Personality not included

Developing a Great Personality

To make your brands well-liked and respected, your company needs to develop its personality. It needs a public face that shows its real values, a persona that marketing can convey in stories that create empathy and move consumers to buy. Developing a brand personality requires paying attention to every detail of marketing, from packaging to product design to customer interactions. Your goal is to create a unique, authentic personality that attracts buzz and spreads easily by word of mouth.

Apple extended its unique brand in 2005 when it launched the iPod shuffle, its smallest iPod. Because the shuffle resembles a stick of chewing gum, Apple put a warning label on U.S. shuffles reading: “Do Not Eat iPod.” In the U.K., the label said, “Do Not Chew iPod.” These labels created a flurry of blog posts and plenty of word-of-mouth buzz that reinforced the quirky personality of the Apple brand. Most companies lack Apple’s flare and insouciance. Corporations are far more likely to be faceless and to elicit no consumer emotions at all. Faceless brands are ordinary, but brands with personality can be loveable and recognizable. Consumers who like ...