A Brand's Most Important Quality

I have worked with more than one hundred brand leadership teams to carefully craft their brands' personalities as a part of our brand positioning workshops. The four most chosen personality attributes are "innovative," "trustworthy," "reliable" and "responsive." For a full list of most chosen personality attributes, go to this blog post. 

But I would contend that the most important brand personality attribute is "likable." If you like a person or a brand, you are more likely to listen to them. If you like them, you are more likely to do something for them including purchase something from them. The most successful salespeople are likable. Yes, they need to be hard working and competent, but most importantly, they need to be likable. 

Consider the appeal of the Pillsbury Doughboy. How about Tony the Tiger? Consider how likable GEICO's gecko is. Progressive created its own character Flo. And Aflac has its duck. 

A key component of the Southwest Airlines brand is its fun employees. Delta Airlines took a cue from Southwest and created its own fun safety videos. 

Research has shown that a sense of humor/makes me smile/makes me laugh is one of the most important attributes in choosing a life partner. 

Suffice it to say that for your brand to be as successful as it can possibly be, it needs to be likable. Do you know how likable your brand is? What are you doing to insure that your brand is likable? 

The Three Things Every Brand Needs to Be

Based upon extensive research, a brand needs to possess these three qualities to be a strong brand:

• Trustworthy
• Likable
• Interesting

To say this another way, a brand cannot possess one or more of these three qualities and still be a strong brand:

• Dishonest or otherwise lacking in integrity
• Unpleasant, unfriendly or disagreeable
• Boring

While this may seem obvious, it is important that you know where your brand resides on these three continua. 

Making Your Brand Likable

Ultimately, you want people to like your brand. So, what makes a brand likable? Think of a brand as if it were a person. And then think about what makes people likable. Here is my list of attributes that make people likable:

• They are secure and self-confident
• They are honest and have integrity
• They keep their promises and are reliable
• They are genuine, sincere and authentic
• They are positive, happy and optimistic
• They smile
• They are not too serious, they laugh and they make people laugh
• They ask questions and they truly listen to and try to understand the answers
• They keep an open mind
• They do not judge or condemn others, they accept them as they are
• They look for something nice to say about others, but not in an insincere way
• They can be vulnerable, they admit to their mistakes, they say “I’m sorry”
• They treat people with courtesy and respect
• They add value, they bring value to others

Brands are personifications of organizations and their products and services. Because of this, we can apply this list of attributes to brands as well as people. So take a look at this list and decide what you need to do to increase the likability of your brand. Much of this will result from the appropriate corporate culture, customer service training and procedures and employee selection and performance appraisal criteria. Some of it will result from outstanding and consistent product performance. Advertising campaigns and other marketing messaging can significantly reinforce and build upon your brand’s likability. And don’t forget that choosing the right brand personality and promise can increase your brand’s likability.

I wish you great success in making your brand more likable.