Humanising Brands

Big Question of the day - Do you inject your unique personality into every part of your business?

If you said no, you might be cutting off your nose to spite your face. Not only are you losing customers who would come to know you on a deeper level and love what you have to say, you’re also leaving money on the table for competitors using their unique personality as a competitive advantage.

When we communicate, many of us naturally give our best self and inject our unique personality into what we have to say. Keeping that in mind, for those of you who are proclaimed vanilla boring when you write or speak, think about the positive impact you could have on your clients by sharing your true self and your real story as it relates to your business.

If you’re not doing so already, begin to see your unique personality as an asset that you can utilize to differentiate your business and attract people to you.

Here’s the thing…people buy into you and your story, not your business.

So how can you inject your unique personality into your communications?

How can you use personality to help build long term relationships with your customers?

How can you drive up the average lifetime value of each of your customers?

Answer: Use your unique personality.

And why exactly does it work to do all of that?

By differentiating your brand from the competition

In the great words of Dr Suess, there’s no one thats youer than you. Instantly you make your brand stand apart from your competition. You have the leverage to connect with the audience, and although your competitors may be offering a similar product or service, by injecting your unique personality - you create value and connection.

By communicating good traits about your brand

Cookie-Cutter ‘Vanilla Bland’ personalities give your consumers nothing. We want them to know and connect to the values of the brand. By leaning into your unique personality, you can reflect these consistent values and traits that a consumer segment enjoys - creating brand equity. This personality is a qualitative value-add that a brand gains in addition to its functional benefits.

By forming an emotional attachment with your brand

Neuroscience has proven that humans buy on emotion and justify on logic. This emotion is how the unconscious communicates its decision to the conscious mind. So, if you want to influence how a consumer feels about your product - instead of appealing to emotions, you must provide the experience that creates the desired emotion. How do you achieve this? Leaning your unique personality into your marketing.

By helping form sustained relationships with your brand

Personality enables consumers to decide which brand they wanted to buy into, depending on the traits they wanted to embody for themselves. Personality traits help consumers establish a relationship with a brand as they identify with the personality and not just the product.
Think of the likes of Mac vs. PC. What are you currently using? What influenced you to make that decision to purchase it over the other?
Apple uses the power of brand personality incredibly well, it uses personality to differentiate themselves from PC’s. They literally personified their brand - and we loved it.

By conveying your brand’s message 

Your favourite childhood cookie brand could invoke personal memories of warmth and comfort. This may be the reason you prefer one cookie brand over another. When launching a new product, marketers can expand their reach by assigning personality traits that the audience can connect with. Comfort foods such as cookies need to display personality traits that invoke strong emotional responses in consumers. Athletic shoe brands are likely to have traits of being rugged and outdoorsy while a stiletto company will be personifying desirability traits such as allure or status.

By setting the tone for your brand 

The tone of your brand is helpful in establishing marketing strategies. For instance, if you want your brand to invoke the feeling of sincerity – maybe something kind or thoughtful – then your marketing needs to focus on this tone to send the same message to consumers. You can make your apparel brand friendly and cool or sophisticated but fun.

The personality of the brand is, after all, how you want your brand to behave. This being said, your marketing and branding strategies need to be compatible. This can help you to create a cohesive marketing plan that won’t stray from your desired goal.

If brands can be imagined by customers as human beings, by identifying themselves in a relationship with the brand, customers are more likely to prefer those with similar traits and characteristics.

My best advice today… inject your unique personality into everything you do.

Injecting your unique personality is about being brave. Don’t be swayed by those critics telling you that what you’re saying is wrong. What you say is your opinion.

Inject colour into everything you say and write, and soon enough you’ll have a following that not only knows you, but likes you, and trusts what you have to say. 

Looking to share your message and make a difference to your business? Contact Us Today.