Brand personality is attributing human
characteristics to a brand.
Having a defined brand personality differentiates your
business brand from other brands and helps you to stand out and break through
the clutter. It will guide the way you express and portray your brand (how your
brand speaks, behaves and looks), and ensure your brand is represented
consistently. It will help the right people to connect with your brand, and increase
brand awareness.
If your business doesn’t have a defined brand personality,
it’s worth determining one. (And then reviewing your brand alignment and
strategy against it!)
There are various brand personality models, however, I think
for small businesses it’s satisfactory to select a set of keywords to describe
the essence of your business personality. Three (max. four) are enough.
For example, an organic produce company might define its
brand personality as honest, friendly and principled.
A high-end hair salon could describe its brand personality as glamorous, exclusive and professional.
You can use the extensive (but not exhaustive) list of keywords
above to help define your business’s brand personality. Or use a thesaurus to help
you come up with the right words. Nuances are important – happy, cheerful and
exuberant mean similar things, but each word gives a different feeling (this is
also important for your brand language and writing).
Once you
have a brand personality defined, your visual identity and brand language and
voice will flow from this. And you can get your branding on target.
