How To Win Over Your Audience With Your Brand Persona

The brand persona is a critical component of your overall brand strategy and is vitally important in making human connections with your audience. This persona has to align with your audience persona. If you want your brand to connect with the people who will keep making it a success, the persona is a priority.

Brand persona is the third pillar of our 5 Pillar Brand Strategy Blueprint. The first pillar was the ideal customer profile, and the second was the brand essence.

There are three elements in this section, and they each play a role in helping create your brand persona. It should go without saying that anytime someone interacts with your company, they should walk away feeling good about the experience.

This pillar is crucial to give the brand a distinct personality and a recognizable and meaningful voice and tone.

Identify your brand archetype

Just like your ICP, your brand too needs to have an archetype or an archetypal mix associated with its personality.

An archetype will help define specific characteristics of your brand that are based on the psychology of your audience, and this enables you to come up with strategies and messaging that align with your audience.

Identify the archetypal mix based on audience

Analyze the audience archetypal mix and decide if you want to align with those personas or choose ones that dominate them.

This depends on your industry sector. In specific segments and for certain products or services, the audience will be attracted to brand archetypes and personality that is similar to their own. In other sectors, the audience responds better to opposing archetypes and messaging.

Identify what drives your archetypes

Identify and nail down what your brand cares for and gets motivated by. At the root of all human behavior is the concept of motivation. The same should be applied to your brand.

What does your brand really care about? Beyond making money. How is that related to your product or service? How is it related to your audience and what they care about? Ideally, you would like to align this with your audience so your brand can enter their worldview.

Identify what your archetype fears most

Identify and nail down your fears: what your brand does not want to see happening. Just like people, your brand needs to fear certain things that go against your core values, your purpose, or your motivation.

The reason is simple. If your brand fears certain ideas or actions that erode your core essence, your strategies and tactics would be safe from indulging in those ideas or actions.

Create your brand core words and vocabulary

Just like language is essential for civilization, the words used for brand thinking determine the sophistication of the brand message and how the audience would perceive it.

Creating a set of core words describing the brand’s characteristics, beliefs, desires, and fears will help you articulate your brand.

Create a list of brand core words

These core words can be derived from your brand archetype mix and can either align with the core words of your audience or be in opposition. These words can also be similar to your core values and vocabulary.

You can also revisit your brand essence module and amend your master vocabulary with any new words from this session.

Explain the core words in action sentences

As with the core values phase, explain each of the core words in the form of an action sentence from the brand’s perspective.

For example, if one of your core words is determination, you can say, “the brand moves forward with determination in the face of adversity.” This puts the word into context.

When creating action sentences, do not worry too much about continuity or cohesiveness. These sentences can be isolated and not related to each other. They also do not have to be marketing-based and are usually not meant for the public.

Create hashtag and tagline

Although this can be done in the brand story and message framework phases, now would be an excellent time to see if you can crystallize your brand persona into a hashtag or tagline.

It is a good idea to start thinking about the hashtag at this stage because when you are creating action sentences, you may uncover a motif that works well as a tagline or rallying cry.

Remember, the whole process of brand positioning, strategy, and messaging framework is iterative and interlinked. You would go backwards to the essence phase or forward to the message phase, tweaking as you uncover new information and insights.

Create your brand voice and tone

Once you have identified the archetypal mix and created your brand vocabulary, you will have plenty of insights into your brand’s personality.

In this task, you start to lay down the brand voice and tone: how it sounds, looks, and feels to the audience.

However, remember that this personality framework is not 100% set in stone. Voice and tone can change and adapt to different media, campaigns, and contexts.

Identify the brand personality approach

Jennifer Acker published a personality framework in 1997 in which she proposed five personality dimensions that can be applied to brands: sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness.

Sincere brands are honest, grounded, transparent, and trustful. They typically focus on quality, legacy, and trust. A great example is Patagonia, which has built up a personality of trust and care for the environment. Their Worn Wear program says it all: “One of the most responsible things we can do as a company is make high-quality stuff that lasts for years, so you don’t have to buy more of it. Buying a used garment extends its life on average by 2.2 years, which reduces its carbon, waste and water footprint by 73%.”

Companies that exhibit imagination, cutting edge inspiration, and even edginess fall into the excitement dimension. Red Bull is the textbook example. One look at their branding, advertising, or product claims, and you see excitement oozing out. They sponsor extreme sporting events full of exhilaration and broadcast their personality through those events.

Brands that show reliability, responsibility, efficiency, and intelligence demonstrate competence. Apple is the standout here. People associate reliability and intelligence with anything Apple does or produces. Although innovation is at the essence of Apple, the messaging and personality these days tend to be more about competence than simply innovation.

Brands that exude glamour, luxury, pomp, and class show sophisticated personalities, often embodying the Ruler archetype or Lover archetype. Gucci is at the top of the luxury brand game and prices their products so high that they are not affordable to most people. They couple that with the glamour and romance of luxury to pull off complete sophistication.

Brands that seem tough, masculine, and outdoorsy usually have ruggedness as their personality dimension, often aligning with the Rebel archetype or Hero archetype, and tend to attract a predominantly male audience. Jeep is a perfect example, with products, branding, and messaging that all push the rugged nature of its character.

Create the brand personality

Once you decide which personality dimension most suits your brand based on the archetypal mix, it is time to lay down specific characteristics you want your brand to exhibit and own.

Start with beliefs and opinions. This makes your brand more human. Your brand should have opinions on things that relate to your audience and your market segment. Do not be shy or afraid. Of course, ensure you are not taking extremist views or rubbing your audience the wrong way. That is why it helps to create those wafer-thin audience ICPs.

Next, figure out the attitude of the brand. This will show itself as the voice and tone of the brand. Within the context of the personality dimension, determine what attitude you would like to show.

Write down a detailed description of how you want your brand to behave in different situations and scenarios, such as when onboarding customers, dealing with complaints, and so on. Your brand personality then becomes a guide for every interaction.

Understand how to manifest your brand personality

To help you understand how a brand persona manifests in the real world, search for and identify big brand adverts that align with your personality. Search on YouTube for videos of adverts that convey the brand personality you are going for. This is not an easy task, but with patience and time, you can find good videos that relate to your brand personality.

Study these to see how big brands showcase their brand personality. Just as a guide.

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Ready to build a brand persona that connects? Download our free 5 Pillar Brand Strategy Blueprint to build a strong brand, or get in touch to discuss your brand’s personality.