Brand Personalities

Do you ever see an image or character and you automatically associate it with a company or product? This is a strategy company’s use called brand personalities. They make their product or brand have it’s own personality so that you automatically associate certain objects or characters with their brand. Not only do they do this to make you want to buy their product but it’s also helpful whenever you see a certain animal or character you usually automatically connect it with a brand.

One industry that caught onto brand personalities was breakfast cereals. Specifically targeted to young kids, the breakfast company’s started associating their cereals with characters or animals that would make them more desirable to kids. In many cases you can name the cereal just by seeing it’s mascot without even needing to see a title or a picture of the cereal or anything.

In each of these photos you can see a character or animal that is associated with different breakfast cereals from General Mills, Kellogg, Quaker Oats and Post brands. The reason company's do this is so now when you see a tiger most kids will associate it with Tony the Tiger and want frosted flakes and same with the rabbit and want Trix. It's an easy way for a company to get free advertisements from our natural world around us. 

-Mare

When you look around any college campus and see men and women wearing their Greek organizations letters, what is the first thing you think of? To some, it is parties, drinking, drugs, sex, hazing and paying for friends. However, to others it may mean leadership opportunities, connections, meeting new people, social experiences, philanthropy, ritual and structure.

Though there are many Greek organizations out there, it is how each individual chapter operates that makes brand and identity so important. It is up to each individual to uphold the standards of their chapter. In order to create a good brand personality in any organization one must show dedication and respect to their letters. Respecting themselves and others around them is mandatory. Participating in class, getting good grades, watching what you say and do while wearing your letters, how you treat others, what you post on social media, and how you carry yourself every day (regardless if you are wearing your letters or not) is what gets your ultimate image out there to the people around you on campus. How individuals carry themselves is how Greeks create their brand personalities. Some statistics related to the benefits of Greek life and their positive brand identities would be:

·      Of the nation’s 50 largest corporations, 43 are headed by fraternity men and 85% of the Fortune 500 executives belong to a fraternity.

·      Every U.S. President and Vice President, except two in each office, born since the first social fraternity was founded in 1825 have been members of a fraternity.

·      The Greek system is the largest network of volunteers in the US, with members donating over 10 million hours of volunteer service each year.
·      As Alumni, Greeks give approximately 75% of all money donated to universities.

-Chatty Charlie

Brand personalities allow customers to relate to them on another level. It is important for brands to maintain a consistent set of personality traits in order to increase brand awareness and loyalty. Last semester I interned with a beauty and fashion PR company and we worked a lot with the brand Gloss48.

Gloss48 is an online retailer that finds unique and up-and-coming innovators in beauty and sells them on their website. Gloss48 stays away from mainstream brands and introduces their customers to hidden gems. Gloss48 has a very clear brand personality. Throughout their website they have a cohesive, and laid-back voice, talking to their customers as a friend more than a professional brand tone: “Welcome, beauty junkies.  You are in a judgment-free zone – at least when it comes to your beauty obsessions. To us, a beauty junkie is not only the woman who uses 48 products before she leaves the house in the morning (Get it?!  Gloss48?!), but also the woman (or man – we’re not judging) who gets a rush from a new lip gloss purchase.” Whenever I would write press releases for the brand I would have to try to write in a light-hearted and friendly voice or else it would not make sense with their brand. Brand personality is important because it draws the customer in. When browsing their website I would be attracted to certain items because of their funny little captions about the product. As shoppers we trust our friends more than we trust new brands we have never used before so having a strong brand personality makes the brand seem more reliable.

-Shani

The most recognized brand of all is the Walt Disney company along with their films, television shows, theme parks and merchandise. Disney was as much the public face of his enterprises as was Mickey. Also, The Disney Parks with Cinderella's Castle as center point that is shown at the beginning of a Disney film. Kids and their family can associate to Mickey and friends as friendly and outgoing and their theme parks as the happiest place on earth to have fun and be excited about. In addition when you hear the opening credits in a film or see their Disney princesses’ children are able to associate that with Disneyland or the popular movies. Disney will always be that company that we will love.

-KeAnna

The Rabbit logo of Playboy is one of the most widely recognized and popular brands of the American Market and growing globally. The bunny signifies sexual meaning to the American people.

The logo represents the brand to be shy, vivacious, pouncy and sexy. The bunny is a characterization of a woman’s nature: joyful and joking. Women who are young, healthy, simple – girl next door are who the bunny resembles. The playboy bunny is simply black and white with its market – they do not represent the mysterious woman is lace and a dirty mind. When a man sees the bunny they know they will see a woman unclothed, well kept and happy on display.

-Mary

Look-alike Products

It’s no surprise that when a company makes something well and makes a lot of money off of it other companies will swoop in with eerily identical products and try to have the same success that the first company had. It’s not necessarily knocking off another company as they are not trying to claim the name of the first company; they are just trying to offer an alternative-usually at a cheaper price!

One of the biggest companies in the world is Apple. Most everyone has or has had an Apple product and equally as many people have an opinion of the ever debated question- Mac or PC? For a long time the answer was PC, everyone preferred the windows system to Macs unconditional approach to technology. However, Apple made big moves with the iPod and somehow became the most relevant and popular technology company. They have been known to sell out products within seconds of releasing them online and people will wait in lines for days to be the first to get their hands on an iPhone. One extremely popular product that Apple has had successes with is the iPad, a smart tablet as an easy alternative to a heavy laptop. 

Of course with the success of the iPad came companies that wanted to make as much money and a product like an iPad. The first iPad was released in April 2010 and it became a worldwide phenomenon. Later in October 2013 Windows released the Surface Pro 2, which was the windows alternative to the iPad. However, Apple still remains the main provider when it comes to tablets. To date Apple has sold 170M iPads where as Windows have only sold 1.5M tablets.

-Mare

A lot of people know about Toms, Vans, and Uggs, but what’s funny is that a company called Bob’s from Sketchers has shoes that look exactly like some of the other brands mentioned. I have put images of the shoe designs so you could get an example of just how similar the designs are to each other. On their website it states that ”With a collection that includes vulcanized sneakers, flats, Mary Janes, Alpargatas and more, BOBS has more styles than ever for you to look good, feel good and do good.” 

On top of how they look, Bob’s also has a similar way of operating compared to Tom’s. Sketchers donates new shoes to children in need every time somebody purchases Bob’s for men, women, or kids. They are a non-profit organization helping those who are affected by poverty homelessness, epidemics, or life-changing events. It is tough to say whether it is bad that they have copied the shoe styles because they are doing good for the world… I believe that the idea is great and people are benefiting, and I understand that the shoes they are copying are very popular leading to people wanting to purchase them even more, but I think they should be a little bit more original.

-Chatty Charlie

When consumers are purchasing their favorite personal items and if they are in a rush they could possibly pick up a product that is not an own-brand but yet simply a copy-cat.

I would say I have seen most products that are look-alikes at Walmart, especially in the food department. For example the popular product “I can’t believe it’s not butter” with the container colors being yellow and blue the other product has the similar container size and color is called “You’d butter believe it!” so it wouldn’t be surprising if consumers purchased the look-alike product. Most of the time consumers like me familiarize products with their shapes, colors, font, and size and never read if it is the brand version or the copy-cat but who is to say the look-alike product quality isn’t as good as the original.

-KeAnna

Brands often times use look-alike product packaging to fool consumers. Many times a less expensive brand will mimic the packaging of a name brand item in order to draw consumers in to purchase the product. Sometimes the customer might grab the product out of confusion, grabbing it quickly and not even noticing it is not the brand they were looking for, or they will choose it because of the product design that is reminiscent of the name brand. Brands will often use similar color schemes, and designs that copy the original’s trademark.

In a study, one third of members mistakenly identified the products when the names on the labels were removed, proving that it is easy to get brands and own-labels mixed up if you don’t read the label carefully. Similarly when conducting a blind fold taste test in two out of three tests people preferred the taste of name brand products over their copy counterparts. Packaging is a huge factor in the purchasing decision for the customer, and lookalike product packaging advertising is a sneaky way to try to influence consumer’s decisions.

-Shani

Any musician can spot the difference between a Gibson and Fender guitar. For others just shopping around for a very expensive and nice guitar without musical background could easily mix up the two. Gibson came to the market in 1935 with the first pick up design – electric guitar. A decade later Fender produced “upgrade” of the electric guitar from a hallow-body instrument to a solid-body. From then on the two companies have created similar guitar product models. The bodies, stains, finishes and strings available are matching or highly similar between the companies makes it difficult to at times tell the difference. Beyond the actual product, Gibson and Fender logo show many resemblances.

As each brands logo is printed in metallic color of either gold or silver - as well written in script and placed on the upper left hand corner of the product packaging. These resemblances could easily confuse a new buyer who was torn between the two. This also gives advantage to each company to swap consumers when they are unsure of who to purchase when unable to identify the original product.
-Mary