We've Entered a New Era for Brand 'Personality,' And Businesses Need to Catch Up

Published in Nasdaq

For generations, there’s been an adage in the world of business, particularly among marketers and advertisers: Think of your brand as a person. Imbuing it with human personality traits helps build a strong, resilient brand and drive growth.

As Investopedia explains. “A brand personality is something to which the consumer can relate” -- and when done right and consistently, it increases brand equity. After all, people tend to like humans more than things, so the more “human” the brand seems, the more likeable it becomes. Throughout my career in advertising and marketing, I’ve witnessed that people are more attracted to brands that they “understand” in ways similar to how they understand other people.

The need for businesses to think this way is as strong as ever. But the appealing personality traits and how they manifest for a brand have now changed. As we head toward the end of the pandemic, society is different. There are new things to consider when building your brand personality, and a new set of appealing characteristics to commandeer.

Explosion of digital literacy

A big part of the change comes from consumers’ new relationship to online experiences. In just the first month alone that the pandemic led to shutdowns in the United States, March 2020, 9% of consumers made their first ever online purchase. By the end of the year, ecommerce sales comprised an estimated 14% of total retail sales -- double what it was in 2015.

Perhaps most striking has been the rapid expansion of e-commerce literacy across demographics. While inequalities in digital literacy are a major problem, there has also been a growth of digital literacy as people have worked to navigate the new reality.

As the Washington Post reported, “one of the most significant and unexpected shifts, experts say, was the almost immediate embrace of online shopping by people in their 60s, 70s and 80s.” Those 65 and older became the fastest-growing cohort of online shoppers.

So for a brand, the online audience is now more varied than ever, including by age. Traditionally, a youth audience was the prized cohort as it was the target audience that shaped culture, trends and purchase behavior. With a move to broader digital literacy in general, a brand needs to carefully reconsider its online target audience and build personality from there. And since personality traits come across differently online, brands must pay special attention to how various demographics perceive any given post or piece of online content.

Dialogue, not monologue

This challenge gets even tougher. Today’s consumers not only expect but demand a high degree of engagement and personalization from a brand.

Traditional marketing has been more of a monologue, in which a brand can mold and shape a carefully crafted message. Now, for brands to be successful, the personality needs to be so clearly defined that all stakeholders who work to shape the dialogue on behalf of the brand, across every platform, know how to respond to questions, make comments, join in conversations about viral topics or avoid them altogether, and much more. And they need the agility to do this quickly.

With dialogue now being the key, corporations need a new level of granular detail in building a brand personality. Is the personality and tone of voice playful? Serious? Studious? Relaxed? And leaders must make sure these personality traits dovetail with the long-established characteristics that people already associate with the brand. The key is to elevate the brand to meet the needs of an expanded online audience -- not to throw out the equity it has built over past years.

Leading the conversation

On top of all this, brands these days are also expected to not only join, but also lead conversations about a wide range of topics well beyond those that have an immediate, clear connection to their products and services. The National Retail Federation found that 61% of consumers want brands to take a stance on social justice issues, while only 21% want them not to.

When it comes to social issues, businesses often have a tendency to make bland, ultimately meaningless statements that feel “safe.” But those actions don’t reflect brand personality; they reflect a lack of one. To succeed in today’s markets, businesses need to find ways to address major topics uniquely, through the lens of brand character.

Finding ways to do all this is especially important given a reality too many businesses don’t understand: the number of followers you’re reaching is not all that relevant. Instead, the key is to have engaging content.

The content that engages people the most is always based on context. It’s about the moment you’re living in. As a world, we have entered a new one. To face the future, brands must decide who they are -- and help lead the way into a new, successful era.