Associates Inc, 2010). The products from Apple are also designed to be little works of arts and often target the luxury industry. Apple also makes much of its own software and applications that are stylish easy to use and well integrated in their products. In essence therefore, Apple targets customers are high earners who are classy and hip, and who thrive on and have a craze for new innovative products with advanced features and functionalities that can perform tasks faster and better than other conventional products. They target customers who want sleek innovative gadgets and who seek prestige and want to set themselves apart from others (Apple.com, 2012). 3.1.2 Brand Personality The brand personality of the brand can be gathered from the way Apple is expressed, advertised, its physical features, and the manner in which it is presented, and how accessible it is to the general population. Analysing Apple’s website, the way the products have been displayed, the core messages in the products advertisements, Steve Jobs launch of the iPad two years ago, and the very physical attributes of the Apple Products, it can be noted that Apple’s products mainly focuses on emotions. For instance the visual displays in appendix 1 to 3 mainly focus on various functionalities and emotions that are associated with the iPad. The branding strategy for the products centre on an individuals’ lifestyle, aspirations, hopes, dreams, passions, imagination and through empowering all these through Apple technology. The iMovie feature in iPad is unique and appealing to all those who not only love innovative gadgets but also are passionate on making movies. In addition, Steve Job’s key note speech two years ago described the iPad as a much more advanced innovative gadget that can perform functions much better than conventional items, and which unlike any other in the industry combines the functionalities of a Smartphone and a laptop, yet functions better than a Smartphone and a laptop combined, one that has other special features that make performing simple key tasks such as browsing enjoyable (Steve Jobs Keynote Video, 2010). From these it can be noted that Apple’s personalities come out as cool, stylish, innovative, friendly, easy going, intuitive and classy. Analysing these personalities based on Aaker’s (1997) five key distinct brand personality dimensions: sophistication, competence, excitement, sincerity and ruggedness, it can be noted that the Apple brand personality is more a mixture of sophistication and excitement. This is based on the various facets presented by these dimensions in Aaker’s model: Excitement includes facets such as imaginative, daring, spirited, while sophistication includes charming, and upper-class. These clearly align with the picture portrayed by Apple. Since Apple’s target market are high earners who are classy and hip, and who thrive on and have a craze for new innovative products with advanced features and functionalities that can perform tasks faster and better than other conventional products, and also want sleek innovative gadgets that are prestigious and unique (Apple.com, 2012), then this exciting and sophisticating brand personality that within it combines imaginative, daring, spirited, charming, and upper-class personalities is reflective of its personality to greatly attract their target market and a brand loyal client base. 3.2 Nokia 3.2.1 Brief Introduction Nokia Corporation is one of the largest manufacturers of mobile phones globally with the company’ market share, taking about 40% of the global market (Innovation Leaders, 2012). The Finnish company’s core business is in the manufacture and sale of handsets with the company developing user friendly and affordable phones for its customer base. Since the key slogan of the business is to connect people, Nokia produces mobile handsets of varied nature fro expensive Smartphone’s aimed at the high end customer base, to cheaper phones targeting low end consumers. Aside from mobile device manufacturing, Nokia is also strategically partnering with Microsoft in developing its Smartphone market segment with the aim of gaining ground and market share and ensuring that the feature phones they provide are able to connect even more people to internet experiences by providing affordable mobile. Nokia mobile phones are defined by various series which have a wide array of features, services and platforms. For instance the Nokia series 40 has QWERTY keyboards, dual SIM features, maps, Nokia services, Life tools, browsers, and web applications (Nokia.com, 2012). Nokia mainly targets people from age 16-50 years of age, ranging from low to high income earners who seek the most reliable means through to connect and communicate, through easy and user friendly features that are easy to understand and use. This is especially evidenced with Nokia’s recent change of strategy in the Smartphone market. Nokia in partnership with Microsoft, seek to develop a Smartphone operating on Microsoft OS, which will be relatively, yet have features such as touch screen, 32 GB storage, 5 mega pixel camera, long battery life and bright screen. These will mainly target emerging countries such as India and China, with Nokia targeting bring internet to the “next billion people” (Weber, 2011). 3.2.2. Brand Personality Information gathered from various Nokia marketing materials, it websites, logo on connecting people and its advertisements show that Nokia focuses both on product features as shown in appendix 4 and also on people relationships as shown both by the connecting people logo, in appendix 5 and the people photos that are abound in its websites shown in appendix 6. The key focus of Nokia therefore is on customer relationships and helping connecting them and building even stronger of these relationships. This is Nokia’s core branding strategy, and it is from this that Nokia develops its strong brand value. Personifying this strategy and based on the marketing materials, than Nokia’s brand can be seen as simple, caring, easy to use and dependable to connect a wide array of people from all ages. This implies that the Nokia brand personality from all these marketing materials are trusted companion, reliable and dependable, friendly, easy to use, caring, and understanding. Analysing this brand personality based on Aaker’s (1997) five key distinct brand personality dimensions: sophistication, competence, excitement, sincerity and ruggedness, it can be noted that Nokia’s brand personality is sincere and competent. These are based on the various facets of these brand personalities presented by Nokia such as sincerity which includes personalities such as cheerful, wholesome, honest, friendly or down to earth, and competence which includes successful, intelligent, diligent and reliable. These personality descriptors describe the brand personality projected by Nokia both in its marketing campaigns and the way that it presents it products. Since Nokia mainly targets people from age 16-50 years of age, ranging from low to high income earners who seek the most reliable means through to connect and communicate, through easy and user friendly features that are easy to understand and use, then its brands is appropriately reflective of its sincere and competent brand personality to attract the targeted market. Nokia is noted as the highest selling company of mobile telephone devices. This year, Nokia was though overtaken by Samsung as the number one supplier of mobile devices and its global sales have been dropping steadily from its 2008 peak. This drop in Nokia’s performance has been attributed to the rapid growth of the global Smartphone sector over the past three years mainly dominated by Google’s Android devices, and Apple. Though Nokia has partnered with Microsoft in the hope of addressing this issue through production of its own low cost Smartphone (adbrands, 2012), it is important that Nokia strengthens its brand personality based on a focused target market. 3.3. Samsung 3.3.1 Brief Introduction Samsung Electronics Company is one of the leading manufacturers of consumer electronic products. Headquartered in Korea, Samsung mainly deals in two business operations, one which is manufacture of end consumer electronic products such as printers, televisions, mobile handsets, monitors, air conditioners, refrigerators and air conditioners. The other operation is a manufacturer of component electronic products such as memories, semiconductors, liquid crystal products, film transistor among others (Samsung.com, 2012; Innovation Leaders, 2012a). The Samsung mobile handset segment has been growing over the past years steadily. Its latest slick mobile phone is serenata handset. The phone segment though relatively younger, has been able to overtake long standing mobile hand set firms such as Motorola, and recently in 2012 Nokia to be the number one seller in mobile handsets (Innovation Leaders, 2012a; adbrands, 2012). In the mobile handset segment, Samsung’s target market are fashionistas who love to stylishly designed phones and are early adopters of new technology and the latest gadgets. These target markets though similar to Nokia’s range from ages 16-50 years from low income earners to high income earners. This is based on the wide array of phone that they produce both low priced stylish phones with minimalist features and high end premium phones for the upscale market. Samsung has also aggressively expanded its mobile handsets business operations over the past two years supplying low priced stylish Smartphone in emerging markets. Samsung is widely known to have stylish designs from the very low price phones to the premium phones (News Digital Media, 2008; Reuters, 2011). 3.3.2. Brand Personality Information from Samsung’s marketing materials, its website, and products mainly focus on the product features, innovativeness, and stylishness. This is as noted in its advertisement campaigns, website, as shown in appendix 7 to 9, and the manner in which it introduces new products. For instance, in its recent advertisement for its Smartphone Samsung Galaxy S II, Samsung pokes fun at how iPhone users wait in long lines for their phones when there was another better “4G speed” phone: Samsung Galaxy S II, where the stylish unique features of the phone are prominently advertised. In essence Samsung’s core branding strategy is based on the phones stylish unique designs and enhanced capability based on new technology. In this sense therefore Samsung’s brand personality is viewed as stylish, imaginative, innovative, and exciting (Samsung, 2011). Analysing this brand personality based on Aaker’s (1997) five key distinct brand personality dimensions: sophistication, competence, excitement, sincerity and ruggedness, it can be noted that Samsung’s brand personality is more of excitement, sophisticated and ruggedness. This is based on the its marketing tactics, product displays, website, product functionalities and aggressiveness in marketing against Apple (Newman, 2011), and is also based on the various facets of the three personalities. Excitement includes facets such as imaginative, daring, and spirited; sophistication includes charming, and upper-class, while ruggedness includes toughness, outdoorsy and masculinity. Since Samsung targets fashionistas who love to stylishly designed phones and are early adopters of new technology and the latest gadgets aged between 16-50 ranging from low class to high class clients, then the brands are reflective of their appropriate personalities to attract their target markets. In Samsung’s case, this is especially special due to the fact that Samsung brand represents a wide array of products aside from mobile handsets which have gained the trust of customers overtime. This implies that by providing low cost phones to low income consumers in emerging markets, the Samsung brand for the premium phones would not easily be eroded due to these other low cost phones. This is unlike a brand such as Apple which could potentially face brand value erosion if it manufactured low cost phones or iPads and computers. 4.0 Recommendations From the above analysis, it can be noted that while all the three companies have higher brand value, Nokia sales has been dropping and losing market to Samsung, with Samsung aggressively consolidating its position in the market by taking on Apple with its new Smartphone. In this sense therefore, Nokia is in need of recommendations to make it regain its market position and to help it be competitive at the same time. Notable recommendations to changes in strategy are twofold: first and foremost it should include a touch of innovativeness to its brand personality. Research shows that indeed in the technology such as mobile handsets, changing technology making current technology obsolete at a higher rate (Adomavicius, Bockstedt, Gupta, & Kauffman, 2008). Adoption of innovativeness personality is key for brand survival in such a sector especially with changing consumer preferences, and also changing generations with different needs. Secondly, though the phone has quite some breathtaking designs, some of the Nokia’s phone designs and styles are often similar. A revamp in design would help develop a brand personality of sleekness and stylishness (Park, & Roedder, 2010), and this would enable the company beat competition. 5.0 Conclusion This paper sought to review the theory of brand personality and use this theory to analyse the brand personalities of Apple, Nokia, Samsung within the electronics industry, evaluate on whether the brands are reflective of their appropriate personalities to attract their target markets, and provide recommendations for one of the products. After reviewing literature on brand personality theory, it was noted that the key theory applicable model to be used in analysing the brand personalities of the three companies was Aaker’s (1997) five key distinct brand personality dimensions: sophistication, competence, excitement, sincerity and ruggedness. After analysing the marketing materials, and the websites of Apple, and applying Aaker’s model, it was conclusively noted that Apple’s brand strategy was both exciting (imaginative, daring, and spirited), and sophisticating (charming and upper-class). This is as compared to Nokia’s which was sincere (cheerful, wholesome, honest, friendly or down to earth) and competent (successful, intelligent, diligent and reliable). Samsung on the other hand was Exciting (imaginative, daring, and spirited), sophisticating (charming and upper-class), and ruggedness (toughness, outdoorsy and masculinity). Both Nokia and Samsung have been on an upward trend in the brands and performance, while Nokia while still a high performer, faced dropped sales in its mobile handsets. Notable recommendations to Nokia’s brand personality in this sense are incorporating innovativeness aspects in the industry while also revamping the mobile hand set designs with changing times. 6.0 References Aaker, J 1997, “Dimensions of brand personality,” Journal of Marketing Research, 34, 347–356. Aaker, J 1999, “The malleable self: The role of self-expression in persuasion,” Journal of Marketing Research, 36, 45–57. Adbrand 2012, “Nokia (Finland),” at: http://www.adbrands.net/fi/nokia_fi.htm, accessed 6 May 2012. 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Weber, T 2011, “Nokia Bets on Windows Phone future,” BBC News Technology, at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15459118, accessed 6 May 2012. 7.0 Appendices Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3 Appendix 4 Appendix 5 Appendix 6 Appendix 7 Appendix 8 Appendix 9 Read More