When asked to make a choice between equals, we often resort to a subconscious assessment — painting a mental picture of the brand, giving it personality traits, and possibly anthropomorphising it. Even if there are distinguishable factors and preferences that take precedence, this attribution weighs in and rounds up our perception of the brand. More often than not, this effect is intended. What comes to mind when asked what feelings Coca-Cola invokes? While the first one or two adjectives may be related to taste, it is likely to shift to “wholesome,” “optimistic” and “family-friendly.” These answers can be traced back to the ads of family having meals together. What about Pepsi? Youthful, trendy, sporty. Even if Pepsi ads are not as visible in Bangladesh as Coca-Cola’s, we mainly paint this picture based on the footballer cards we collected during their 2010 FIFA World Cup campaigns. Such is the long-term impact of brand personalities.
In marketing, such personalities are categorised under five dimensions: sincerity (like in Aarong), excitement (like in Miniso), competence (like in bKash), sophistication (like in North End) and ruggedness (like in Royal Tiger). These five dimensions are umbrella terms for a number of traits each. And sometimes some traits across dimensions are arguably similar, making it subjective to individual perception. Nevertheless, the opinions are widely held. And the attainment of one trait under a dimension automatically creates a bias among the audience known as the Halo effect. That is, if a person perceives a brand to be down-to-earth (a trait under “sincerity”), s/he will automatically attribute it to other traits under “sincerity,” like honest, wholesome and original, even if there is nothing original about the brand. This is usually an unintended positive outcome of crafting a brand personality. This does not exclude the exception of an unintended negative outcome. An outdoorsy brand under the dimension “ruggedness” may be perceived as ‘masculine’ and leave out a considerable portion of potential female customers.
Small F-commerce businesses in Bangladesh are yet to adopt a well-thought brand personality since their understanding of it is limited to colour and font. Adoption will help both differentiate from the clutter and build a fiercely loyal niche customer base.
While brand personality is not blatantly spelt out in business pitches and competitions, it gives a coherent bigger picture of the brand’s mission, vision and marketing campaigns — elements essential to a business pitch. Marketing for a ‘competence’-coded brand should not include micro-influencer campaigns to build credibility among customers across all demographics. An ‘excitement’-coded brand should focus more resources on trendy online bite-sized channels than print media. This begs to question if a mascot or brand ambassador is necessary. Although it is an easy outlet, most brands exemplified here do not have one. This also relieves the small businesses and startup pitches of the burden of financial feasibility, instilling hopes to pursue dreams without investor backing.