To me, this is one of the most fun parts of building an authentic brand. You are literally giving life to an inanimate object-though you could have a mascot or front-facing founder-and detailing how it interacts with your customers and community. In short, you are creating the attributes that personify and humanize your brand. We’ll discuss the brand voice and tone in the next module, which discusses putting these into action.
Please reference our syllabus here. You can find the brand audit template here.
We are going to determine the key traits, values, and characteristics that define your brand personality. We’ll then consider how you want your brand to be perceived by your target audience. Your brand personality will impact your visual identity, the words you use, and how you act. Is it playful, authoritative, innovative, or trustworthy? Clearly define the personality traits that align with your brand identity. Keep in mind that this differs from your brand tone, which focuses on emotions, when to use it, and how to use it.
Let’s look at a few examples first:
Today, we see the Geico Gecko as a representative of their insurance company. Insurance, which is notoriously boring, is something most of us are required to have. It is the embodiment of an ongoing brand campaign that has stretched on for more than two decades. While the gecko has had various shifts in personality-now bumbling and mumbling vs more spicy in the past-it’s designed to be an extension of who they are, but not a full representation.
Most likely, the gecko is a representation of their customers, but with a bit of character and humor mixed in. And for some boring history, the gecko most likely originated due to a mispronunciation of Geico, and a branding agency embraced it. And for some history, Geico was previously an acronym for Government Employees Insurance Company, but obviously, they cover more than just the public sector today.
The reason why I bring this up is that a mascot is an extension of the brand, but does not necessarily capture the entirety of its personality or voice. If you look at their site, you’ll see the gecko all over the place, but when it comes to communicating on claims, chatting with CS, and other critical interaction points, they are straightforward and more or less bland. But that is ok, because you probably don’t want to chat with a sassy or bumbling gecko when trying to receive help after getting T-boned in your car.
And, of course, we have the tried and true, which have branding down to a science: Coke, Nike, Patagonia, Apple, Nintendo, etc. They live and breathe their brand in their products, communication, ads, and everything in between.
As much as I’d also love to call out some great cybersecurity brands, I don’t want to play favorites, but there are some great ones out there who know how to stand out. Fortunately, that’s why you’re here, so you can keep them on their toes.
Ok, time to do the thing. Let’s get your brand personality down.
Let’s start with a simple workshop…
List 10 adjectives that align with who your customers are, how they act, how you interact with them, how they align with your values, and most importantly, how you want them to perceive you.
Then, list the exact opposite adjective.
From here, we create a scale. I prefer a slider, but a simple table is easy enough to represent things. The reason we put the antonym is to ensure we negate anything that could detract from how your audience sees you.
As a reminder, let’s avoid adjectives for emotion or the way you talk, which we will touch on next module.
Passive Neutral Bold Cowardly Brave Boring Exciting Selfish Altruistic Foolish Wise
We’ve got our scale, so now we need to chat through how extreme we want to go with these concepts. Refer back to the considerations I shared earlier. This is not just what may seem cool or fun, it’s what your customers expect from you. It’s also worth noting that you can have conflicting personalities at times, which is why we use scales. If you choose to be brave, but have a sort of cowardly mascot like a gecko, maybe we pull back on how brave we become. Your brand voice and personality will shift depending on what stage of a relationship you are in, too, which is one of the most critical elements of an authentic brand.
Quick soapbox moment:
The person you first get introduced to and shake their hand is your first impression. The same person you’ve now hung out with for three years still has those qualities, but you know them better and understand that there are layers to that onion. Avoid following a single path, or you get too close to a transactional relationship. It’s also why I harped on including CS as your stakeholder. This is why brand voice and tone are crucial elements once you’ve nailed your personality, which won’t change as frequently.
With all this in mind, we get to do it one more time before we narrow everything down and fully align it with your customer’s expectations. Take 2-3 key competitors and map out their personality.
Passive Neutral Bold Cowardly Brave Boring Exciting Selfish Altruistic Foolish Wise
To be authentic, you can absolutely share traits of your competitors. HOWEVER, you must find unique and differentiating qualities. You should be more bold in some areas and more passive in others.
For example:
Passive Neutral Bold Untrusted Trustworthy
You probably don’t want to come off as scummy. But you also don’t need to double and triple down on being trustworthy, too. Instead, find another adjective that invokes the same emotion or an even stronger one. If you go too far on this scale, you move from trustworthy to faith, but that is not going to jive with most of your customers in this context. In terms of cybersecurity, you want someone to be confident or make them confident because of what you provide, which is more impactful and actionable than just trusting someone. It’s the difference between showing vs telling (as long as you follow through).
From here, narrow things down to 3-5 adjectives. Build out a document that indicates when you should lean into a certain concept, and define them as they relate to your mission, vision, and values.
As one final note, you don’t have to lock these in place out the gate, either. Do some initial messaging tests and see how people jive with them. Ask your customers directly, too. If that goes well, build out a small brand campaign, toss the net, and see what comes back.
Read on to lesson 2.4 where we walk through an example of how to build your brand personality.
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