Do brand personality scales really measure brand personality?
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AUDREY AZOULAY is a doctoral candidate at HEC Graduate School of Management (Paris).
JEAN-NOE¨L KAPFERER is Professor of Marketing at HFC Graduate School of Management, researcher and consultant. He is the author of more than 100 articles and nine books on communication and brand management, two of which have been widely translated: ‘Strategic Brand Management’ and ‘Re-inventing the Brand’ both published by Kogan Page, London.
Abstract Since 1997, literature and research on the concept of brand personality have been flourishing, and specific scales have gone into widespread use in academic circles, unchallenged on their validity. Brand personality is certainly a key facet of a brand identity. As this paper will demonstrate, however, the current scales of brand personality do not in fact measure brand personality, but merge a number of dimensions of brand identity — personality being only one of them — which need to be kept separate both on theoretical grounds and for practical use. Brand research and theorising, as well as managerial practice, have nothing to gain from the present state of unchallenged conceptual confusion.
INTRODUCTION
Audrey Azoulay HEC (Paris), Graduate School of Management, 78350 Jouy-en-Josas, France Tel: ⫹33 1 39 67 72 54; E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
In practice, the personification of brands has happened frequently since celebrities started to endorse brands. The use of famous people and their personalities helps marketers position their brands, and can even seduce consumers who identify themselves with these stars. In other words, consumers could perceive a congruence between their (ideal or actual) perceived selves and that of the star, and hence form an attraction to the brand.1,2 Or, more simply, this personality endowment may merely give the brand a meaning in the consumers’ eyes.3 Beyond this specific advertising strategy, it has long been recognised that brands could be said to have a personality, as any person has a personality. In any case, in focus groups or in depth interviewing, con-
sumers have no difficulty answering metaphorical questions such as: ‘suppose the brand is a person, what kind of person would he/she be, with what personality?’ In fact, consumers do perceive brands as having personality traits. Recent research has even shown that medical doctors (generalists as well as specialists) had no difficulty in attributing personality traits to pharmaceutical brands; moreover, these traits were actually significantly correlated to medical prescription itself.4 That is why brand personality may have a role to play in the construction and/or management of brands. Since 1997, and the pioneering scale of brand personality proposed by Aaker,5 a new stream of research has been born. This renewed interest in a rather old concept (brand personality) signals that the metaphor of brands as people is held as increasingly more
䉷 HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 1479-1803 BRAND MANAGEMENT VOL. 11, NO. 2, 143–155 NOVEMBER 2003
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AZOULAY AND KAPFERER
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