People respond to each other and become friends with each other in a large part based on personalities. Personality is so important to people’s emotional well-being and so built into our psyche that humans see personifications in everything from animals to objects. So at some point people will personify your business. The personality they give to your company will be far more positive if you work to develop something positive. Just as important, a set of personalities assigned to your business will make it far easier for you to write copy, develop ads, and make other decisions because you won’t be working with a blank slate. Further, the effectiveness of these promotions will be enhanced because they will all work together.
When developing a personality set for your business, there are two important things to keep in mind: first, your company isn’t necessarily you. It is tempting to assign your personality to your company, and it seems like it would be easier. However, it’s important to bear in mind that people are buying into the company. So you must consider how many people would buy into you. Even where a company’s personality chooses to defy expectations, it must match your customer’s needs. Second, the personalities of companies are never as complex as those of humans. Companies’ personalities are more like arch types or fairy tale heroes. They shouldn’t be overly involved or have layers that surprise people.
A brand needs to be something which people can easily befriend. I choose the word “befriend” because people feel something akin to friendship with the most powerful brands. Gucci, Harley-Davidson Motorcycles, Tiffany’s, and Disney are all examples of brands that people have built a relationship with.
Examples of Company Personalities:
Three of the largest technology companies (Apple, IBM, and Intel) have each developed powerful brands in very different ways:
Apple is-Stylish, imaginative, creative.
Steve Jobs’ genius has been to realize that a technology company sells what are, in essence, accessories and/or major pieces of decor within the home, and people will pay more for something stylish. So by choosing to focus its efforts on making its computers and other products more stylish, it has managed to boost not only its sales numbers but the price of many of its products. With its uniquely beautiful user interface design, many of Apple’s ads closely resemble those you would expect from a fashion company. Over time they have also shifted much of their focus away from technology to music and entertainment. Indeed, they made a big fanfare over taking the technology out of their name to reflect their more creative focus.
IBM is-Reliable, knowledgeable, optimistic, brilliant.
When many people think of a company that is truly brilliant and knowledgeable, they think of IBM, a company that has reinvented itself many times to remain one of the most cutting-edge companies for over a century. IBM’s brilliance comes in a large part from its ability to showcase its new problem-solving technologies. When it creates supercomputers like Watson, it doesn’t just set out to sell them to hospitals to help doctors answer questions. It puts them on TV, pitting their computers against humans, showing that they are on the cutting edge in a bold way. IBM’s goal of “Building a smarter planet” shows not only its focus on brilliance and knowledge but how completely optimistic it is. It is working, after all, to make the world a better place in everything from alternative energy to safety and medical care.
Intel is-Fun-loving, creative, innovative.
For the past few years, Intel has been successfully reshaping its image by creating ads that feature it not only as creative and innovative, as one would expect from a technology company, but also as fun-loving. With ads featuring “employees” acting like silly fans of inventors interacting with robots, or making the cartoon character Homer Simpson into a genius they have improved their success.
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