Brand Personality and How To Define Yours

A brand’s personality shines through their online presence – whether it’s their socials, website, conversations with customers or their general tone of voice.

Since you’re here, it’s obvious that you’re curious as to what a brand personality is or how you can define yours.

Put simply, your brand personality is determined from the characteristics of your brand, essentially how it would be described if it was a person, and is so important in influencing the public’s perception of your business. 

It’s not always easy to know how or where to start, so let’s look at some initial things to consider when trying to build a brand personality. 

Building a Brand Identity

With any business, it’s important to know and understand exactly how you want your target audience to perceive your brand online. 

Stripping it right back to basics, one of the first things you need to take into consideration is your brand’s tone of voice. This will be at the forefront of your online presence as it influences everything from content to interactions with customers. 

It’s becoming increasingly common for brands to showcase their sense of humour online, especially since the rise of platforms such as TikTok, which has created a space for brands to join in on trends, appeal to a younger audience and have a bit of fun with their marketing!

Great examples of this kind of brand personality (the more fun, modern type) include RyanAir, Duolingo and Innocent Smoothies. Hopping on recent trends, having funny interactions with customers and just showing that there’s a human behind their brand has had a huge impact on their social following and brand identity. 

However, we know that this kind of approach doesn’t work for every business, as for some more corporate brands it simply wouldn’t be appropriate. This doesn’t mean that you can’t build a brand personality though, it just has to be done in a different way!

For example, when you think of Chanel, you think sophistication, value, high quality, right? When you think of Nike you might think of a strong, powerful, active and modern brand. Brands such as these have managed to influence millions of people into perceiving their products in a certain way just through the messaging they use.

How Do You Get Started?

The first steps to defining your brand personality should include:

Finding Your Audience

In order to know what kind of personality will work for your brand, you need to know who you’re aiming to appeal to. Researching into competitors can be beneficial to see what kind of presence they have online and whether that’s something you’d like to take inspiration from. 

By knowing who your target audience is, you can better focus on how to reach them. Researching into your audience is a crucial part of any marketing strategy. By knowing what they’re searching for, what trends they’re a part of and what kind of brands will appeal to them, you can make your brand much more appealing. Even using email marketing and retargeting to seal the deal after they’re been on your site is a great way to stay at the forefront of their minds and a great way to build up that customer trust and relationship.

Creating a Mood Board

While we’ve mostly touched on the written element of content, it’s important that you have a consistent visual message too. Creating a moodboard to help you visualise what colours, imagery, fonts etc. to use is a fantastic way to create an initial foundation that you can adapt and build on. 

By creating a brand that’s recognisable just by colours/fonts (think the Starbucks logo or McDonald’s colours) you’re putting yourself in a far better position to be considered by potential customers. If your brand is memorable, they’ll be more likely to pay your site a visit next time they’re thinking of making a purchase. 

Keeping It Consistent

While different platforms (social in particular) might lend themselves to slightly different types of content, it’s so important that your brand portrays the same message across all channels. 

Keeping the tone of voice, imagery and branding the same across everything is crucial. If your brand’s personality differs on your website compared to your socials for example, it will be more difficult for consumers to learn who your brand is and what they stand for. Building trust is a crucial part of the sales process – if a customer feels like they don’t understand the brand or can’t resonate with them, they’re going to look somewhere else. Being transparent and consistent with your brand means that potential customers will know exactly what to expect when dealing with you as a business. People don’t like to be surprised! 

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