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The main objective of this study is to empirically measure the brand personality
of four chosen brands, viz., Motorola, Raymonds, Samsung and 7 Up in the Indian
context using a framework of brand personality scale, as developed by Aaker
(1997). The study was carried out in Hyderabad. A questionnaire was designed
for this purpose. It contained the entire set of personality traits from the Aaker’s
brand personality scale. In the questionnaire, the respondents were asked to
answer 15 questions with the purpose of measuring different dimensions of brand
personality. These questions were structured on the Likert scale model. The data,
obtained when analyzed using factor analysis, gave different brand personality
dimensions which contained separate variables for different brands, indicating that
each brand should be treated separately and the scale cannot be generalized for
different types of brands: 7 Up stood for sincerity, Samsung stood for
innovativeness, Motorola for feisty and Raymonds for excitement.
Introduction
As the number of brands has proliferated, competition has intensified across all
industries globally, thus making it difficult for managers to differentiate between
brands, particularly on the basis of functional attributes alone (Siguaw et al., 1999).
Therefore, differentiation and positioning are increasingly based on symbolic or
emotional or other meanings. Here comes the importance of providing a brand
with a distinct and functional ‘Brand Personality’. Brand personality has been
defined as a set of human characteristics or traits that consumers attribute to
or associate with a brand (Aaker, 1997). This association may consist of
demographic variables (i.e., age, gender, and social class), lifestyle (i.e., activities
and beliefs), cultural (values, perceptions, preferences, etc.) and personality traits
(i.e., excitement, sophistication, sincerity, etc.). In contrast to the ‘product related
attributes’, which tend to serve a utilitarian function for the consumers, brand
personality tends to serve a symbolic or self-expressive function (Keller, 1993).
It is argued that the symbolic use of brands is possible because consumers often
instill a brand with personality traits (termed animism; e.g., Gilmore, 1919) and
can easily think of brands as if they were celebrities or famous historical figures
(Rook, 1985) and which may be due to the strategies used by advertisers to imbue
a brand with personality traits, such as anthropomorphization (e.g., California
raisins), personification (e.g., jolly green giant), and the creation of user imagery
(e.g., Charlie girl). Through such techniques, the personality traits associated with
© 2009
Brand The Icfai University
Personality: Press.
An Empirical AllofRights
Study Reserved.
Four Brands in India 7
a brand, tend to be fairly lasting and distinctive. By isolating the distinct
dimensions, different types of brand personalities can be distinguished, and the
manifold ways in which the brand personality construct may influence consumer
behavior could be understood better which will help in decision making. Aaker
(1997) developed a framework of brand personality dimensions in his research.
Also, a scale was developed for providing the basis for theory building on the
symbolic use of brands. This framework and scale were generalizable across
product categories. This study uses the framework of brand personality
dimensions and the scale developed by Jennifer Aaker, to check the brand
personality of various brands associated with Swamy BBDO, as perceived by the
consumers of these brands. Brand personality is one of the core dimensions of
brand equity, since it refers to the emotional side of a brand image. It is created
by the sum of experiences of consumers with a brand. Advertizing plays a
dominant role in personality creation. Hence, this study may be of interest and
useful to ad agencies in assessing the brand-image of its clients, which it creates/
influences with its efforts.
Motivation
The identity of brand, from the viewpoint of consumers, is the basis for a good
and effective brand-building program. Effective brand management encompassing
brand personality is essential for achieving the overall company goals of
satisfaction, loyalty, and profitability. In recent years, there has been increased
interest in the brand personality construct as its strategic importance has become
more evident. A unique brand personality can help create a set of unique and
favorable associations in the minds of consumers, and thus, build and enhance
brand equity (Keller, 1993; Johnson et al., 2000; and Phau and Lau, 2000). As
a result, brand personality is considered to be an important factor for the success
of a brand in terms of preference and choice (Batra et al., 1993; and Biel, 1993).
Indeed, a well-established brand personality can result in consumers having
stronger emotional ties with the brand, resulting in greater faith and loyalty. Most
of the studies regarding brand personalities have been carried out in foreign
context and a few have been conducted in India. This study aims to fill this gap
by finding the brand personalities of some well-known foreign and domestic
brands popular in India, thus, providing an insight into the mindset of the Indian
customer and the cultural and demographic differences that may exist therein.
• Evaluating its perception in the minds of the customer and compare it with
what was expected; and
Review of Literature
A critical review of literature reveals that one of the most relevant studies was
developed by Aaker and Fournier (1995). The basic objective of their study was
to define brand personality from three perspectives, viz., conceptual,
methodological and substantive, and to develop an inventory of brand
personality. For this, they took a sample of 631 respondents who were asked
to rate 114 personality traits on 40 brands in different product categories. When
a factor analysis was done on the data, it resulted in a highly stable structure,
which they called ‘the Big Five’. Another factor analysis, run individually on each
of the big five factors, gave a 15 factor structure, termed as ‘the Little Fifteen’.
When a cluster analysis was run through this, it gave a 45-item Brand Personality
Inventory (BPI). The paper also discusses the theoretical and practical implications
of the existence of these big five factor structure and the 45-item BPI. It concludes
that brands with strong personalities are associated with high levels of usage
and preference; correlations between self-concept and brands used are higher
than those between self-concept and brands not used.
Phau and Lauin (2000) tried to prove that consumers have a part to play in
influencing how a brand’s personality is perceived. They also examined the impact
of cultural orientation and self-congruity on brand personality. For this, they took
a sample of 400 respondents who were asked to rate their preference for beer
on a specially designed questionnaire. The consumers’ personality preference and
Researchers have also argued against Aaker (1997) scale. Azoulay and
Kapferer (2003) pointed out that the existing measures for the construct of brand
personality do not actually measure that construct but merge a number of
dimensions of brand identity (personality being one of them) thereby introducing
conceptual confusion.
Researchers have also tried to find out the impact of brand personality and
customer satisfaction on customer’s loyalty. Magin et al. (2003) did a regression
analysis with customer loyalty, as the dependent variable and the measures for
economic change, attractiveness of rival products and services, self-congruity,
sociopsychological change barriers and customer satisfaction as independent
variables. They found that customer satisfaction is an important antecedent of
customer loyalty, the attractiveness of rival products and services exert
a significant direct impact on customer loyalty; strength of sociopsychological
change barriers also found to impact customer loyalty.
This initial study showed that people could differentiate between non-profit
organizations on the basis of human personality traits. Thereafter, building on
the results of these studies, a quantitative approach was taken to empirically
examine the brand personalities of non-profit organizations. The measurement
of brand personality was done by adopting the scale developed by Aaker (1997).
The research concluded that individuals could easily ascribe human personality
traits to non-profit organizations and these associations varied across different
product categories.
With the spread of the Internet, studies were done to identify the brand
personality dimensions that were created by online communication. To identify
the different brand personality dimensions that American firms intend to create
in the minds of online consumers by a study of 270 websites, personality
dimensions, such as sophistication, excitement, affection, popularity, competence
were used as dependent variables and measures of stakeholder relations, direct
sales, choice functions, connectedness, indirect sales, orientation and product
positioning as independent variables. The variables direct sales, choice functions,
connectedness, orientation and choice functions were found to be significant,
whereas the variables stakeholder relations and indirect sales were found to be
insignificant. Five underlying dimensions of brand personality stimuli, such as
excitement, sophistication, affection, popularity and competence. The principal
forms of online communications consist of stakeholder relations, direct/indirect
sales, choice functions, connectedness, orientation and product positioning. The
research found out that there were modest but consistent associations between
the intended brand personality dimensions and the forms of online communications.
Park et al. (2005) tried to identify the dimensions of e-brand personality for
diverse websites. The sample consisted of 470 respondents, all from Korea. Four
e-brand personality dimensions, such as bold, analytical, and friendly and
sophisticated were identified.
In order to have a proper sample for such a study the number of respondents
should be around 4-5 times the number of items in the questionnaire, i.e., there
should be around 72 to 90 respondents for each brand questionnaire. Here, for
convenience, we took a sample of 100 respondents for each brand, so that finally
data insufficiency due to ‘no response’ and ‘extreme responses’ could be overcome.
The data collected was analyzed using appropriate multivariate tools. We used
exploratory factor analysis as the tool for data analysis as it was also used by
Aaker (1997) to identify facets within the five dimension scale. Exploratory Factor
Analysis (EFA) seeks to uncover the underlying structure of a relatively large set
of variables. The researcher’s à priori assumption is that any indicator may be
associated with any factor.
• Based on the above three criteria, a total of six brands were selected for
the study. These were Microsoft, NDTV, Samsung, 7 Up, Motorola and
Raymond. Two brands out of these six; i.e., Microsoft and NDTV were
dropped from the study after Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) statistic for sampling
adequacy came very low. The study was further carried out with the
remaining four brands viz., Samsung, 7 Up, Motorola and Raymond.
Questionnaire for one brand, 7 Up, is enclosed in Annexure 1. The
questionnaires for the remaining brands are identical except for the name.
For the sample, the KMO statistic is 0.894 (Table 2) and Bartlett’s test of
sphericity is significant, hence, the correlation matrix in Annexure 1 can be used
for the factor analysis.
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) takes all the three sources of variance,
viz., common, specific and error into consideration in the identification of factors
or components. Each of the factors extracted are independent of each other.
1
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) statistic for sampling adequacy—Measured by the KMO
statistics, sampling adequacy predicts that if data are likely to factor well, based on
correlation and partial correlation. KMO varies from 0 to 1.0 and KMO overall should be
0.60 or higher to proceed with factor analysis.
2
Used to examine the hypothesis that the variables are uncorrelated in the population.
It is used only as a bare-minimum standard for assessing the quality of correlation
matrix. For the correlation matrix to be not an identity matrix p<0.05.
Variance Explained
The total variation explained is shown in Annexure 2. It shows the Eigenvalues,
which represent the extent of coverage of the critical factors included in factor
analysis. The first factor has the highest significance.
Charming – –
Outgoing – –
Tough – –
References
1. Aaker J L and Fournier S (1995), “A Brand as a Character, a Partner and a
Person: Three Perspectives on the Question of Brand Personality”, Advances
in Consumer Research, Vol. 22, pp. 391-395.
2. Aaker Jennifer (1997), “Dimensions of Brand Personality”, Journal of Marketing
Research, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 347-356.
3. Azoulay Audrey and Kapferer Jean-Noel (2003), “Do Brand Personality Scales
Really Measure Brand Personality?”, Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 11,
No. 2, pp. 143-155.
4. Batra Rajeev, Donald R Lehmann and Dipinder Singh (1993), “The Brand
Personality Component of Brand Goodwill: Some Antecedents and
Consequences”, in Aaker D and Biel A (Eds.), Brand Equity and Advertising,
pp. 83-96, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey.
5. Biel A (1993), “Converting Image into Equity”, in Aaker D and Biel A (Eds.),
Brand Equity and Advertising, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NY.
6. Gilmore George W (1919), Animism, Marshall Jones Company, Boston.
7. Keller K L (1993), “Conceptualising, Measuring and Managing Customer-
Based Brand Equity”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 57, No. 1, pp. 1-22.
8. Magin Stephanie, René Algesheimer, Huber Frank and Andreas Herrmann
(2003), “The Impact of Brand Personality and Customer Satisfaction on
Customer's Loyalty: Theoretical Approach and Findings of a Causal Analytical
Study in the Sector of Internet Service Providers”, Electronic Markets, Vol. 13,
No. 4, pp. 294-308.
9. Park Su-e, Choi Dongsung and Kim Jinwoo (2005), Visualizing E-Brand
Personality: Exploratory Studies on Visual Attributes and E-Brand
Personalities in Korea, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction,
Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 7-34.
10. Phau I and Lau K C (2000), “Conceptualising Brand Personality: A Review
and Research Propositions”, Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis
for Marketing, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 52-69.
11. Siguaw Judy A, Anna S Mattila and Jon Austin (1999), “The Brand Personality
Scale: An Application for Restaurants”, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant
Administration Quarterly, Vol. 40, June, pp. 48-55.
12. Sung Yongjun and Tinkham Spencer F (2005), “Brand Personality Structures
in the United States and Korea: Common and Culture-Specific Factors”,
Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 334-350.
Annexure 1
Questionnaire for Brand ‘7 Up’
Dear Sir/Ma’am
(Most (Least
Sl. Descriptive) Descriptive)
Variables
No.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
1. Down-to-earth o o o o o
2. Honest o o o o o
3. Original o o o o o
4. Cheerful o o o o o
5. Daring o o o o o
6. Spirited o o o o o
7. Imaginative o o o o o
8. Up-to-date o o o o o
9. Reliable o o o o o
10. Intelligent o o o o o
11. Successful o o o o o
12. Upper-class o o o o o
13. Charming o o o o o
14. Outgoing o o o o o
15. Tough o o o o o
(Contd...)
1 2 3 4 5
o o o o o
Unfavorable Favorable
1 2 3 4 5
o o o o o
Negative Positive
1 2 3 4 5
o o o o o
Pure
Tough
Daring
Honest
Reliable
Spirited
Outgoing
Variables
Charming
Cheerful
Successful
Intelligent
Up-to-Date
Imaginative
Upper-Class
Down-to-Earth
Down-to-earth 1.000 0.690 0.594 0.639 0.591 0.549 0.596 0.618 0.597 0.494 0.597 0.580 0.559 0.628 0.569
Honest 0.690 1.000 0.804 0.847 0.663 0.697 0.449 0.741 0.785 0.606 0.692 0.690 0.687 0.529 0.500
Pure 0.594 0.804 1.000 0.808 0.594 0.692 0.525 0.707 0.716 0.531 0.687 0.626 0.727 0.577 0.563
Cheerful 0.639 0.847 0.808 1.000 0.756 0.751 0.618 0.779 0.705 0.630 0.760 0.645 0.706 0.603 0.551
Daring 0.591 0.663 0.594 0.756 1.000 0.750 0.736 0.647 0.635 0.572 0.502 0.523 0.550 0.640 0.569
Spirited 0.549 0.697 0.692 0.751 0.750 1.000 0.633 0.730 0.669 0.507 0.582 0.597 0.624 0.568 0.526
Imaginative 0.596 0.449 0.525 0.618 0.736 0.633 1.000 0.642 0.472 0.537 0.428 0.576 0.549 0.652 0.595
Up-to-date 0.618 0.741 0.707 0.779 0.647 0.730 0.642 1.000 0.809 0.710 0.791 0.753 0.789 0.603 0.558
Reliable 0.597 0.785 0.716 0.705 0.635 0.669 0.472 0.809 1.000 0.631 0.695 0.674 0.712 0.583 0.546
Intelligent 0.494 0.606 0.531 0.630 0.572 0.507 0.537 0.710 0.631 1.000 0.611 0.649 0.600 0.710 0.629
Successful 0.597 0.692 0.687 0.760 0.502 0.582 0.428 0.791 0.695 0.611 1.000 0.697 0.725 0.593 0.563
Upper-class 0.580 0.690 0.626 0.645 0.523 0.597 0.576 0.753 0.674 0.649 0.697 1.000 0.755 0.663 0.627
Charming 0.559 0.687 0.727 0.706 0.550 0.624 0.549 0.789 0.712 0.600 0.725 0.755 1.000 0.676 0.591
Outgoing 0.628 0.529 0.577 0.603 0.640 0.568 0.652 0.603 0.583 0.710 0.593 0.663 0.676 1.000 0.825
Tough 0.569 0.500 0.563 0.551 0.569 0.526 0.595 0.558 0.546 0.629 0.563 0.627 0.591 0.825 1.000
Reference # 02J-2009-04-01-01