Brand Personality: Finding Your Voice and Visual Identity
What Brand Personality Is
Your brand personality is the personification of your brand. It’s the bridge to the emotional connection people feel when interacting with your brand and the words they use to describe it.
Let’s take Patagonia for example. They are a leading designer of outdoor clothing and gear for the silent sports: climbing, surfing, skiing and snowboarding, fly fishing, and trail running. You might describe them as adventurous or courageous. They tell stories of people summiting mountains and biking the toughest trails. These stories make you want to get out into the world and explore. And, If you’ve ever owned something from Patagonia, you understand the feeling of connection to the outdoors and the anticipation of adventure as you pack up your rain jacket for a hiking trip. The Patagonia brand personality exudes enthusiastic authenticity.
The Components of Brand Personality
Your brand personality includes the words you use to communicate your voice, and it also includes visuals. These two components work hand-in-hand to create the bridge between your brand essence and your audiences.
Visuals: Visuals are the silent ambassador of a brand. They are often the first touchpoint of the consumer experience and set expectations for the brand experience.
Voice: Voice personifies your brand. Through curated traits and a defined tone, your audience begins to understand and connect with your brand. Consistent use of brand voice across multiple applications is essential for strong brand awareness.
Why Brand Personality Matters
No matter what industry you’re in, all brands need a defined personality. And we’d like to make the argument that brand personality matters more today than ever before. Here’s why:
1 | Your brand personality distinguishes you from the noise.
In marketing, it’s known that it takes a customer 5-7 interactions with a brand on average before forming an awareness of that company and brand. However, with a memorable personality, your brand will make a lasting impression on a customer long before the 7th interaction.
Patagonia is always part of the conversation of impact-driven companies, but what is it about Patagonia that makes it such an influential purpose-driven brand that stands out from other brands? The answer is: Thoughtful transparency.
Being transparent is one thing, but how a brand creates a personality that communicates this value is something else entirely. And it is here, in the how, that makes Patagonia’s transparent and mission-oriented efforts so clear and effective.
Patagonia presents as upfront, honest, and accountable. The environmental and social footprint page on their website shows how everything they’re making has an impact on the planet. As a consumer, you get a real peek into their social responsibility programs, supply chain practices, and how they’re making thoughtful change.
2 | Your brand personality builds community.
Just as we form bonds with human beings, we also form bonds with brands. However, you can’t form a bond with a brand that feels empty. Developing and sustaining a definitive brand personality leads to brand loyalty from the customers who love your brand the most. Without a personality, there’s nothing for customers to connect with and be loyal to.
Patagonia represents customers as who they are as people: One with nature and connected to the land. Patagonia’s rock climbing, environmentalist founder Yvon Chouinard attracted this type of customer through the brand because he built his brand through those beliefs. These shared beliefs create community, and community creates loyalty.
3 | Your brand personality creates brand equity.
Message consistency in all communication channels creates an environment where people can trust an impact-driven company. And this trust builds brand equity.
Brand voice is one of the most important tools in your brand’s personality that can be used to create rapport and engagement. Patagonia’s brand voice supports its purpose-driven approach through a brand voice that is trustworthy and educational. In this promotion email on a new workwear line, the message is uncomplicated and transparent:
“We set out to build a Workwear line — jackets, pants, sweaters, shirts and hats — that is more durable and uses less harmful materials. Our design process begins with the basic elements — innovative hemp blends or warm, super durable synthetics — and from there we add exactly what is necessary for the specific end use.”
When you stick to your brand personality, consumers are led on a consistent brand journey and you gain credibility.
How We Do Brand Personality
At Hoot, our Brand Personality process is multifaceted. We take a holistic approach to defining your personality so that your brand has longevity and purpose. This approach consists of direction, concepts, transformation, and standards.
Let’s get into it.
Direction
Personality direction is when we evoke a certain look and feel to inspire concept direction. We do this in the following way:
We select an archetype as a launching point for the personality direction. It’s necessary to define the audience first, because this creates the bridge between essence and audience. In this step, we want to be clear that the personality is not who you are, but how you present to the world.
Next, we create a tension point that describes the nuances of the brand personality. We use noun and adjective pairing that come in contrast with each other to create combinations that have never existed before. For example: Lovable Pioneer or Poised Disruptor.
We then write a supporting paragraph on how the brand personality expresses the brand’s essence through visuals and voice and connects with the brand’s external audience.
The last step in direction is to show how the personality is expressed through visuals and voice. This looks like:
Vision board and voice traits
Vision board: a curated collage
Personality traits: a set of parameters
Concepts
Within personality concepts, we show you what your brand could look and feel like. Here you see the brand in action through original brand elements and a collection of curated mockups.
Concepts include:
Logo
Sublogo
Colors
Fonts
Additional assets as specified
Application of your brand on example marketing deliverables
A visual asset package always includes: logo, sub logo, colors, fonts. In some cases, additional assets may be included if the client or design team feels it’s necessary. These include, patterns/textures, icons, illustrations, photo styling, and extra design elements.
When it comes to the lifespan of visuals and voice, it's our hope to create something timeless that only needs to be slightly refreshed as the years go by. However, trends are inevitably ever-changing. The main assets (logo, sub logo, colors, font) are built to last longer than the sub set of assets (patterns/textures, icons, illustrations, photo styling), and adapting the sub set of assets is a way to stay on trend without losing the brand awareness and brand equity of your main assets.
Transformation
In the case of a rebrand, our team collects current examples of brand messaging and demonstrates what the newly developed brand personality would look like through a transformed visual and voice application. This might be an external email communication, social media post, response to a public customer review, etc.
Standards
Personality standards are guidelines on how to successfully utilize voice and visual assets.
This includes a list of guiding principles that help you determine what you do and do not say in public communications. These principles help team members, old and new, understand how to reference your brand to others so that you’re all upholding consistency.
These dos and don'ts also apply to any visual application. Our design team provides clear instructions on how to use your logo, brand fonts, colors, etc. so that you do not confuse your audience.
