Differentiating Your Brand with the Right Brand Personality

Creating, nurturing and strengthening a relationship with consumers in a saturated marketplace can be challenging. But outside of an innovative product or service, amazing customer care and a competitive price, there is another way to gain the attention of today’s consumers. It’s called brand personality.

What is Brand Personality in Marketing?

Brand personality shapes how customers feel when engaging with your brand, whether through marketing materials, navigating your website or traveling through the purchase funnel. Characteristics and traits of brand personality include tone of voice, core values and beliefs and visual identity elements including brand colors, fonts and photography style. Copywriting and graphic design go hand-in-hand to create an experience that customers can describe using a few key adjectives—like adventurous and sustainable for Patagonia or extreme and energetic for Red Bull.

Why is Brand Personality Important?

The importance of brand personality boils down to three main factors—differentiation, audience connection and trust. Not only will a unique brand personality help your product or service stand out, but it can also help form more emotional connections with consumers. By committing to an authentic style and voice that supports your established personality, brands can create fierce loyalty with customers and increase their lifetime value. In fact, 88% of consumers admit that authenticity (like personalized messaging and hyper-targeted ads) plays a role in their decision-making process when choosing a brand.

How To Define Your Brand Personality

The first step in identifying the right brand personality is to understand your customers, their key personas and their preferences and values. Start by crafting an easy-to-understand mission statement which will pave the way to the next pieces of the puzzle.

Meet with decision-makers to discuss words that speak to your unique brand. Browse other brands and materials that offer a similar personality to what your brand is seeking to portray. Will the tone be formal or casual, playful or sophisticated, classic or futuristic? These adjectives will guide the way marketers write copy.

Once tone is established, dive into psychology to identify colors that will emote those traits and a typeface that will do the same. When choosing, keep in mind ADA compliance standards to ensure your web content is accessible to people with disabilities. These visual elements will play a critical role in connecting with consumers, building brand awareness and attracting customers who connect with your values. In the last year, 78% of consumers have made a purchase decision based on a company’s values and beliefs. Once visual and verbal elements have been established, it’s time to create your brand guidelines to provide direction for others executing your brand.

How to Apply Brand Personality to Marketing Materials

From printed materials at a trade show, content on your social media channels to even your company tagline, it is key to be consistent with your personality, adhering to brand guidelines across all mediums. For someone who is familiar with your brand, it’s key to ensure your tone, colors and attitude are recognizable even when not accompanied by a logo. Uncover every opportunity to push your brand further. And then think bigger. Your automated chatbot responses, your email signatures, the swag items you give away at trade shows and even your holiday customer gifts are a chance to extend the reach of your brand personality further and make its relationship with your customers deeper.

Measuring The Impact & Optimizing Brand Personality

After identifying and implementing your new brand personality, it’s important to monitor how your customers receive it. Give your new approach time to reach audiences, monitor feedback on social media and consider A/B testing different uses of the new personality to find what resonates most. Qualitative research with your audience can help marketers understand how the new personality is being received and make any adjustments as needed. These conversations should take place several times throughout the rollout to monitor change over time. Observing consumer perceptions is crucial, especially in the era of “cancel culture” where the wrong decision can be incredibly costly.

Narrowing down key elements of your brand isn’t easy, our experienced team can help.

Catch-22 Creative, an expert B2B Milwaukee advertising agency, has helped countless brands identify or refine their brand personality to better appeal to their target audiences. Whether just getting started or looking to implement, our team can help ensure your messages resonate and create a lasting impact with customers, both current and future.

See how our team helped Retail Space Solutions to redefine its brand identity by establishing unique graphic elements, developing brand guidelines and extending to corresponding corporate collateral.

About the Author:

Emily Curley is a Graphic Designer at Catch-22 Creative where she combines her artistic eye for design with her unwavering passion for creative problem-solving. Embracing a wide range of mediums, Emily brings fresh ideas to life using her technical skills and collaborative approach. Outside of design, Emily enjoys keeping up with the latest pop culture trends while drawing inspiration from the world around her.