Most Important Qualities for Brands

I have posted one or two articles on the brand personality attributes that organizations most often choose for their brands. In this article, I will share the qualities that I believe are most important for brands to possess. I am basing this on the qualities that people seek most in others. I think this is highly relevant because brands are the personifications of organizations and their products and services. By definition, brands take on and express human qualities. So why shouldn't brands take on the qualities that people admire the most in themselves and other people? 

Let's get started. Here are the qualities people most often mention that they look for in friends:

• Trustworthy
• Honest
• Dependable
• Empathetic
• Non-judgmental
• Forgiving
• A good listener
• Generous
• Sense of humor
• Fun to be around

And here are the qualities that they seek out in life partners:

• Trustworthy
• Honest
• Sense of humor
• Reliable
• Fun to be around
• Shared values
• Compatibility
• Mutual respect
• Forgiving
• Intelligent
• Hard working

Here are the qualities people seek out in leaders:

• Honest
• Possessing integrity
• Confidence
• Positive attitude
• Inspirational
• Accountable/takes responsibility
• Creative/innovative
• Empathetic
• Sense of humor
• A good listener
• Decisive

Here are why people love dogs and sometimes prefer them to other people (ok, I know dogs are not people):

• Affectionate
• Loyal
• Uncritical/don't judge
• Unconditional love
• Exercise partner
• Reliable
• No hidden motives

And here are the qualities that people seek for themselves:

• Being a good person
• Competent
• Respected
• Wise
• Smart
• Trustworthy
• Kind
• Loyal
• Helpful
• Compassionate

Do you notice similarities between these lists? Here are the qualities that they have in common:

• Trustworthy
• Honest
• Dependable
• Sense of humor
• Fun to be around
• A good listener
• Empathetic
• Kind/generous
• Non-judgmental 
• Forgiving

As you are thinking about a persona for your brand, consider these qualities. 

Most Desirable Brand Personality Traits

When considering brands, customers value some personality traits more than others. Below is a rank ordered list of desired personality traits. I have derived this list from numerous sources over the past thirty years.

Tier 1

1. Trustworthy
2. Warm/Friendly
3. Responsive
4. Intelligent/Smart
5. Reliable/Dependable

Tier 2

1. Honest/Possesses integrity
2. Authentic/Real
3. Knowledgeable
4. Customer-service oriented
5. Easy to work with
6. Creative/Innovative
7. Resourceful
8. Agile/Flexible
9. Compassionate/Kind
10. Takes responsibility
11. Hard working
12. Has a sense of humor/Funny

Tier 3

1. Professional
2. Well-organized
3. Attention to detail
4. Strategic/Big picture thinking
5. Good listener
6. Learns from mistakes

You should consider which of these personality attributes would work best for your brand. And it is not a bad list to consider for yourself. 

This is an earlier blog post on the brand personality attributes most often chosen by my clients for their brands. And this is a blog post on using brand personality as a point of difference. And just for fun, here is a brand that has a very strong personality. 

Brand Tonality

Whether writing an elevator speech or advertising copy, it is important to get the brand's tonality right. This should be informed by the brand archetype, personality and voice, which are part of the strategic brand positioning exercise. 

For instance, do you want Tom Bodett ("We'll leave the light on for you."), Alister Cooke (PBS Masterpiece Theatre host) or someone else to represent your brand? Is your brand edgy or conservative? Does it have a sense of humor or is it serious? If your brand has a sense of humor, is it witty, sarcastic, slapstick, highbrow, dry or something else? Is it erudite or homey? Is its vocabulary large or small? If it were a writer, would it be John Steinbeck, William Faulkner or someone else? Is it hip and trendy or is it timeless? What sort of music is appropriate for the brand? A James Taylor ballad, a Beyoncé hit, a Mozart concerto or something else?

Don't leave your brand's tonality to a copywriter's guesswork. And don't allow every communication to assume a different tone on behalf of the brand. Decide upfront on your brand's tone and then stick to it.

Brand Personality as a Point of Difference

Southwest Airlines is one of the earlier high profile examples of this. Co-founder and former CEO Herb Keleher, pursued a leadership style based on values, attitudes and culture and created a no frills airline that was fun. He believes in "hiring for attitude and training for skill." He has also said, “A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear.” 

GEICO has its lovable, charming gecko. Which led to more insurance companies trying to create their own personalities through advertising campaigns and their characters, such as Progressive's Flo.

As I recall the brands I have worked with over the years, brand personality has been an important part of several brand positioning projects. Here are some examples of that.

• I worked with a federal credit union whose mantra was "simple, easy, fun." "Fun" was clearly differentiating in their category but we had to define how that personality attribute would play out at each point of customer contact.
• We worked with a watch brand that was a symbol of its wearer's hyper-competence and hyper-confidence. 
• I am currently working with a reinsurance company that is known for having a "sense of humor" because of a previous leader's personality. We may adopt that as a permanent part of that brand's DNA.
• We positioned a health care system as being serious. It's point of difference was that it was a serious place for serious, complicated diseases and injuries. 
• We helped a golf brand take on the personality of a serious, skilled, competent player so that the brand could be worn as a badge by people who were serious about golf.
• I worked with a property management company whose primary point of difference was its friendliness and responsiveness to renter's needs.
• We helped an insurance company adopt a set of values that is based on Christian values, generosity and caring for one another as a community.
• When I was at Hallmark, the company's mission was to help people share their feelings and nurture relationships. We decided the brand's essence was "caring shared."
• I worked with a continuing care retirement community that decided to focus on "family" including the love of family and family relationships.

While brand personality can be the result of a carefully crafted advertising campaign, more often than not, it becomes part of the brand's DNA. It becomes institutionalized and internalized by each employee. It even becomes part of the hiring criteria and performance appraisals. Consider choosing a unique and compelling brand personality as a part of your brand's unique value proposition.

The Donald Trump Brand - Our Research Results

Donald Trump has estimated his net worth to be in the billions of dollars, mostly based on the brand value of his last name. Prior to Donald Trump’s run for president of the United States, the Trump brand stood for luxury, success, risk taking and fearlessness.

Now that Donald Trump is the Republican nominee for president, we wanted to determine if his campaigning has changed his brand perceptions. To that end, we conducted a nationwide online survey between June 24 and July 4 to better understand Donald Trump’s brand perceptions. We asked 300 people how well each of 115 personality attributes described him. We compiled these attributes from articles written about Donald Trump combined with our battery of standard brand personality attributes. Here is what we found:

• No one perceives him to be shy
• Few view him to be subtle and very few perceive him to be politically correct
• Most everyone perceives him to be confident and outspoken
• Almost everyone identifies him as ambitious and a businessman
• Most identify him as rich and a billionaire

This is where the agreement ends. We found significant differences in brand personality perceptions by political party affinity, educational attainment and, to a lessor extent, household income level.  We also found that people who were unemployed and looking for work and those disabled and unable to work had much more positive perceptions of Donald Trump than people who were employed and those who were unemployed by choice. Interestingly, there were very few differences in perceptions by gender.

Republicans primarily described him using these words (in decreasing order):

• Businessman
• Hard working
• Successful
• Confident
• Leader
• Strong
• Real
• Entrepreneurial
• Competent
• Ambitious
• Rich
• Positive
• Energetic
• Passionate
• Professional
• Loyal
• Billionaire
• Interesting
• Good
• Smart
• Responsible
• Brave
• Honest
• Reliable
• Inspiring
• Outspoken
• Trustworthy
• Dependable

And they used many more positive words and almost no negative words to describe him.

While Democrats primarily described him as (in decreasing order):

• Outspoken
• Egotistical
• Narcissist
• Loud
• Bully
• Rude
• Greedy
• Sexist
• Bigoted
• Dangerous
• Intolerant
• Superficial
• Selfish
• Pretentious
• Narrow-minded
• Ambitious
• Crass
• Ill-mannered
• Angry
• Boorish
• Impulsive
• Confident
• Huckster
• Elitist
• Fraud

 People with less than a college bachelor’s degree described him as:

• Businessman
• Ambitious
• Hard working
• Confident
• Successful
• Outspoken
• Rich
• Entrepreneurial
• Billionaire
• Leader
• Real

 While people with a bachelor’s degree or greater described him as:

• Outspoken
• Egotistical
• Ambitious
• Confident
• Loud
• Crass
• Narcissist
• Impulsive
• Rude

 People with household incomes of $74,999 or less described him as:

• Outspoken
• Ambitious
• Confident
• Businessman
• Rich
• Successful
• Hard working
• Entrepreneurial
• Billionaire
• Passionate

 While people with household incomes of $175,000 or more described him as:

• Confident
• Ambitious
• Outspoken
• Egotistical
• Businessman
• Loud
• Flashy
• Entrepreneurial
• Rich
• Authoritarian
• Crass
• Energetic

In summary, those who (a) are Republican, (b) have less than a college bachelor’s degree and (c) more modest household incomes and (d) are unemployed looking for work view Donald Trump as a rich, successful, outspoken businessman who has many positive traits. Put another way, Republicans and those who are less successful have positive perceptions of Donald Trump. Those who are Democratic, and are fully employed with higher educational attainment and income view Donald Trump in a very negative light. The first groups would view the Trump brand similar to historical brand associations, while the latter groups have mostly negative perceptions of the Trump brand.

The data would indicate that his style and demeanor appeal more to people who are less well educated and who have more modest incomes. For instance, more highly educated people and people with higher incomes perceive him to be loud, while people with less education and lower incomes do not. Crass and other negative adjectives follow the same pattern, while likeable and other positive adjectives follow the opposite pattern.

If I were a Republican brand strategist, I would focus on Donald Trump’s bulldog qualities and his ability to “get the job done” on behalf of those who are fed up with the status quo.  If I were a Democratic brand strategist, I would focus on Donald Trump’s narcissism and propensity to operate only in his own self-interest and I would present evidence that he is not nearly as competent and successful as he portrays himself to be.

Interesting branding questions that emerge from this study are:

• Is all publicity good publicity?
• Does the extremely high awareness of the Trump name mostly help Trump, even if recent polls show that approximately 60% of US citizens have negative perceptions of Donald Trump? Which is more important, brand awareness or brand perceptions?
• Will these negative perceptions of Donald Trump affect his ability to license his name for royalty income?
• How does this affect the asset value of the Trump brand?
• Does this affect the Ivanka Trump brand, and if so, in what ways?

For more information regarding the results of this survey, contact Brad VanAuken, president of BrandForward, Inc. at vanauken@brandforward.com.

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Donald Trump Brand Personality

I am conducting an online survey to better understand Donald Trump's brand personality. I will report the results on this blog when the survey is complete. Please help me spread this survey throughout the Internet as I want to have as large a sample size as possible with as diverse a set of respondents as possible. Later I will look at the impact of Donald Trump's changing personality perceptions on the Trump brand and its equity. Thank you for helping me with this. 

Here is the LINK to the survey. 

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? 

What is Your Brand Delivering?

Storytelling

Brands tell stories. They create myths. They engage people. They entertain people.  What story does your brand tell? Is it engaging? Does it create an emotional connection to the brand?

Experience

What experience does your brand deliver? Does in connect with people through one or more of the five senses – touch, smell, sight, sound and taste? What feelings does it evoke? Does it calm people? Does it exhilarate them? Does it make them laugh?

Values

Brands often stand for something. They embrace a set of values.  What does your brand stand for? What values does it embrace? Does your brand express the values of its intended customers? Can they wear the brand as a badge of their values? Can they use the brand as a self-expression vehicle?

Personality

Brands have specific personalities. What personality does you brand have? Is it trustworthy? Is it reliable? Is it friendly? Is it smart? Is it innovative? Is it entertaining? Is it compassionate? Is it rugged? Is it stylish? Is it quirky? What personality should your brand have?

Service

How does your brand serve its customers? Does it have a service ethic? Does it strive to anticipate customer needs and exceed customer expectations?  Does it try to surprise and delight its customers?

Archetype

What is your brand’s archetype? What drives it to behave as it does? What is its primary motivation? Does it like to guide others? Is it trying to save the world? Does it like to achieve? Is it a nurturer? Is its motivation to create the next big thing? What drives it to be the brand what it is?

Personification

In what ways does your brand take on human qualities? As listed above, does it have a specific personality and does it hold certain values? Is it trustworthy? Does it make promises to its customers? Does it connect emotionally with its customers?

Promise

Finally, what is your brand’s promise? What does it promise to its customers? Does it promise unique and compelling benefits or shared values? Does it consistently deliver on those promises? If it fails to deliver on one of its promises, does it recover from that failure and even turn the failure into a victory?

Summary

This then is what a brand does.  It tells stories. It creates experiences. It holds a specific set of values and it shares those values with its customers. It makes promises. It delivers on those promises.  It provides services to its customers. It has an archetype and a personality.  And it can do all of this because it is the personification of an organization and its products and services.

Writing the Agency Brief

The marketing objective and the brand promise with its proof points are key elements of the agency brief, a document that communicates the strategic direction of a new advertising campaign. Once you have completed the agency brief, your ad agency will use the brief to develop campaign ideas/concepts (e.g., storyboards, print ads). They will likely show you several different campaign ideas.

Elements of An Agency/Creative Brief

Background/Overview: (history, context, and a general overview of the competitive environment and the problem)

Marketing Objective: (desired tangible result, usually in target customer’s attitude or behavior; intended effect with quantifiable success criteria)

• Current State: (what the customer thinks today)
• Desired State: (what we want them to think and what we want them to do)

Assignment: (deliverable, timing, and budget)

Product or Service: (if product/service-specific)

Target Customer: (be as specific as possible)

Brand Essence: (the “heart and soul” of the brand expressed as “adjective, adjective, noun”)

Brand Promise: (only [brand] delivers [relevant differentiated benefit or shared value])

Proof Points: (reasons to believe)

Brand Archetype: (choose and elaborate on one or two archetypes that explain the brand’s motivation and drive its behavior)

Brand Personality, Voice, and Visual Style: (from the positioning statement, list adjectives that describe the brand; for instance: voice: down-to-earth, assertive, confident, warm, sarcastic, witty, reassuring, eloquent, simple, etc.; visual style: bold, bright, energetic, soft, textured, ornate, understated, nostalgic, futuristic, etc.)

Mandatories: (those items that are givens). It is best to provide as few constraints as possible. I usually specify the brand identity standards and system as the only mandatories. There may be legal or regulatory mandatories as well.

Excerpted from Brand Aid, second edition, available here.