How Brand Personality Shapes Customer Experience and Decides the Bottom Line Long before a potential customer decides to buy from you, they are forming opinions about what you offer. Don't leave that to chance.
By Pratik Dholakiya Edited by Dan Bova
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The leaves are turning golden, the air is laden in pumpkin and cinnamon scents, and the Americans from coast to coast are dusting off their scariest costumes for the pagan festival of thrills and chills – Halloween. With so much festivity in the air, you'll forgive me for injecting a little Halloween flavor into marketing discussions.
Since Halloween is thronged with personalities and characters, it's a good time to stop and give a thought to what your brand's personality is, how it impacts your customers and, finally, your bottomline.
Related: When Designing a Logo, First Comes Personality, Then Color
Let's break down the various aspects of brand personality and examine how they affect your customers in Halloween style, of course!
Get into character
Whether you've consciously carved one out for your business or not, every brand has a distinct character. Your brand's character refers to the core values that your brand represents. It's the basic value proposition that you bring to the table. The most successful brands in the world are those that know how to mold their brand character to appeal to their specific target audience.
By defining your brand's character, you are offering your customers a frame of reference for judging their user experience. You are setting expectations and that is essential to a great experience. Imagine the massive disconnect if your customer expects to see premium designer products lining your store shelves, but you are actually a bargain basement brand.
What are you going to wear?
Halloween is incomplete without outrageous costumes and creative interpretations of characters. Similarly, a brand's personality is defined by the clothes it wears. Your brand logo, primary brand colors, your store layout and signage inside your store are all elements in creating that perfect costume to complement your brand personality.
Your brand's personality has a huge say in how you interpret the visual design around your brand. A young-at-heart brand would sport bright colors and snappy design with fun interactions at user touch points.
Your brand's visual and design aspects play a massive role in the user experience your customers will take home. Guide all five senses of a user with your brand's personality with an eye firmly on conversions.
Visual elements, like the right trust marks on your website or the right color for your CTA button, all contribute toward both creating the desired user experience and aiding conversions simultaneously. Auditory cues like fast-paced music in a gym helps users keep up their pace of workouts, while soft soothing music in a department store lulls the user into browsing around and buying more.
While you're dressing up your brand, take some time to figure out what you should dress up as, this Halloween!
Related: Is Your Personality Overpowering Your Brand?
Learn your lines well
No Halloween personality is complete without their signature lines. A brand's personality is no different. The language used to communicate with your target audience, the tone of voice, the degree of formality or casualness, all contribute their bits towards painting your brand personality and telling users what they need to know.
How memorable is your brand promise and how well it connects with your users depends upon the language you use. From advertising to email communication to conversations with customers on social media, your brand personality dictates your language and tells potential customers why being your customer is so awesome.
The famous "15 minutes could save you 15 percent or more on car insurance" gives the user the precise brand promise, plus it's forever associated with the Geico brand. "Just do it" exemplifies Nike's can-do spirit and adventurous personality. "Because I'm worth it" speaks to L'Oreal's confident and self-assured customers in their language.
Using the right language that goes with your brand's personality is like talking the walk (yeah, I know). You can forget about conversions if your brand promises royal treatment to customers but your customer care executives are rude to your callers.
Devise your tagline, your pitch to customers and the exact way you'll deliver it to them well before you embark on your brand journey. It is especially important to maintain your brand voice in customer-facing functions like customer care, on the shop floor or even in conversations with customers on social media.
Your brand's personality wields so much influence on how your users experience various aspects of your business that making space in your calendar for a brand personality review is time well spent.
