How you communicate your brand to others is important to nail down, because it gives you the chance to connect with people on an emotional level.
While our team was getting certified in brain-centric design, one of the things we found most valuable was the A > E formula: affect before effect. In order words, it means that in order to communicate in a way that sticks, it’s about communicating in a way that sparks emotional connection before the business outcome.
One of the best ways you can create effective, relatable messaging for your brand is by adopting a brand personality.
What exactly IS a brand personality?
The exact definition is that brand personality is a framework that helps a company or organization shape the way people feel about its product, service, or mission.
Brand personalities shine through every aspect of your brand – your branding colors (learn more about what your brand colors say about you HERE), your logo, taglines, messaging, graphics, and more.
It might sound funny to you, but an effective method for people to become interested, connected, and loyal to your brand is by humanizing it. It’s quite simple – humans are attracted to other humans; so when people feel like your brand UNDERSTANDS them and their needs, then voila – you’ve hooked them in.
A great example of brand personality is the M&M brand.
When you think of M&M’s, I bet you go straight to thinking of the colored candies with the faces of their characters.
Those characters give the brand a sense of connection, fun, family, and playfulness – the same feeling they want you to have when you rip open your bag of M&M chocolates. When you open those M&M’s, it’s because you might be having a fun movie night, sharing with others, or watching the iconic M&M Superbowl commercials.
Nike footwear is another great example of a brand personality.
It’s clear that Nike sells sports goods, but when you think of Nike, you think of someone in their prime age who is motivated, determined, strong, energetic, and fit. With the feeling and messaging of Nike, you’ll feel the same sort of motivation, determination, and energy that the brand conveys.
By focusing on words that give your brand a feeling, it will convey these senses to your ideal buyer. Branding is all about making people feel something (AKA the emotional outcome), and if they can connect to your brand, you’ve got a potential customer (AKA your business outcome).
So now that you know brand personalities are essential, we’ll leave you with this to ponder over – if your brand was a human, how would they act? Ready, set, go!
Need some help with that question? That’s a GREAT thing to hear! We’re here for you – book a call with us so that we can help you get your brand off the ground. Learn more about what working together means for you HERE!
