Give your Brand a Personality
Brands are not people but we all tend to try and frame them like they are. In fact thinking about a brand as a person is a great way of quickly forming an understanding of who a company is, what they stand for and how they might behave.
It is no wonder then that companies work so hard at congruency and consistency in brand communications. They are forced to do this because naturally companies are made up of a number of people trying to behave like one person.
When you are thinking about how your brand might be personified, consider the age, gender, occupation, and hobbies of your brand as if it were a person. How would they spend their time? What are their interests? Archetypes are a typical example of a certain person and can help us quickly categorise our brand and its role. For example, your brand may have elements of the "hero" archetype or "Great Mother."
You can also work back from your brand in terms of its association with customers. Understanding your brand personality will also help you to understand your customer. Ask yourself, how does my brand reflect on the customers that use us? What kind of person does our brand make our customer? Is a Toyota driver a different type of person than a Lexus driver?
To develop your brands personality, you need to show character at every point of interaction with customers. This means, your brands unique personality is truly reflected in a website, logo, and ongoing storytelling through correspondence and advertising.
We are drawn to people like ourselves who like the things we like. We aspire to brands that help us to be more of the people we want to be.