0
Theoretical Foundation of Brand Personality for Postmodern Branding Dynamics:
A Critical Review and Research Agenda
Author:
Eun-Jung Lee
222B Rockwell Hall
Kent State University
Kent, Ohio 44242
Phone: (330) 672-0194
Fax: (330) 672-3772
Email: elee15@kent.edu
0
1
Theoretical Foundation of Brand Personality for Postmodern Branding Dynamics:
A Critical Review and Research Agenda
Abstract
This article attempts to contribute to a solid theoretical base for postmodern branding
dynamics with a mediation of a popular market-oriented branding concept: brand
personality. While re-illuminating market-oriented functions and common misconceptions
about brand personality and discussing the limitation of its prevailing theoretical approach, a
new and expansive conceptual ground has been suggested for brand personality upon the
theory of consumption symbolism, a rising sub-stream in the consumer research literature,
which speculates upon the meaning production and consumption in the postmodern
marketplace. Based on its marketing-homegrown and interdisciplinary perspectives, some
new research agendas have been suggested for the future academic approaches for deepening
the academic understandings of the dynamics of brand personality and of the postmodern
branding.
Key word: Brand personality, non-utilitarian brand attributions, postmodern branding
dynamics, market-oriented, context-oriented, consumer-oriented, interdisciplinary, the theory
of consumption symbolism
1
2
Theoretical Foundation of Brand Personality for Postmodern Branding Dynamics:
A Critical Review and Research Agenda
1. Conceptual Foundation
1.1 Brand personality in postmodern branding dynamics
Meanings of products play a critical role in contemporary consumers’ choices. In the
postmodern marketplace, commercial goods often perform as social identity markers, as well
as carriers of functional qualities (McCracken, 1986). With a myriad of diverse meanings and
symbols floating in the marketplace, consumers need heuristics for their decision-making
regarding such non-utilitarian product—and brand—attributions. Marketers and managers
need to make their branding activities compatible with their customers’ interests (e.g.,
Solomon, 2003), and they require a systematic and organization-wide management for nonutilitarian facets of a brand. Brand personality has been devised and gradually elaborated
upon to fulfill some of those needs in a more structured manner.
Brand personality, generally referring to the human characteristics associated with a
brand (e.g., Aaker, 1997), is a branding concept that explains a facet of branding dynamics
(e.g., Batra et al., 1993; Carr, 1996; Kapferer, 1998; Upshaw, 1995; Keller, 2001; 2003)
which is about (some) non-utilitarian brand attributions (e.g., Keller, 1993). Brand
personality is the core of postmodern branding dynamics, which fulfills a multi-faceted
function in consumer-organization as well as within-organization communications (Davis,
2000; Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 2000; Silverstein & Fiske, 2005). Brand personality serves as
an effective consumer-organization communication tool. It allows an organization to identify
consumers’ brand perceptions – even the hidden ones – by its projection techniques with
(human) metaphor (Dent-Read & Szokolszky,1993; Zalthman, 1997). Marketers can then use
consumers’ perceptions to make their marketing strategies become more focused on
consumers. It also provides a useful research method for consumer studies. On the other
hand, brand personality serves as an organization-wide guide for brand meaning
communication. It helps marketers communicate brand meaning which otherwise might not
be easy to understand and/or share (among marketers). By adding robust, descriptive, and
realistic explanations for core yet abstract brand identity, brand personality makes the brand
meaning understandable and contemporary (Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 2000).
The most unique and useful brand personality function comes from a synergy of these
two functions above. As a result, it helps marketers to actualize market-oriented and
consumer-empowered brand management, which are the most critical in postmodern
branding dynamics (Simonson, 2003; Wathieu et al., 2002).
1.2 Trait-based theoretical approach: Limitation
There have been great amounts of practitioners’ efforts expended in identifying “what
brand personality is” and “how it works.” The prevailing research stream has been based on
the trait-theory of psychology. Almost every brand personality study has adopted the trait
theory (recently more focusing on the five factor theory) that was originally devised for
human personality in psychology (e.g., Aaker, 1997; Carprara et al., 2001; Sung &Tinkham,
2005).
Having contributed to gaining fundamental understanding into brand personality and
boosting academic interests in the subject, however, the trait-based brand personality
approaches have been questioned for their incomplete explanation of the whole dynamics of
2
3
brand personality (Sweeney & Brandon, 2006). For example, the trait-based approach has
been examined for its critical limitation in explaining some core functions of brand
personality, such as identifying brands with their symbolic attributions within the same
product category (e.g., Romaniuk et al., 2003; Austin et al., 2003). As such, brand
personality lacks a complete theoretical understanding about its unique functioning, and there
has been a conceptual discrepancy between the theoretical and empirical developments of
brand personality (Azoulay & Kapferer, 2003).
This limitation is caused partly by the intrinsic limitations of traits (e.g., Pervin, 2003;
Braun-LaTour et al., 2007), but moreover, it is mainly due to some common misconceptions
amongst academics. Previously, academics contended that brand and human personality
share the same conceptual framework as well as scales - which is not true. Brand and human
personalities are not analogous – brand personality is beyond the lexical scope of human
personality (Sung & Tinkham, 2005). As a marketing-homegrown concept, brand personality
demands a marketing-homegrown theory (Rook, 2006) - which the prevailing theories are
not.
2. The theory of consumption symbolism: A market-oriented approach
2.1 Suggesting a new theoretical base: The theory of consumption symbolism
This article suggests a new and expansive theoretical base for brand personality - the
theory of consumption symbolism, which is a marketing-homegrown research stream with an
interdisciplinary academic basis. With all the diverse approaches and terms, scholars have
consistently pursued the same goal - to identify and tabulate symbols beneath the surface of
consumer goods (e.g., Arnould & Thompson, 2005; Belk, 1988; Hirschman & Holbrook,
1992; Holt, 1997; 2004; Kate, 2002; Mick, 1986). The theory of consumption symbolism
refers to a rising research sub-stream in the marketing literature, which aims at identifying
the mechanisms of meaning of consumption in the contemporary marketplace and its relation
with consumer behavior. To address the market-oriented research topics, the theory of
consumption symbolism has its roots in diverse basic disciplines such as philosophy,
psychology, anthropology, economics, and sociology.
2.2 Application to brand personality studies
In-depth understanding of brand personality and its market-oriented mechanisms can
be pursued within the theoretical base of the theory of consumption symbolism. This article
presents two major new concepts that are required for the new brand personality studies to
actualize market-oriented approaches. With the base of the theory, studies about brand
personality can be expected to gain a market-oriented (i.e., context-oriented and consumeroriented) perspective.
Context-oriented. According to the theory of consumption symbolism, the meaning of
brand is established by consumers by being projected the everyday life stories of the
consumers, which are inevitably contextual. The meanings of products should be understood
and decoded based on “contextual” understandings that are essential in addressing
consumption symbolism (Holt, 1997; Kates, 2002) – as should brand personality. However,
the previous trait-based approaches considered brand personality with regard to customers’
demands for “traits,” which are inner-related and psychiatric characteristics of a human therefore it is not apparently related to consumer behaviors in the marketplace. Therefore, the
3
4
conceptual references of brand personality studies should be interdisciplinary, instead of
single-disciplinary (e.g., psychology).
Consumer-oriented. Furthermore, studies about brand personality should maintain
consumer-oriented perspectives. According to the theory, meaning of products should be
understood from consumers’ perspectives, not from others, since the meaning is generated
and interpreted by consumers themselves. What has been largely missed in the trait-based
approach is that, with few exceptions, they have tried to build a conceptual framework for
brand personality by referring other concepts in other areas. Brand personality is not a
concept that has adopted other concepts and theories (e.g., traits) from different disciplinary
(e.g., psychology), but rather it is a concept that is developed by customers within a
marketplace (e.g., Upshaw, 1995). The consumer-oriented approach can also be actualized
with the experimental consumer research methods suggested by scholars in the theory of
consumption symbolism, such as hermeneutics (e.g., Thompson, 1997) or narrative approach
(e.g., Bruan-LaTour et al., 2007).
3. Discussion and Research agenda
3.1 A new conceptual framework with a multi-method approach
To start up new theoretical approaches for brand personality, brand personality needs
a new conceptual framework from the new theoretical base. To be useful in the marketplace,
the new conceptual framework should be able to explain the meaning and symbols that are
projected to brands (with human metaphor) by the majority of consumers. Based on its
common definitions (e.g., Aaker, 1997), the conceptual boundary of brand personality can
literally have all the human characteristics that consumers associate with a brand – traits and
personality are only part of them. To investigate this, it may require a fundamental literature
review regarding a basic question: what the human characteristics are – and this can be
narrowed down into actual structural components, based on consumers’ perception about
brand personality. This requires exploratory qualitative studies with a ground theory (e.g.,
Charmaz, 2006).
3.2 A systematic approach on non-utilitarian brand management
On many occasions, management skills regarding brand meaning have largely been
left unidentified. Only a few celebrated gurus can figure them out on the basis of their
intuitions and instincts. With the elaborated conceptual framework of brand personality, it is
expected to reveal and explain some essential functions of brand personality (e.g., nonutilitarian differentiation points among brands) in a more structured manner – which gives
useful insight for practitioners as well as academicians.
Useful brand personality measurements can also be identified based on the
framework, but it requires in-depth understandings about the social and cultural contexts
surrounding the marketplace. Some structural components of brand personality would be
highly contextual, and others (e.g., traits) not. Eventually, this also brings us to the idea of
multi-level in the structural components of brand personality (e.g., those that are more stable
and essential and others that are more contextual).
Moreover, practically useful brand personality measurements should be different
according to diverse contexts, and it also derives to studies about cultural difference which
can give useful inspiration for global marketing.
4
5
3.3 Decoding brand meanings with the mediation of brand personality
Finally, brand personality can be a mediator for understanding brand meanings and
the dynamics of postmodern branding. There have been a great contribution for brand
meaning with a provocative approaches (e.g., Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 2000), theoretical
explanations about brand meaning and the non-utilitarian characteristics of brands are still in
its infantry stage, and the developments have mostly been accomplished only in practical
marketing circles. With a well-developed conceptual framework of brand personality, some
aspects of the non-functional attributions of brands, or of the brand meaning, or the
consumption symbolism, can be decoded.
References
Aaker, D. A. and Joachimsthaler, E. (2000), Brand Leadership: The Next Level of the Brand
Revolution, New York, NY: Free Press.
Aaker, J. L. (1997), Dimensions of Brand Personality, Journal of Marketing Research, 34,
347-356.
Arnold E. J. and Thompson C. J. (2005), Consumer Culture Theory (CCT): Twenty Years of
Research, Journal of Consumer Research, 31, 868-882.
Austin, J. R., Siguaw, J. A. and Mattila, A. S. (2003), A Re-Examination of the
Generalizability of the Aaker Brand Personality Measurement Framework, Journal of
Strategic Marketing, 11, 77-92.
Azoulay, A. and Kapferer, J.-N. (2003), Do brand personality scales really measure brand
personality? Brand Management, 11, 143-155.
Batra, R., Lehmann, D. R. and Singh, D. (1993), The brand personality component of brand
goodwill: some antecedents and consequences. In D. A. Aaker & A. L. Biel (Eds.),
Brand Equity and Advertising (pp.83-97), Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Belk, R. (1988), Possessions and the extended self, Journal of Consumer Research, 15 (2),
139-168.
Blackstone, M. (1995), The qualitative dimensions of brand equity, Journal of Advertising
Research, 35, RC2- RC7.
Braun-LaTour, K. A., LaTour, M. S. and Zinkhan, G. M. (2007), Using Childhood Memories
to Gain Insight into Brand Meaning, Journal of Marketing, 71 (April), 45-60.
Caprara, G. V., Barbaranelli, C. and Guido, G. (2001), Brand personality: How to make the
metaphor fit? Journal of Economic Psychology, 22, 377-395.
Carr, S. D. (1996), The cult of brand personality, Marketing News, 30, 4-9.
Charmaz, K. (2006), Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative
Analysis, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications
Davis, S. M. (2000), Brand asset management, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.
Dent-Read, C. H. and Szokolszky, A. (1993), Where Do Metaphors Come From? Metaphor
and Symbolic Activity, 8, 227-242.
Hirschman, E. C. and Holbrook, M. B. (1992), Postmodern Consumer Research, Newburg
Park, CA: Sage Publication.
Holt, D. B. (2004), How brands become icons, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
5
6
Kapferer, J-N. (1998), Strategic Brand Management (2nd ed.), London and New York: Kogan
Page.
Kates, S. M. (2002), The Protean Quality of Subcultural Consumption: An Ethnographic
Account of Gay Consumers, Journal of Consumer Research, 29, 383-399.
Keller, K. L. (1993), Conceptualizing, measuring, and managing customer-based brand
equity, Journal of Marketing, 57, 1-22.
Keller, K. L. (2001), Building customer-based brand equity, Marketing Management, 10, 1419.
Keller, K. L. (2003), Brand Synthesis: The Multidimensionality of Brand Knowledge,
Journal of Consumer Research, 29, 595-600.
Levy, S. J. (1981), Interpreting Consumer Mythology: A Structural Approach to Consumer
Behavior, Journal of Marketing, 45, 49-61.
McCracken, G. (1986), Culture and Consumption: A Theoretical Account of the Structure
and Movement of the Cultural Meaning of Consumer Goods, Journal of Consumer
Research, 13, 71-84.
Mick, D. G. (1986), Consumer Research and Semiotics: Exploring the Morphology of Signs,
Symbols, and Significance, Journal of Consumer Research, 13, 196-213.
Ogilvy, D. (1983), Confession of an advertising man, New York, NY: Dell.
Pervin, L. A. (2003), The Science of Personality, New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Plummer, J. T. (1985), How Personality makes a difference, Journal of
Advertising Research, 24, 27-31.
Romaniuk, J. and Ehrenberg A, (2003), Do Brands Lack Personality? Marketing Science
Centre Research Report, 14, University of South Australia.
Rust, R. T. (2006), From the editor: The maturation of marketing as an academic discipline,
Journal of Marketing, 70, 1-2.
Silverstein, M. J. and Fiske, N. (2005), Trading up, New York, NY: Penguin Group
Portfolio.
Solomon, M. R. (2003), Conquering consumerspace, New York, NY: American
Management Association.
Sung, Y. and Tinkham, S. F. (2005), Brand Personality Structures in the United States and
Korea: Common and Culture-Specific Factors, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 15,
334-350.
Sweeney, J.C. and Brandon, C. (2006), Band personality: Exploring the potential to move
from factor analytical to circumplex models, Psychology and Marketing, 23, 639-663.
Thompson, C. J. (1997), Interpreting Consumers: A Hermeneutical Framework for Driving
Marketing Insights from the Texts of Consumers’ Consumption Stories, Journal of
Marketing Research, 34, 438-455.
Upshaw, L. B. (1995), Building Brand Identity: A Strategy for Success in a Hostile
Marketplace, New York. NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Wathieu, L., Brenner, L., Carmon, Z., Chattopadhyay, A, Wertenbroch, K., Drolet, A.,
Gourville, J., Muthukrishnan, A. V., Novemsky, N., Ratner, R. K. and Wu. G. (2002),
Consumer Control and Empowerment, Marketing Letters, 13, 297-305.
Zalthman, G. (1997), Rethinking Market Research: Putting People Back In, Journal of
Marketing Research, 32, 424-437.
6