‘Spicing’ up the brand personality

First of all you must be authentic. Companies with an original story like The Body Shop for example gain a lot of popularity with the customers! Authenticity lays hand in hand with searching your right identity, you have to keep your personality consistent! Techniques that help companies in their searching for identity are car, animal or celebrity analogy. When you finally defined your identity you have to show your engagement, your motivation! Combine this element with an entertainment factor like a website, free products,... and the public will know your name right away! And last but not least you have to draw attention to enough versatility in your activities, expand your brand personality’s horizons!

                                                        Authenticism in your personality

So it’s very vital to know your brand personality perfectly. It’s a reality check: Maybe you’re satisfied about your personality today and tomorrow it’s completely wrong, you have to keep in mind what you want to become, not what you are. And once you succeeded to define your personality, this success will be spread in every department of your company!     

Laura Goeminne                                                                                   

http://blog.ogilvypr.com/2010/08/spicing-up-the-brand-personality/

http://thefinancialbrand.com/14053/bank-credit-union-branding-personality-attributes/

Car analogy: Are you conservative, traditional and a little dated?
Or are you practical, affordable and family oriented?

Brand personality is not a traditional economical subject, you can’t define and illustrate it with graphs, percentage rates and spreadsheets. It’s all about people’s emotions and feelings, companies have to understand the underlying emotional associations! But still there are a few essentials every businessman has to know...

Superdry, an exclusive fashion style.

Few years ago nobody in Europe ever heard about the brand Superdry, now it is official that this fashion label is one of the fastest-growing fashion labels in the world! Sales managers said that the sales increased 68% over the past three months. How is it possible to make such a jump to extreme popularity in such little time?

The brand worked a lot on his image of an exclusive brand which sells casual clothing  for women and men who want quality. Another element of the brand’s concept is that both woman and man departments aren’t separated in different shops but are centralised in one shop. Superdry gave a boost to their personality letting celebrities wear their clothes on parties. They also differentiate from other brands with their vibrant colour choices, various sizes and a trendy, fresh appearance. The combination of this large variety of clothes and various accessories are also part of their strategy! And the final touch to their concept is the introduction of an online shopping facility to satisfy all the cutomers in the world!

Superdry is succeeded to make their brand innovative , people come back after a visit from one of the(not that numerous) stores for the unique shopping experience the brand gives to them!

Laura Goeminne

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/10/superdry-supergroup-sales-rise

http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Superdry---An-Exculsive-Fashion-Style-/1408754

Coca-Cola Vs Pepsi: the war returned

Coca-Cola Vs Pepsi : the war returned

“The Cola Wars” is the name that has been given to the wars between the two soft drinks manufacturers Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Like all companies, especially for direct concurrents, they both wanted to be the best. To accomplish this, they attacked each other with advertisements on television and marketing campaigns in the ’70 and ’80.

But now after all these years, there’s again a fight with as objective the sugar-free products ‘Coke Zero’ and ‘Pepsi Max’. After a campaign of Pepsi, Coca Cola attacked back and declared their long-term strategy: they’ll make healthier drinks and show enthusiasm for sustainable products just as Pepsi. But the war will probably just stay in America; in the Benelux the manufacturers just want to show the strongest features of their brand. Negative advertisement may be effective in the US but not in the Benelux; here you’ll have to invent a campaign where you’ll let the own power of the product talk.

This is a clear example of two companies who want to rule over the world and who’re having each the same brand personality worldwide but are using other tricks in each country to accomplish this.

Michiel De Witte

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cola-oorlog

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cola_Wars

http://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/2680/Economie/article/detail/1011876/2010/07/27/Oorlog-tussen-Pepsi-en-Coca-Cola-laait-weer-op.dhtml

What is brand personality ?

Most of the previous blog posts are descriptions of the unique personalities of some well-known brands. After analyzing these examples, I noticed that brand personality is something very abstract. A lot of researchers tried to define brand personality by using their own interpretation of the concept. Result?  A large range of inconsistent definitions.

My previous posts were more or less based on the definition of Aaker. She believes  that brand personality represents the set of human characteristics associated with a brand.  With this definition, Aaker has developed a scale which allows you to describe and measure the personality of a brand in five core dimensions: Sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness. 

However, some researcher do not approve of this definition and scale. They believe a stricter definition is necessary, otherwise “brand personality” will be used to indicate any non-physical attribute associated with a brand while intellectual abilities, gender, social class, etc... should not be included. They are convinced that these qualities are not applicable  and relevant to brands.

Conclusion? Finding the perfect definition of brand personality is probably impossible, there will always be someone that will criticize the used approach.  But I challenge you...

Vienna Deschrijver

https://studies2.hec.fr/jahia/webdav/site/hec/shared/sites/azoulay/acces_anonyme/JBM_AA_JNK.pdf

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3151897

Childhood determines your brand preferences

Childhood determines your brand preferences

The aim of a company is to sell as many products as possible. For achieving this, they’re appealing to e.g. advertising for promoting their products and to show what the company looks like. But what if research shows us that this doesn’t change the consumers’ attitude?

Researchers from the universities of Tilburg and Chicago discovered, after a two-year (2006-2008) study on the behavior of American citizens, that the consumers are still buying products they’ve been using in their youth. They’ve found a remarkable notification: there are several local relations in consumption, despite of the fact that you can find all the products in every region. When people move to another region, they’ll buy products that they can find there but they’ll still buy some local products from their home region. Off course this will change trough the years but not as fast as you’ll think, only after 20 years people will change half of its consumption habits. 

The fact that people are staying loyal to the products from their youth is a piece of evidence that a brand that enters the market first has more advantages despite of the brand personality.

http://www.marketingonline.nl/nieuws/bericht/je-jeugd-bepaalt-merkvoorkeur/

Michiel De Witte 

CONVERSE

Converse, the shoe company that invented the famous Chuck Taylor All-Stars is still successful after more than 100 years.  One of the reasons for this enduring success is undoubtedly the strong and unique brand personality. 

John Hoke, the vice president of the company assumes that youngsters don’t want to be just someone that represents the brand, he is convinced that they are looking for a brand that allows them to be who they are or who they want to be. This statement matches perfectly with the personality of Converse: optimistic and bold. A personality that inspires consumers to be creative and original.

In a society  where almost every brand puts a mark on consumers from the moment they wear/use the brand, I think it is nice to know that there’s at least one brand that gives the consumers the opportunity to wear/use the brand like they want to!   


Vienna Deschrijver


E.E. Cummings once wrote :  “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

My conclusion?  Converse is fighting with us.

http://www.teenink.com/opinion/pop_culture_trends/article/115791/Converse-Shoes-Will-the-love-go-on/

http://www.zimbio.com/100+Most+Influential+People+in+Fashion/articles/233/Fashion+Influential+41+Chuck+Taylor



Love Your BODY(shop)

Who doesn’t know The Body Shop? But do we know who started this ‘natural’ brand way before it  was fashionable TO BE green?

The Body Shop was founded in 1976 by Anita Roddick. She started with a little store in Littlehampton. She and her little company became known by creating a certain brand personality that said 100% natural, environmentally friendly, social activism,…

In the beginning she made her statement by for example re-using the packaging of the shampoos, the bath foams,…  People would buy shampoo  and when the bottle was empty they would come back to refill

But now in 2010 the company is huge, it’s worldwide, it’s well-known, it’s part of the L’Oréal corporate group. Their values are way bigger ;they support Greenpeace, Defend Human Rights, Support Community Trade and so on.

All this is very impressive… The company is huge, has great sales rates and has incredible values, if all brands were like that the world would be a better place!

Eloïse Lecluyse

source:
http://www.thebodyshop-usa.com/beauty/values?cm_re=Tyra_FallSkinCare2-_-Navigation-_-values
Wikpedia