Brand personality: theory and dimensionality

Abstract

Structured AbstractPurpose: To critique human personality as theory underpinning brand personality. To propose instead theory from human perception and, by doing so, to identify universally relevant dimensions.Design/Method: A review of published measures of brand personality, a re-analysis of two existing data bases and the analysis of one new database are used to argue and test for the dimensions derived from perception theory.Findings: Existing work on brand personality suggests 16 separate dimensions for the construct, but some appear common to most measures. When non-orthogonal rotation is used to re-analyse existing trait data on brand personality, three dimensions derived from signalling and associated theory can emerge: Sincerity (e.g. warm, friendly, agreeable), Competence (e.g. competent, effective, efficient) and Status (e.g. prestigious, elegant, sophisticated). The first two are common to most measures, status is not.Research Implications: Three dimensions derived from signalling and associated theory are proposed as generic, relevant to all contexts and cultures. They can be supplemented by context relevant dimensions. Practical Implications:Measures of these three dimensions should be included in all measures of brand personality.Originality: Prior work on brand personality has focussed on identifying apparently new dimensions for the construct. While most work is not theoretically based, some have argued for the relevance of human personality. That model is challenged and an alternative approach to both theory and analysis is proposed and successfully tested.

City Brand Personality Projected by Municipalities from Central and Eastern Europe Countries—A Comparison of Facebook Usage

“…The brand personality scale proposed by Aaker [22] concerned product brands, which creates questions regarding whether it can be adapted to place personalities as well as how individual traits should be interpreted in respect to cities. In addition, it is worth emphasizing that other authors argued that the same trait item can have different meanings when associated with different objects [59,71]. The complexity of cities, along with the communities that inhabit them, local governments, public, social, and private organizations which function there or issues concerning local infrastructure, environmental conditions, or historical and cultural identity also needed to be considered.…”

“…Moreover, the concept of brand personality is also applied with regard to not only traditional goods and services, but also to other categories of "products", such as luxury goods [66], corporations [67,68], non-profit organizations [69], and political parties [70]. In recent years the concept of brand personification has gained popularity in regards to research concerning locations, in particular in city, region and country marketing [71].…”

“…The dimensions and the traits are presented in the Table 1. Despite the fact that some researchers (for example Reference [77] cited in References [59,71]) suggest that Aaker [22] measure may not adequately represent personality of the place, the model is still widely used in scientific research as a starting point of conducting studies [64,73,74]. According to Tugulea [60], some researchers have proposed a different approach to the City Brand Personality Scale, such as including refined traits from previous tourism studies [78] or reconfiguring the scale completely [33].…”

Exploring and consolidating the brand personality elements of the political leader

“…Thus, the study of brand personality could be developed to a stage where certain dimensions could be considered almost universal. Specific characters such as warm, friendly and agreeable, competent, effective and efficient possess the possibility of universality (Davies et al, 2018). This exploration can be traced to the almost paradigmatic "set of human characteristics associated with a brand" provided by Aaker (1997, p. 347).…”

Firefighters Brand Personality: A Model Proposal

“…Aun cuando se observan estudios que replican el modelo de Aaker (e.g., Álvarez-Ortiz & Harris, 2002;De Moya & Jain, 2013), las dimensiones utilizadas mayormente por los investigadores han sido modificadas en relación con las originales desarrolladas por , variando también en cantidad. Davies et al (2018) postulan que los trabajos existentes sobre personalidad de marca sugieren la existencia de 16 dimensiones de personalidad de marca, pero algunas parecen ser más comunes. En función de la revisión de 23 medidas de personalidad de marca, los autores concluyen que las dimensiones de sinceridad y competencia son las que más se repiten en los estudios previos, y que, la dimensión estatus (sofisticación) se identifica en estudios más recientes y en contextos donde el estatus es relevante.…”