Beyond Logos and Slogans: How to Cultivate a Brand Personality that Resonates with Consumers

In today’s digital marketing landscape, simply being creative is no longer enough to differentiate your brand or website. Here’s how to bring a compelling brand personality to life and start resonating more deeply with consumers.

Consumers today are inundated with options. A quick Google search will bombard them with pages of results, so the days of getting by with just an attractive logo and a catchy slogan are gone!

If a boilerplate creative marketing strategy is no longer enough to make a lasting impression that inspires people to return to your brand when it’s purchasing time, where does that leave you? Enter: brand personality — a fully fleshed identity that makes your organization feel more “personable” and less like a faceless company.

By giving your brand character traits, you can express its personality through messaging, images, marketing campaigns, and personality science to better empathize and engage with your audience. “Easier said than done,” you might be thinking, but we’re here to help — keep on reading to learn our tips on bringing a compelling brand personality to life.

How to Create a Compelling, Consistent Brand Personality

Building a brand involves more than just picking vague, aspirational personality traits. You’ll need to dig deeper to find characteristics that authentically represent your brand and connect with consumers — which means allowing core values, culture, and people to drive creative choices and your brand.

Not sure what that means? Let’s look at the fashion house Chanel and retailer REI.

Chanel aims for sophistication by focusing on an aspirational, luxurious, and sophisticated lifestyle that attracts high-spending consumers. However, REI inspires adventurous people with its rugged brand personality. Imagine if Chanel tried to attract consumers by emphasizing the outdoor life or if REI started focusing on luxury. Both would have difficulty connecting with their audiences.

With that example in mind, let’s discuss how to create a compelling, consistent, and lasting brand personality. You’ll need to:

• Understand your company culture and core values: You can’t create a brand personality that reflects your company if you don’t understand your own values and culture! Reflect on what matters to your brand — writing a value statement may help with this effort.
• Use your audience as inspiration: Think of your audience every step of the way, and consider existing and ideal consumers. Reflect on their preferences, expectations, values, and behaviors to increase the likelihood of your brand and audience hitting it off.
• Ask questions as if your brand were already a person: One of the best ways to grasp your brand personality quickly is to ask questions as if it is already a person. What would your brand do after work to unwind? What motivates your brand? As a person, how would your brand develop a lasting relationship with your existing and ideal customers?
• Create a brand style guideline: If you don’t have a strong sense of who your brand is nor an easy way of communicating that persona, your brand’s personality risks becoming inconsistent or diluted. A brand style guide covering everything from font choice to color palette will accurately (and consistently) express your brand.
• Conduct market research and adapt: Your brand personality isn’t a one-and-done thing you can push to the side once the initial creation period ends. Our world is constantly changing, and so is your audience! Keep up with market research and tweak your brand personality to match your customers and their changing needs.

Let Thunderfoot Help Your Brand Shine

No matter who you are, brand personality matters. A brand personality can define your attitude in the marketplace, raise your brand equity, increase consumers’ emotional investment, and serve as the foundation for successful marketing campaigns.

And while you know your product better than anyone, going at it alone can be tricky and time-consuming. That’s where partnering with an experienced agency like Thunderfoot can give you an advantage. Our years of experience in the field will offer you a fresh perspective and expert guidance to highlight what makes your organization unique and stand out from the crowd.

Check out how we created a new brand identity from scratch that launched compelling long-term growth marketing strategies for a groundbreaking Salesforce consultancy.