Marketing

Marketing



Marketing

Introduction

Brand equity can be enhanced with the help of good brand personification. Brand personification is a growing concept being used by marketers as a tool towards establishing brand identity. It is interesting to know that personality traits can be applied on non-living things; brands, and these are the traits which most people can agree upon since a brand is personified to have a soul and human characteristics. If you know another human being, you can usually describe their personality to someone else. And if that other person asked several other people about the same person, they would likely get a similar personality viewpoint. Similarly, if this concept is applied on brands, people can describe them as being a subject that has personality and other people can have the same view point.

Discussion

Brand image and brand personality are often used as synonyms for each other. However, marketers are of the view that brand image is a bigger picture which includes brand personality within it (Sengupta, 2007). Brand image refers to the physical, functional and symbolic meanings of a brand perceived by the customer. On the other hand, brand personality rests mainly on the symbolic aspect of the brand. According to Sengupta (2007), the functional benefits of a brand along with the symbolic aspects help the customer make the overall judgment about a brand.

Brand personality helps gain in-depth understanding of consumer perceptions and of attitudes towards a brand. It helps differentiate brands especially where brands are similar in product attributes. It can provide a vehicle for customers to express their own identity. A brand personality metaphor helps suggest the kind of relationship that the customer has with the brand. Also, it is often a sustainable point of differentiation because it is difficult to copy a personality. This is why brand personification helps to deduce conclusions about whether it is different for various banks in the industry.

For example, a bank may be considered to be reliable and highly responsive which contribute to its better brand image in the industry. According to Sanjay (2010), a high priced brand will be considered wealthy, stylish and perhaps snobbish or a new entrant will tend to have a younger personality. He gives the example of a trustworthy, dependable, conservative personality which seems to be boring belonging to a bank or financial product.

Brand personality is the characteristics the brand team associates with the particular brand. It could be considered the heart of the brand. The brand personality eventually has to be communicated to the audience. This is done through brand identity which refers to cues such as logos, endorsers, colors etc. However, it must be understood that brand identity may not always represent the brand personality in an accurate way which may lead to a different perception about the brands by its consumers. The actual perception of the brand in the consumer's mind is referred to as the brand image. A good brand image has a brand value which is termed as being the brand ...