Link your brand name to a personality


Brands have personalities of their very own. It is quite possible for individuals to say what kind of person their preferred brand is, and in many cases individuals really feel closer to brands than they do to real people.

Linking the brand to a specific human being has a long history. Kentucky Fried Chicken (or KFC as it is now known) is linked to its founder, Colonel Sanders. McDonald's have Ronald McDonald, and of course many British brands have the Royal Warrant. However, it's quite feasible, and even desirable, to make an even closer link with a personality.

Terry's Chocolate Orange has been around for over 70 years now. It's a ball made up of segments of chocolate-coated orange-flavored filling. The chocolate orange has traditionally been a Christmas item, with most of the promotion taking place during Advent, and millions of children being given a chocolate orange on Christmas Day.

Terry's realized that the product had potential for year-round sales if it could be promoted better, so the company's advertising agency (BMP) began by identifying the brand's personality. They discovered that the chocolate orange is associated with the happy occasions at Christmas, with an indulgent playfulness.

The celebrity the agency chose to represent the brand was comedienne Dawn French, who is recognized as a chocoholic having a sense of enjoyable. The strapline "It's not Terry's - it's mine!" was usually delivered as she grabbed the chocolate orange for herself. The campaign was extremely successful in repositioning the chocolate orange as a year-round treat.

If we know what makes our customers tick, we can offer them solutions that will appeal to their innermost motivations. Sometimes we need to appear beyond the apparent - for instance, few men purchase aftershave, and few women purchase sexy underwear. In the case of aftershave, most of it is bought by women to give as a gift to their husbands or boyfriends, and sexy underwear is bought by males to give to wives and girlfriends. This really is component of the fantasy of what we would like our partners to be - much less smelly, and more sexy.

Likewise, most men (left to their very own devices) most likely wouldn't buy deodorant. Deodorant isn't a gift purchase, though, so producers need to think about why a man WOULD buy deodorant. What's the motivation?

Lynx deodorant is the world's biggest-selling deodorant spray for males. In most of the world it is sold as Axe, but in Britain that brand name was already registered so it had to have a brand new name. The brand owners, Unilever, decided that the only cause males purchase deodorant is simply because they think it will make them more attractive (or at least much less repellent) to ladies.

The company therefore developed the concept of the "Lynx impact." In the advertisements, a geeky-looking guy sprays himself liberally with Lynx and is instantly mobbed by ladies. The ads are tongue-in-cheek, of course: no one really expects that women are that effortlessly persuaded, but subconsciously the message gets via that smelling better will enhance your chances with ladies. The idea really grew from an earlier Unilever product, Impulse.

This was a body spray for women, and also the advertising showed men doing something romantic following catching a whiff of the Impulsesprayed woman - for instance, chasing following her down the street having a bunch of flowers. The motivation is comparable: while the Lynxsprayed males appreciate the idea of a lot of sexy ladies chasing them, the Impulse-sprayed woman enjoys romantic encounters with attractive, non-threatening males. In each situation, the crucial lies in finding out what the real motivation is for buying the product.

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This article was sent to us by: Brian Johnson at 01212011

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