Brand Personality Characteristics - Essay Example

1.0) Introduction 1) Objective: This paper aims at exploring the issues involved in “Brand personality in the context of charity organizations”. The paper tries to achieve this objective by reviewing the available literature on the brand personality in the context of charity organizations followed by brand personality analysis of three charity organizations from Australia to appreciate the significance of brand personality for a charity organization and why and how different organization project different brand personalities. 1.2) Brief back ground of the three charities: The Smith Family is an 88 years old charity organization, promoting education for financially disadvantaged children and their families, which offsets the costs of running the organisation through a commercial enterprise The organization garners a lot of support from both general public and corporate partners due to its clean and contemporary image. The company firmly believes in evidence based and collaborative approach of operations. The company demonstrates great efficiency with 81% of their fundraising income goes directly towards supporting their programs. The Salvation Army describes itself as a charity organization, seeking to be a growing, loving community of people dynamically living Gods mission in a broken world. The charity brand is very successful so far in getting both public and corporate support. Oxfam Australia is an independent, not-for-profit, secular, community-based aid and development organization in Australia. It works to provide more and more people with a sustainable livelihood, access to social services, an effective voice in decisions, safety from conflict and disaster, and equal rights and status. 2.0) Literature Review: 2.1) Jennifer Aaker defined brand personality as "the set of human characteristics associated with a brand" (347). Aaker argued that substantial amount of research on personality dimensions had been done earlier in personality psychology to conceptualize human personality, but similar parallel research on brand personality was non existent, in the extant consumer behaviour literature (347). To address this issue Aaker developed a special measure of brand personality that consisted of 42 traits and five dimensions: sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness. Aaker’s model of brand personality was be the pioneering work in Brand personality literature and set precedent for similar studies (Ferrandi et al, 7-13 ). Brand personality in charity sector received specific consideration, for the first time, in 2005 when (Venable et al) tried to develop a separate measure for Charity brand personality. (Venable et al) opined that the brand personality scale developed by Aaker is more suitable for-profit organization and can not be generalized for Nonprofit organization, as patronizing Charity organization involves more of Social consideration rather than Economic consideration they opined that, as economic consideration in a charity is limited to Tax exemption on account of donations made to the charity. Thus Brand personality of a charity should reflect the social orientation to be distinctive and relevant. (Venable et al) replaced Aaker’s 5 dimensional brand personality construct with a more specific 4 dimensional brand personality construct, for Nonprofit. Their model shared two dimensions i.e. Sophistication and Ruggedness with Aaker’s model but added two separate dimensions i.e. Nurturance and Integrity. (304) 2.2) Following reasons may be cited for increasing realization about the significance of charity brand personality. 1. For-profit organizations are entering the social service arena and thus are poised to offer great competition to Nonprofit organizations (William P Ryan, 128). To retain existing donor base and acquire new donors, charity firms will have to compete with for-profit organizations. 2. A lot of pressure has been placed on Nonprofit organizations to finance their operations through private donations due to substantial reductions in government funding (Bendapudi, Singh and Bendapudi, 33-49). 3. The number of Nonprofit organizations has substantially increased world over and individual or household charity donations have not kept pace with the increased number of nonprofit organizations (Sargeant, 15:215-238), which has led to heightened competition where more and more such firms are vying for the donations 4. Finally, as posited by (Blum, 14 (11):7-10; Morley et al, 5-10) there is increased demand for accountability, for the effectiveness of its operations and services, by a new generation of donors. How donors and other stakeholders choose to patronize a charity and how they evaluate the performance of a charity is quite an under researched but very significant area (Venable et al, 296). Arnett et al. stated that "much of the research on relationship marketing success has examined relationships that (1) are primarily economic in nature, (2) involved business-to business marketing, and (3) involved for-profit firms" (89). Similarly, (Venable et al) stated “that research conducted in branding and brand personality has been based on for-profit brands” (296). (Venable et al) emphasised that charity organizations have diverse stake holders which they have to work with. The two most important among them are the beneficiaries and donors (patrons), after employees, the partners like: for-profit and government organizations are the most crucial as a charity has to work in tandem with them, for attaining their goals of social improvement. While beneficiaries will gravitate to a charity whose personality rates high on “Nurturance” and “Integrity” (Venable et al, 295-302 ), Corporate or for-profit organizations would like to partner with a charity brand which has along with, the aforementioned personality traits (e.g. Nurturance and integrity), a clean and clear image which is free from any racial or prejudiced orientation. The reasons that warrant separate treatment for charity brand personality may be 1. (Venable et al) argued since nonprofits primarily offer services (297), the organization offering the service becomes the focal point for consumers (Berry, 28 (1): 128-37). Thus development of a strong nonprofit brand must occur at the organizational level so as to provide a distinct competitive advantage. 2. As the benefits of giving to nonprofits are primarily social rather than economic. The brand personality of a charity should reflect social dimensions like Nurturance along with reliability and Integrity (Venable et al, 300). The social exchange theory (e.g., Bagozzi 32-39; Homans, 597-606) can better explain why donors give (Burnett and Wood 1988). 3. As they are to change the way the world is. Thus their meaning has to be far deeper than most of the commercial brands have. Their brand identity and image should also reflect their peculiar characteristic (Venable et al, 295-312 ) 4. Charity brands just cant afford the millions and billions of dollars that are spent by commercial sector on brand building, they have to devise some way to manage their brands but, without spending such huge amounts. 2.3) Benefits that a charity can expect to derive through a strong brand personality may be: 1. It communicates to the patrons what the Charity does and what it stands for (Hankinson, 346-360): According to social exchange theory people would consider what social benefit they will get in return of their contribution. The clearer and stronger the brand personality is, the easier will people find to express them selves by patronizing the charity brand. 2. A strong brand with a compatible brand personality is more likely to attract funds from the corporate sector (Hankinson, 346-360). The for-profit organizations as part of their CSR tie up with charities to discharge their responsibilities and improve their brand image (for e.g. Colgate Palmolive with The smith Family). While selecting a charity the non brand personality is critical aspect. 3. Brand personality enhances brand equity as it differentiates the brand from its competitors (Aaker, 347-57), enhances brand trust and preference and improves loyalty. (Venable et al) stated “brand personality differentiates nonprofit organizations in a competitive charitable market and thus is beneficial to nonprofit practitioners and researchers” (296). 2.4) A charity must strive to project a strong and relevant brand personality to ensure marketing success. How charity brand can be created and communicated 1) Urde stated “The choice of core values and how they are expressed reflects the personality of the brand” (1031). Thus, one significant way to project brand personality for charity, can be through the values that a charity lives and communicates to the stakeholders, 2) For a charity beneficiaries and donors can be considered as customers’ equivalent of for-profit organizations and employees and volunteers can be considered as employees’ equivalent of for-profit organizations. As in service organizations employees’ behaviour communicate brand personality (Wentzel, 359-374), user imagery influences brand personality (Hayes, Alford, Capella). We can extrapolate that charity brand personality can be projected through the personality impressions of their employees, volunteers, donors, and their corporate partners. 3) Through advertising and other communication media.(Rajgopal 56-65) 4) Through Celebrity endorsement. (Ang, Dubelaar and Kamakura.) 5) Through endorsing a particular cause. 2.5) Charity brand personality is more complex issue than brand personality of a for-profit firm as; diverse stake holders will have different goals for patronizing a charity brand. For beneficiaries will be interested in their welfare thus preferring a charity having traits like nurturance. Donors will be motivated by social appeals like prestige; self esteem etc and thus will be interested in traits like sophistication etc. On the other hand corporate partners and government organizations may be more interested in the competency and leadership capability of the charity, thus preferring a charity with traits like competence; leadership etc. Thus a charity brand has a daunting task of projecting separate (relevant) personality traits for each set of stake holders, but ensuring that they are not diluted or contradicted by each other. Thus separate model, for charity brands considering the diverse audience it targets, needs to be developed. The model should include the traits which are considered by beneficiaries, donors, volunteers, government and corporate partners. 3.0) Website Review of the three charity organizations 3.1) Brand personality of The Smith Family is very contemporary can be characterized by traits like Excitement, competence, sophistication, integrity and nurturance. Of which excitement and competence seem to be the most highlighted. Nurturance and integrity are reflected but not highlighted. Ruggedness is not that reflected in the brand personality. The Smith Family targets people who understand the role that education may play, in the longer run, to help the disadvantaged children and uplift the society. Apart from that they also target corporate bodies for partnership. They project such personality as it is highly important to attract educated donors and corporate partners. 3.2).The charity brand, The Salvation Army, is characterized by personality traits like ruggedness, nurturance and integrity. Sophistication does not get reflected at all. In fact ruggedness seems to be the most prominent personality trait in the brand. The kind of people The Salvation Army aims at, are Christian, conventional, and passionate about the cause. The brand personality is characterized by ruggedness, passion and nurturance to motivate these people to help them help the needy, in the name of the god. 3.3).The brand personality of Oxfam is characterized by competence, sincerity, integrity and excitement. Ruggedness is not at all reflected by the charity brand. The target audience of the charity seems to be general as the charity does not reflect any differentiated personality as sincerity and integrity are very common personality traits in any charity brand. In Fact they can be considered as points of parity rather than as points of differentiation. Sophistication and competence to some extent may differentiate the charity brand. The company targets young people, as donors and volunteers, and corporate partners with exciting and competent personality. The corporate prove a good partner for charities. 4.0).In absence of any specific model for charity brand personality defining a charity personality is difficult. Aaker’s model does not cover social orientation which is important trait for a charity brand personality, while brand personality model by (Venable et al) does take in to account the competence and leadership traits, important to corporate partners, in to consideration and all these personality traits are important as charity brand has diverse audience to attract. The choice and expression of core values may communicate the brand personality of an organization (Urde, 1031). To describe the brand personality of the charities we have analyzed their Mission, vision, goals and values, as every set of stakeholders will consider them and these could act as common platform to communicate a common brand personality to diverse audience. However to highlight specific traits for specific set of stakeholders like beneficiaries, donors, corporate partners, etc a charity may use separate advertisements projecting specific traits. For The Smith Family their guiding principles (www.thesmithfmily.com.au) were analyzed from their websites and following key words were gleaned to understand their brand personality: excitement, competence, sophistication, integrity and nurturance The name of the charity (The Salvation Army) itself, their symbols (shield, crest and flag) etc suggest a rugged personality. Their corporate advertisement “we are all in this together” (you tube.com) shows them as very compassionate, loving and down to earth people thus nurturance and integrity get much highlighted. The brand personality of Oxfam has been gleaned by analyzing their vision, values and goals (www.oxfam.org.au) which reflect sincerity and integrity in their purpose of existence i.e. empowering people, challenging poverty etc. The excitement is projected through their website which looks quite colorful and soothing to eyes with the choice of bright colors (www.oxfam.org.au). 5.0) For The Smith Family, I will try to broaden my charity’s appeal as, alexa.com shows that the charity website is visited mostly by graduates while non graduates and some college categories are quite underrepresented which may distance charity’s desired beneficiaries, thus personality traits like down to earth and nurturance appeal have to be projected through choosing and communicating relevant guiding principles or values. The reason for this change is to attract beneficiaries which may not be quite close to the brand, which is reflected by under representation of non graduates and some college categories visiting the site of the charity (alexa.com). For The Salvation Army my action plan will be to shed the highly religious image. I will go for projecting competency and other traits like leadership and agreeableness as corporate partner will never prefer a rigid and religious image. To do that, I will communicate values like efficiency, openness, collaboration etc by either stating them or endorsing a celebrity with such an image and personality traits (Ang, Dubelaar and Kamakura). This is because partnering with a corporate is essential for a charity as the corporate may enter the social service sector (William P. Ryan, 128) and compete with charities thus projecting a relevant personality characterised by leadership, cultural orientation, agreeableness and competence is very important. My action plan for Oxfam would be to project a mature personalty by endorsing a celebrity (Ang, Dubelaar and Kamakura) which can connect with the “age group 55-64” (alexa.com) and encourage this group to patronize the charity with time and money. The reason for this is the fact that the “age group 55-64” is highly underrepresented on their visitors profile list(alexa.com) and this segment may be most motivated and with the highest disposable income and time to part with. Thus targeting this group is important from donation point of view. 6) Conclusion: Out of all the three charity brands the brand personality of The Smith Family is the most relevant and strongest considering all the stakeholders as the personality is characterised by traits which project both social and business success, one of the reason for this could be the commercial enterprise that the charity runs to offset the cost of charity. The brand personality of The Salvation Army requires utmost attention as the brand need to update and change itself. The overtly religious tone that it carries may not allow a lot of potential corporate partnership. The brand personality of Oxfam is quite balanced as the charity has been re branded and it proudly communicates it global associations. The brand personality concept may offer great benefits to a charity organization considering the kind of competition charity sector is witnessing. While charity brand personality is a significant concept, it has not received the attention that it deserves in academic circle, as the studies conducted on the topic are almost non existent except one by (Venable et al) The charity brand has to attract diverse set of supporters ranging from beneficiaries, donors, volunteers; corporate partners etc, each of them may be interested in different aspects of personality. Thus the current literature needs a specific but exhaustive measure, of brand personality for charity, which can cover the personality traits looked for, by diverse stakeholders. A strong and relevant personality will decide the future of a charity. References Aaker Jennifer L. “Dimensions of Brand Personality.” Journal of Marketing Research 34.3 (1997): 347-357. Ang, Dubelaar and Kamakura. “Changing Brand Personality through Celebrity Endorsement”. Arnett, Dennis B., Steve D. German, and Shelby D. Hunt. "The Identity Salience Model of Relationship Marketing Success: The Case of Nonprofit Marketing." Journal of Marketing 67.2 (2003): 89-106. Bagozzi, Richard P. "Marketing as Exchange." Journal of Marketing 39 (1975): 32-39. Belk, Russell w. “Possessions and the Extended Self.” Journal of Consumer Research 2 (1988): 139-68. Bendapudi, N., S. N. Singh , and V. Bendapudi. "Enhancing Helping Behavior: An Integrative Framework for Promotion Planning?.” Journal of Marketing 60 (1996): 33-49. Berry, Leonard. "Cultivating Service Brand Equity." Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 28.1 (2000): 128-37. Blau, Peter M. “Exchange and Power in Social Life.” New York: John Wiley (1964). Blum, D. E. "Ties That Bind." The Chronicle of Philanthropy 14.11 (2002): 7-10. Bumett, J. J.. "Psychographic and Demographic Characteristics of Blood Donors." Journal of Consumer Research 8 (1981): 62-66. Ferrandi, J. M., P. Valette-Florence, and S. Fine-Falcy. "Aakers Brand Personality Scale in a French Context: A Replication and a Preliminary Test of Its Validity." In Proceedings of Academy of Marketing Science 23 (2000): 7-13. Hankinson, P. "Brand Orientation in the Charity Sector: A Framework for Discussion and Research." international Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing 6.3 (2001): 231-242. Hankinson, P. "Brand Orientation in Top 500 fundraising charities in UK.” Journal of Product and Brand Management 10.6 (2001): 346-360. Hayes, Alford and Capella. “When the goal is creating a brand personality, focus on user imagery” Academy of marketing studies Journal (2008). Homans, George C. "Social Behavior and Exchange." American Journal of Sociology 63 (1958): 597-606. Morley, E., E. Vinson, and H.P. Hatry. "Outcome Measurement in Nonprofit Organizations: Current Practices and Recommendations." In Independent Sector Washington, DC: Urban Institute (2001): 5-10. Rajgopal. “Brand Excellence: Measuring the Impact of Advertising and Brand Personality on Buying Decisions.” Measuring Business Excellence 10.3 (2006): 56-65. Sargeant, Adrian. "Charitable Giving : Towards a Model of Donor Behaviour." Journal of Marketing Management 15 (1999): 215-238. Urde Mats. “Core value-based corporate brand building.” European Journal of Marketing 37.7/8 (2003) : 1017-1040. Venable et al. “The Role of Brand Personality in Charitable Giving: An Assessment and Validation.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 33.3: 295-312. Wentzel. “The Effect of Employee Behavior on Brand Personality Impressions And Brand Attitudes.” Journal of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 37 (2009): 359–374) William P. Ryan. “The New Landscape for Nonprofits", Harvard Business Review (1999). Wood. "A Proposed Model of the Donation Decision Process." Research in Consumer Behavior 3 (1988): 1-47. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/oxfam.org.au#demographics http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/thesmithfamily.com.au#demographics http://www.thesmithfamily.com.au/site/page.cfm?u=2 http://www.oxfam.org.au/about-us/our-vision-values-and-goals http://www.salvationarmy.org.au/SALV/LANDING/PC_60112.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O326kA31Gy0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Charity Brand Personality This report presents the major findings and recommendations from a literature review focusing on the use of branding and brand personality in the charity sector. MAJOR FINDINGS Literature Review: The use of brand personality concept in the charity context has been growing of late, as the charity organizations have realized the importance of marketing and branding in response to the growing competition in the sector. A clearly drafted and congruently projected brand personality may offer a lot of advantages to a charity organization which may range from differentiating the charity from other charities in a cluttered sector, to enhancing corporate partnerships. However the extant literature seriously lacks dedicated research studies on the topic. One study by Venables et al does try to construct a separate brand personality measure for charity organizations; some important dimensions for a charity brand personality are not captured by their measure as well. Thus we need a more suitable charity brand personality measure for charity brands. Personality Analysis of three charities: The Smith Family is characterised by traits which project both social and business success, one of the reason for this could be the commercial enterprise that the charity runs to offset the cost of charity. The current brand personality of The Smith family needs a slight change in its brand personality to be able to attract beneficiaries also. The brand personality of The Salvation Army requires utmost attention as the brand need to update and change itself. The overtly religious tone that it carries may not allow a lot of potential corporate partnership. The brand personality of Oxfam is quite balanced as the charity has been re branded and it proudly communicates it global associations, but the charity needs to target people in age group “45-54” as this is the segment which ahs highest motivation along with time and money to donate. CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR Charity Brand Personality Uni. Cover Sheet Your front page Executive Summary Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction ................................................................Page No. 1 1.1 Objectives 1.2 Brief background for the 3 charities chosen 2.0 Literature Review........................................................ Page No.2 -6 2.1 Branding & Brand personality Page No.2 2.2 How & why it is growing Page No.3 2.3 Why it is important Page No.5 2.4 How it is used Page No.5 2.5 Recommendation Page No.6 3.0 Web site review of the three charities Page No. 7 3.1 Brand personality profile – The Smith family 3.2 Brand personality profile – The Salvation Army 3.3 Brand personality profile – Oxfam 4.0 Support analysis using Brand Personality Theory…. Page No. 8 5.0 Recommendation of change ………..……………… Page No. 9 6.0 Conclusion ............................................................... Page No 10 7.0 Reference List Page No. 11-13 Read More