Influence of brand personification on consumer behaviour for fast moving consumer goods

BRAND:

The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines brand as ―a name, term, sign, symbol, or
design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or
group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors‖. ―A brand is a
distinguishing name and/or symbol (such as a logo, trademark, or package design) intended to
identify the goods or services of either one seller or a group of sellers, and to differentiate it from
those of competitors. A brand thus signals to the customer the source of the product, and protects
both the customer and the producer from competitors who would attempt to provide products
that appear to be identical‖ (Aaker, 1991). According to De Chernatony and MacDonald (2003),
a brand goes beyond physical constituents and what it stands for, it has some additional attributes
which although maybe intangible but are still important to consumers consideration. A brand has
added value which differentiates it from a product (Doyle 2002, De Chernatony and MacDonald
2003, Jones and Slater 2003, Doyle 2002), also these added values play a vital role in many
consumer buying decisions, as brands are purchased from emotional motivation as well as
functional motivation. Schmitt (1999) recommended two ways to branding: First, the brand has
to be viewed as an identifier where the logo, slogan, and name form a particular image and
awareness for the consumer. Second, the brand has to be viewed as an experience provider where
the logo, slogan, name, event provide a consumer with affective, sensory lifestyle and create
relation with the brand. A brand protects both the manufacturer of the product or service as well
as the consumer from being lured into buying fake identical looking products put up in the
market by the competitors by signaling the consumers about the source of the product through
the brand‘s name, logo and packaging (Aaker, 1991).
Branding In The New Era:

The principles of branding in the 1980‘s included a simple and formal way of brand
communication between the business and consumer which led to the one way flow of all the
required information regarding different products and services being delivered to the consumer.
In the next phase of the 1990‘s this B2C communications saw a change with the encouragement
of a two way flow of dialogue between bands and the consumers. Not only was the brand
information being delivered but also relevant feedback was being transferred from the
consumer‘s end to the business companies. Branding in the 21st century as of today has seen the
rise of digital information networks which encourage a very special brand experience between
the business and the consumer. With the advent of social media marketing, a new world of
branding has been conceptualized wherein the brands act as a medium of strong and constant
relationship between the consumers and the business companies.
BRAND PERSONIFICATION:

Brand personification, in general sense, can be explained as a technique in which a brand uses a
character with human like attributes to give a unique identification to its products through
various means of marketing or packaging and promotion. In special cases, this referenced
character can actually be a real person when real people personify their own brand. The
personified character is presumed to share the brand‘s personality and is expected to portray
itself out to the public in the same way as a brand would do if it was a living person. Brand
personification may refer to an imbuing trademarked or otherwise proprietarynamed products
and services with a human form and/or human attributes, including a generally distinctive
physical appearance and personality, usually for the purpose of facilitating recognition, recall,
and loyalty to the brand, as well as a sense of identification with the brand, and/or a consumer
perception of a ―relationship‖ with the brand (R.J. Cohen 2014). Cohen also gave five
overlapping brand personification strategies which can be employed for implementation in a
marketing plan. These strategies are: brand personification as a character who personifies the
brand; or as a spokesperson for the brand; or as an ambassador for the brand; or as a mascot for
the brand; or as having some other relationship to the brand. Effective brand personification
tactics lead consumers to associate brands with desirable human-like qualities that become part
of the brand‘s image in consumers‘ minds (Fournier and Alvarez, 2012; McCracken, 1989).
Diverse perspectives are available to explore brand personification across different personality
characteristics and dissociating brand personality effects on consumers‘ beliefs about brands, on
the one hand, and the actual products themselves, on the other hand (Azoulay and Kapferer,
2003; Govers and Schoormans, 2005; Maehle et al., 2011; Ramaseshan and Tsao, 2007; Zinkhan
and Martin, 1987). Together, this growing body of literature suggests that personification (i.e.,
ascribing human traits to inanimate objects) can alter consumers‘ perceptions about products in
various ways (Delbaere et al., 2011).

Brand Personification Strategies: According to R. J. Cohen (2014) the term brand personification
can be defined as ―the design or implementation of a marketing plan that employees as path of
the brand messaging, a brand related person or a human like character in the brand‘s packaging,
promotion and public relations‖. This act of giving the brand a human like character set make use
of anthropomorphism. These anthropomorphized characters can be both living and non living
things that has human like attributes which are closely related to the personality portrayed by the
brand. Another form that these brands related characters can take is that of a particular 11 human
being or a group of people who can together allow the brand to use their own personality
characteristics. Keeping in mind these diverse options Cohen (2014) classified the brand
personification strategies into five imbricating categories distinguished on the basis of their
relationship shared by the brand with the personified character. Figure 1.5 illustrates the five
strategies as recognized by Cohen.
i. A Character Who Personifies The Brand:
Under this category of the brand personification strategies, a character which could be
living is used to portray the personality of the brand in a way that congruence can be
drawn between the features of the brand and attributes of the person. Such similarity
between the personalities of the two can be conveyed to the audience that is the target
consumers with the help of a clear and efficiently communicative branding message.
Other tiny details which can be taken care of to draw a parallel between the brand and
this person can be cues from their appearance, mannerism, dressing, colours and
behaviour. This way of personifying a brand has the potential of providing the brand
with unique visual and imagery human chatacteristics.
ii. A Character Who Is A Spokesperson For The Brand:
As said by Cohen (2014) ―For a person or personified character to be a brand
spokesperson—or ―spokes character‖ as the case may be—the character must be an
 agent of the brand who in some way verbally advocates for it, explains it, brings
credibility to it, or otherwise delivers brand messaging that may persuade the receiver
of the information to view the brand favourably‖. From this definition we can say that
the spokes person of a brand is a character who verbally makes a pitch of the brand
by making use of direct appeal and declarations regarding the benefits of the brand
product to persuade the target consumers to make a purchase. It should also be noted
that a spokes character can advocate more than one brand at the same time. The
example for this is of the popular Hollywood actor John Houseman who during his
young acting days when he was at the peak of his career advocated as a spokesperson
for big brands from diverse industries, ranging from the investment firm of Smith
Barney to the fast food chain of McDonalds.
iii. A Character Who Is An Ambassador Of The Brand:
Cohen (2014) defined ―a brand ambassador as an official or authorized
representative of a brand that is typically unique in form, appearance, or costume, and
that is held out to the public primarily for promotional purposes such as establishing
or extending goodwill toward the brand‖. From the above mentioned definition it can
be inferred that a character used as a brand ambassador is highly compensated by the
company for his contribution in the active promotion and interactions with the
potential consumers in the market place. It has been rightly said that the people who
currently are the fans of your brand make the best brand ambassadors due to their
level of passion and commitment towards the brand which increases even further by
providing them a formal tag of an ambassador.
iv. A Character Who Is A Mascot To The Brand:
According to Cohen (2014), ―a brand mascot can be formally defined as a
recognizable and distinctive personified character, exclusively associated with the
brand, who, supported by the brand‘s messaging, and not necessarily by the mascot‘s
own verbalizations, is positioned to generate goodwill as well as positive imagery,
thoughts, and feelings toward the brand. As per the definition given for a mascot, it
can be said that the mascots represent the least verbal way of all the different types of
personification option available. Conventionally brand used to use animals or cartoon
like characters, living or not living as their mascots with the intention of them
 bringing good luck to the brand. This tradition was followed mostly for personifying
different sports team and product for children. The sports team made use of people
wearing their mascots costume for the purpose of cheerleading to encourage and keep
the team enthusiastic to win the game. However mascots were not only used to attain
good luck but also became popular among FMCG brands as it showed potential to
attract consumers and increase their skills. Mascots have been used for personifying
brands from a long time in the marketing industry. The most popular examples of
brand mascots include the use of Mickey Mouse by Walt-Disney, Pillsbury‘s Dough-
Boy, Toni the Tiger and Corny Rooster by Kellogg‘s, Chester Cheetah by Cheetos,
The MandM‘s Spokescandies by Mars etc. Sometimes brand mascots are perceived to
not be very helpful in giving a very clear personality to the brand due to the lack of
verbal communication and human persona. But even then it has been observed that
brand mascots contribute very positively towards the longevity and iconic status of
the brand in the long run. As compared to personification strategies, the use of
mascots can be perceived to lack as much charisma and personalized touch which
would enhance the image of the brand in the required manner.
v. Character That Has Some Other Relationship To The Brand:
Cohen (2014) rightly identified that ―there have been instances of brand-personified
characters that really do not fit neatly in to any of the previously described categories.
The characters in this fifth, ―all other‖ category, while presented by a particular
brand, neither ―speak for‖ the brand, nor even represent it‖. This last category of
brand personification strategy includes all other characters which somehow are
related to the brand and help in giving a particular personality to the brand without
being officially hired to speak, endorse or be the ambassador of the brand. These
could include occasional characters being used in a promotional campaign of a
particular brand, for example: - the talking birds and squirrels which were once used
for a special advertisement campaign by Nestle for its product brand KitKat became
an iconic personifier which was used by various consumers to identify or recall the
brand. Sometimes the popularity of such characters which are seasonally used plays
an important role in adding value to the personality of the brand.
BRAND PERSONALITY:
―Brand personality is the psychological nature of a particular brand as intended by
its sellers, though persons in the marketplace may see the brand otherwise (called
brand image). These two perspectives compare to the personalities of individual
humans: what we intend or desire, and what others see or believe‖ (American
Marketing Association). ―A brand‘s personality embodies all of the qualities it has
to offer over and above its primary characteristics and its functional purpose‖
(Patterson, 1999). The brand is treated as an active, contributing partner in the dyadic
relationship that exists between the person and the brand, a partner whose behaviours
and actions generate trait inferences that collectively summarize the consumer's
perception of the brand's personality (Aaker and Fournier, 1995).The notions that
brands have personality and that the relationship between consumers and brand
personality is very significant for success are regarded as the most important concepts
in the fields of marketing and advertising (Freling and Forbes, 2005).

Brand Personality As A Part Of The Brand Platform:

Lindstrom and Andersen (2000) stated that ―Brands consist of different parameters
which altogether create the total consumers perception of the product.

The consumer‘s brand attitude is used by the consumers as a tool of measurement of

the overall ability of a particular brand to satisfy his consumption needs. The
researchers in the past have proposed many models which include multiple attributes
dimension of consumer‘s attitude for the overall evaluation of the brand. Wu and
Wang (2011) concluded in their study that, ―brand affection, purchase intention and
brand trust can be viewed as three dimensions which present affective, conative and
cognitive components of brand attitudes respectively‖. For the purpose of this study
only two out of these three dimensions namely brand affection (affective) and brand
trust (cognitive) have been used to assess the consumer‘s attitude towards the brand
sighting the fact that the purchase intention of the brand (Wu and Wang, 2011) is
partly covered and has a definitional overlapping with behavioural brand loyalty
(Belaid and Behi, 2011). These two components have thus been treated as individual
dimensions further in the study.
DATA ANALYSIS
The depicts the Descriptive Statistics of the second component of Consumer Behavior
taken into consideration in the present study namely Consumer’s 215 Attractiveness.
The two dimensions of Consumer Perception have been presented category wise
along with the mean scores and standard deviation of each item under these
dimensions. From the table, it can be concluded that a higher mean score is that of
Distinctiveness as depicted by the brand as per the consumers. Self Expressive Value
of the brand has marginally lower values which mean that the aspect of
distinctiveness of the brand Mountain Dew as perceived by the consumers is higher
than its self-expressive value.
The Table depicts the Descriptive Statistics of the fourth component of Consumer
Behavior taken into consideration in the present study namely Consumer’s Attitude
towards the brand. The two dimensions of Consumer’s Attitude have been presented
category wise along with the mean scores and standard deviation of each item under
these dimensions. From the table, it can be concluded that the higher mean score is
that of Brand Trust of the consumers, closely followed by the mean score of Brand
Affection which means that the overall attitude of the consumers towards the brand is
positive as they trust the brand and are affectionate towards the brand too.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of carrying out a research is to test different variables of the study
theoretically or empirically and to formulate a conceptual framework using those
variables after defining them in detail. The end target of the research is to draw useful
and logical conclusions on the basis of the findings of the analysis carried out under
the study. The last and the final chapter of the research thesis is that of conclusions
and recommendations, which plays a very significant role in the research as it directs
the future researchers towards the plausible options of digging deeper into the same
subject. These results and suggestions as concluded by a researcher help the other
researchers of the same field in an in depth understanding of different concepts and in
doing future research by highlighting the gaps in the existing literature on the selected
variables of the present study. The conclusions enlisted below have been presented as
per the objectives set in the beginning of the research individually after a detailed
analysis of the findings of the study.