Image is everything
Personality and image of financial
banks during times of adversity
Tim Smits
KULeuven & Northwestern University
Natalie Van Hemelen
KULeuven
Personality
@TimSmitsTim
@ABCEurope2012: Personality - Image
Image
@TimSmitsTim
@ABCEurope2012: Personality - Image
Personality vs. Image
Well debated issue if it concerns humans
Particularly focal during adolescence
Personality characteristics
Situational characteristics
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@ABCEurope2012: Personality - Image
Corporations?
They too have both a personality and an image
(Konecnik & Go, 2008):
– Identity – Personality = sender side
– Image
= receiver side
~ Brand as a speech flowing from a sender to a
receiver (Kapferer, 2008)
Often tension between both (e.g., Keller 2008;
Plummer 2000)
Interest in both constructs has a long history, but
often conceptual confusion between them when
it comes to empirical research
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@ABCEurope2012: Personality - Image
Conceptual confusion
• In Psychology:
Personality is self-perceived, self-assessed
Image is social perception by others
• In Marketing and Market Research:
Brand personality is social perception by others;
still intrinsically linked with sender identity but
questionnaires focus on perceived personality
Brand personality assessment used as a market
research tool; feedback loop to management to
reposition
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@ABCEurope2012: Personality - Image
IMAGE
(other-perceived)
PERSONALITY
(self-perceived)
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DESIRED PERSONALITY
(self-perceived)
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Personality
Big Five (Costa & McCrae, 1992):
– Five personality traits (underlying facets) fully
describing one’s personality
– (Almost) universal (McCrae et al. 2005)
– Assessment: questionnaires (NEO-PI-R 240 items …
Shortest Big Five questionnaire 10 or even 5 items)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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Openness to Experience
Extraversion
Conscientiousness
Neuroticism
Agreeableness
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Brand personality
• Definition: “the set of human personality
traits that are both applicable and relevant for
brands” (Azoulay & Kapferer, 2003)
• Measures:
– Aaker (JMR, 1997): 44 item for five dimension
1. Sincerity
2. Excitement
3. Competence
4. Sophistication
5. Ruggedness
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– Aaker’s scale and other attempts recently criticized
– Geuens, Weijters & Dewulf (IJRM, 2009, p.103)
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IMAGE
(other-perceived)
PERSONALITY
(self-perceived)
@TimSmitsTim
DESIRED PERSONALITY
(self-perceived)
@ABCEurope2012: Personality - Image
Research questions
• RQ1: Match between sender’s & receiver’s
perceptions of personality?
CASE: Belgian financial banks
– Using Geuens et al measures among key
informants
– Using the same measure to asses perceptions by
others
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• RQ2: Shouldn’t there be a 6th dimension/trait: regional
versus international scope?
– Adding to both instruments questions about this scope
– Might be a decisive personality factor in specific market
circumstances: saturated markets; adverse markets; …
• RQ3: How do the personality measures and the tension
between both relate to brand attitudes and expected
brand attitudes?
– Is personality predictive of overall value of brand? Which
dimension?
– Do key informants have an accurate expectation of
attitudes in the target audience?
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@ABCEurope2012: Personality - Image
@TimSmitsTim
@ABCEurope2012: Personality - Image
Measures
• 10 Belgian banks, ranging in size and sales
volume; split into two subsets (each
participant rated only 5 banks)
• Personality:
15-item questionnaire; How much does
[adjective] apply to X; 7 point Likert scale
• Attitude:
4-item questionnaire bipolar semantic
differential; 7 points
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Results
• Factor analyses on brand image
questionnaires
– Differences between banks; factor structure not
fully robust, despite claims in Geuens et al. (2009)
– Overall factor structure:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Responsibility
Activity
Emotionality, including the Aggression dimension
Simplicity
– No contribution of regional character (RQ2)
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Results (RQ1)
Responsibility
Pers
Image
Activity
Pers
Emotionality
Image
Pers
Simplicity
Image
Pers
Image
Argenta
6,00
4,58
3,67
3,70
2,50
2,80
4,50
4,81
Deutsche
Bank
5,67
4,70
6,00
4,11
3,5
2,91
1,00
4,16
ING
6,33
4,69
5,67
4,69
2,75
3,25
4,50
4,08
KBC
5,33
4,93
5,00
5,07
3,00
2,97
2,50
4,00
Landbouwkrediet
7,00
4,49
6,00
3,46
3,50
2,78
4,50
4,89
Bank v
Breda
6,67
4,50
5,67
3,87
2,25
2,98
4,50
3,98
BNP
6,33
4,08
6,00
4,56
2,50
3,02
2,00
3,75
Citibank
5,00
4,25
6,33
4,10
4,75
2,93
3,00
4,33
Dexia
3,67
4,78
6,00
4,73
3,75
2,71
4,00
4,15
Keytrade
5,33
4,36
7,00
3,85
4,00
3,44
4,00
3,97
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Results
• Predicting respondents attitudes for banks
(RQ3; regression analyses)
– Best predictor, for all banks = responsibility image
(seems rather obvious nowadays – adverse times)
– Possibly banks do know the importance of this
dimension: Empirical relation between expected
attitudes and self-assessed responsibility; r = .64;
However, reverse relation between self-assessed
responsibility and actual attitudes; r = -.45!
@TimSmitsTim
@ABCEurope2012: Personality - Image
IMAGE
(other-perceived)
PERSONALITY
(self-perceived)
@TimSmitsTim
DESIRED PERSONALITY
(self-perceived)
@ABCEurope2012: Personality - Image
Results
• Attitudes: sender vs receiver
– Note: r = -.43 !
Expected attitude
Argenta
5,75
4,14
Deutsche Bank
5,00
4,24
ING
6,00
4,73
KBC
4,75
5,19
Landbouwkrediet
6,00
3,70
Bank van Breda
4,75
4,15
BNP Paribas Fortis
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Attitude
4,75
4,21
Citibank
5,00
3,92
Dexia
4,50
4,86
Keytrade
5,50
3,96
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TAKE HOME MESSAGE
It seems as if banks knew what the key
personality dimension was in adverse times
However, they did not manage to self-perceive
their personality adequately
Procedure in this study is a tool to aid this
introspective activity
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Further project plans
• Apply more rigorously amongst different type
of stakeholders:
– Management
– Actual customers
– Potential customers
– Non-customers
• Apply for different brands on the product –
service continuum
• Apply in a B2B brand setting
@TimSmitsTim
@ABCEurope2012: Personality - Image
Questions and suggestions?
and Thanks! for your attention
@TimSmitsTim
@ABCEurope2012: Personality - Image
Answering research questions
• RQ1: Match between self- & other-perception
– Low match
– Too positive self-view on key dimension
• RQ2: Sixth dimension ~ regional focus?
– No data supporting the necessity of this dimension
• RQ3: Personality predictive of attitudes?
– Credibility was most predictive of attitudes
– Seems as if key informants did have an idea about
this
– Too positive attitude expectations
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@ABCEurope2012: Personality - Image