117. Why should you define a brand personality?
Is your brand personality communicated in the best way possible? 👏 In this solo ep, brand strategists and hosts Phil and Lauren discuss the importance of owning your brand personality. With specific examples of differing personality types, you'll learn how to effectively communicate your brand personality through colors, typography, and content. Listen to the hosts gush over brands they love while getting major inspiration for yours!
Episode transcription
Phil
Well, hello there. Welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren
And I'm Lauren.
Phil
And this is a podcast where we help you position, build and promote your brand. We're happy you’re here. I'm happy. Lauren's happy. You picked an excellent episode to tune in today. It's a topic that's one of my favorite topics. And it's one, quite frankly, that doesn't get enough, I would say attention and love out there in the big wide world. I'm happy about that, because it paves the way for us to have a great conversation all about it. The topic is personality, specifically brand personality.
Lauren, do you, first of all, do you agree that this is a topic that needs love and attention?
Lauren
Without question, I feel like brand personalities are kind of an afterthought. For a lot of companies that are perhaps launching or reinventing themselves, I really think that a lot of entrepreneurs and founders are focused on the tangible deliverables and more of the technical details of a brand. So for example, when someone approaches us, they rarely say, I need a brand, or I need to define my brand personality, it's, I need a logo, or I need a website. But in fact, without a brand personality, I would argue that it's almost impossible to effectively brand or create a website for a client.
Phil
Totally, totally. And it also has this concrete having this decided on in the earlier stages of your brand, It makes things so much easier, as all of the elements and projects and unique opportunities that present themselves, it makes it so much easier to make decisions, because you're clear on who you are, those humanizing elements of your brand. When I'm teaching, but even you know, when we're having conversations on this podcast, I talk a lot about two things on a sliding scale or ratio, let's say, content, what you say, and personality, the unique way that you and only you deliver that content. And it's the latter, its personality that keeps us coming back to you for more, right.
Content is like an unlimited resource online, everyone's creating it, but personality is that secret weapon, that element that keeps us wanting more from you. I have encountered this over the last year on YouTube, I mean, other platforms, but YouTube is the one that comes to mind. I put effort into creating YouTube videos and podcasts that are on topics that people search for, and while I love to answer the questions that they're searching for, my goal is for them to find me and go, ‘oh, this guy explains things’, ‘wow, this guy's fun,’ ‘I like this guy. I'm going to see what else he's posted’, ‘I'm going to hit subscribe now’, ‘oh, I like these two, I'm going to listen to more episodes of their podcasts’. That's the goal. And personality is that most important element that keeps them coming back for more. So we're talking about it today.
Lauren
Yeah, I saw a quote on Instagram that I thought I had saved. But I was just looking at my saved images. And I guess I didn't. But it was something along the lines of that there's no such thing as an original idea anymore. The only thing that is unique is the person or brand that's delivering that message, which is fascinating. So I just also think that brand personalities are an opportunity to set yourself apart, particularly in a highly competitive industry or market. Because even if the information is the same, your personality gives you a platform and an angle to deliver it differently.
Phil
I love that perspective.
Lauren
Yeah, me too.
Phil
Okay, so how do we even begin to talk about this, identifying your personality or understanding how you'd go about branding yourself?
Lauren
So I have one of our freebies in front of us. 100 words to describe your brand. It's one of our most popular freebies on philpallen.co. Phil, do you know the URL where someone could download this by any chance?
Phil
Yes, I do. I do. It's philp.al/100-words. So philp.al/100-words. And if you have trouble finding it, you can go to our site philpallen.co/resources or philpallen.co/freebies I think it is. Use freebies, that's going to take you right to the place where there's this one and others but for the purpose of this exercise today we're talking about, the 100 words to describe your brand and we've grouped these words into kind of overarching categories, I think we should use those overarching categories to help kind of walk through how we incorporate personality.
Lauren
Yeah, for sure. So the first grouping is for a brand that's a little bit nerdy. So I would consider a nerdy brand to be a little quirky. Perhaps they're not in the most interesting of industries, but there's a little kind of endearing charm to the way that they want to deliver that message. And if we think about a nerdy brand, I would want to sort of be unexpected, but also fall back on some maybe common visual approaches that you might associate with intellectual ism. So for example, maybe for typography, you want to favor more of a kind of scholarly serif font, for a color scheme, you might want to go for something that feels academic. So I think of royal sort of jewel tones that are associated with established universities, for example. Or you might even want to go back to even primary colors to reference some sort of learning, like a learning environment. Do you have any other ideas on how a nerd brand might manifest itself visually Phil?
Phil
Yes. And I also want to clarify the word nerdy, I guess, could sometimes be interpreted negatively. But in this case, it's not I think a nerdy brand is one that leans into, as you said, intellect, information, and in that it's a brand that's trustworthy. So a good example, not of a brand that we branded, but one that the first one that comes to mind, can you guess which one I'm gonna guess?
Lauren
No, what is it?
Phil
So the example for this one that I would give is Bench, which is an accounting or bookkeeping service. And trust me, any of you business owners, if you're like me, you consider your accountant or your bookkeeper to be some of the most important people in your business. I want my bookkeeper to be nerdy. I think they've done and still visually, really simple, sleek style, but they're brand Bench is nerdy, and appropriately so. I think they're a good example that fits with everything you've described.
Lauren
Yeah, what a great example. And I also like that Bench uses a lot of photos of people to add some humanity to the brand. Because imagine if the Bench brand had no photos of any people, it would feel less approachable. And it might feel a bit more intimidating. So they've done a masterful job of sort of embracing their inner nerds, I suppose. And incorporating people throughout the brand.
Phil
Yes, I'm actually going to break a rule that we have for including one other example, this is a brand that on our brand audit questionnaire, we specify not to be used, because everyone lists it. But in this case, I think it's worth mentioning that Apple is also somewhat of a nerdy brand. When you look at how they use faces, and how they've branded specifically the help desk, the Genius Bar. In the way that they dress, the uniforms, etc. that's totally embracing a nerdy brand. And there's a few words on this PDF, if you don't have it up in front of you that I think would be interesting. If you're looking to describe your brand, brainy, accurate, which is kind of funny, since we're working on a brand right now, that's name is Accurate, and they would totally fall into this category. You know, trusted, sharp, specific, wise, profound, clever, these are all great words that you could be using to describe the personality of your brand that's a little bit nerdy. We have more words in the PDF, which you can go check out. I think that one's covered.
Lauren
Yeah, let's move on to the next personality we've identified which is the life of the party. Whoo. I'm like raising the roof of my hands. You can tell that I fall into the nerdy category personally, just by how that whole thing went down. So anyway, Phil, life is a party.
Phil
This is all me. I'm sorry. Yeah, this is all me. It resonates with me.
Lauren
Okay, how do you embrace the life of the party personality and how does it show itself in your branding?
Phil
Okay, so I get excited about this. Did you hear how happy I was there? Well, I think confidence. I think confidence is indicative of the life of the party. I think humor. You know, if a brand is not humorous, then don't try and incorporate humor, it'll fall flat. But for example, I like to tell jokes or I like to say things that loosen up the tension in a room. And so I would say humor is another great opportunity for a brand that is the life of the party. I would say, this might not be true for all of the groupings. But in this particular example, it's really important to stay conversational, whereas the nerdy brand might be a little more informative. I think the life of the party needs to be conversational, the way that you communicate in every application needs to sound like how you sound when you're having a conversation.
Lauren
Yeah, for sure. And I think that there might be a misconception for life of the party brands that you need to include a lot of bright colors. But I actually don't think that's the case. You can use a really bright color scheme to immediately bring life for lack of a better term to your brand. But if you prefer a more muted color scheme, like you have Phil, I think that you need to inject life elsewhere through snappy copy through unexpected topics, etc. I have had, so if we use me as the example which you're doing for this, and I like that, because yeah, I'm not, in my brand's appearance, I might not be this way, but I like that we kind of do things differently.
The most engagement I've had on social media is when I tell stories, and when I kind of reminisce about things, anything personal, anything human, anything funny when things go wrong. I was home a few weeks ago in Canada, and my mom had all these hilarious pictures of me from when I was in elementary school, and I posted a picture of each one and made fun of myself in each one of them. And that got my most engagement probably in the last year on Instagram. So that kind of self deprecating, light hearted, which is actually one of the words used in this section, when we look at the 100 words to describe your brand, we use the word lighthearted, rambunctious, memorable. So even kind of reminiscing, you know about memories, happy, always happy, enjoyable, celebratory, I just read a few words from this section on the freebie, but, I think those are good parameters for the life of the party.
Lauren
A few other brands that come to mind that would fall into this category, are WorkParty, I mean, literally in their name, and Later. I would say that Later has a life of the party brand, which they show through interesting graphics, they show through patterns that have lots of color and life to them. So I would check out those brands as well for more literal examples of life at the party.
Phil
Well done on the example front. Those are perfect.
Lauren
Thanks.
Phil
We get so excited. Any opportunity you and I get to talk about examples, we are like encyclopedias of brands.
Lauren
I love branding, I just LOVE it. Okay, so the next category is a brand that views the world differently. So I think that with this type of brand, at first, you might think, okay, they view the world differently, but so they would fall into the nerdy category. But I don't think so, so I see viewing the world differently as more of a disrupter. So in our PDF, for example, we've got words like, artistic and rebellious and strange and uncommon. So these are brands that I think are trying to do something really different. One brand that comes to mind, for me, at least is headspace. Now, headspace, the meditation app that I hope everyone knows about, and if not check it out, they brought a very, very different and accessible aesthetic to meditation. I don't know about you Phil, but I used to think of associating meditation with traditional kinds of like Eastern philosophy and spirituality, and think of it as something that was untouchable for a person like me in the, you know, Western atmosphere. But I think headspace has done this brilliant job of kind of taking meditation and making it have a modern face. And by doing that they've kind of disrupted what is typical of the meditation space.
Phil
Great example, I have a few more. I think Uber is an example of viewing the world differently. And in our PDF, we include the word rebellious, they are definitely rebellious, and have had their fair share of challenges over the years as they've really created a new niche and a whole new access point for people to avoid taking a cab. I would say Uber is a good example of viewing the world differently. Flytographer is another great brand that incorporates that travel element. I think in some contexts, people whose brand is rooted in travel, you might fall into this category, viewing the world differently, you know, sharing a unique perspective or process or way of doing things. Finally, if we want to look at a human example, I would say many of the thought leaders out there, Gary Vee, Brene Brown, they all fall into this category of viewing the world differently. And they built a strong, in some cases cult like following, because their perspectives and opinions are so strong, captivating. It's like you were desperate to hear what their perspective is on a particular topic. So yeah, great.
Lauren
And with those three examples, you brought up Flytographer, Gary Vee and Brene Brown, what's fascinating with those three in particular, I love how all three of those brands actually use imperfection as part of their visuals. So Flytographer’s, logo mark is a hand basically a handwritten cursive. It's not a picture, perfect cursive font. Gary Vee’s brand is all over the place, and that's his thing. Brene Brown’s brand kind of feels crafty, if you will, like it's got kind of this almost homespun feel to it. And I just think it's very interesting that they see themselves as different. And they show that visually through imperfection.
Phil
Do you know what, it's interesting you left out Uber, because I think Ubers branding sucks. I think their branding is awful. It's boring. It's not memorable. It's just so I've never been able to put my finger on why I think it's terrible, but this conversation has made me realize they fall into this category. But instead they're trying to brand themselves as life of the party. Would you say they're not the life of the party, they fall into this category? If they had updated their brand personality to reflect viewing the world differently, I think it would resonate a lot better. Yeah, just a thought.
Lauren
Yeah, that's true. I think that maybe they're trying to embrace their disruptive, rebellious, modern, cool, sort of persona by making this attempt at ultra modern branding. But I feel like it's not appropriate for what their brand stands for. So yeah, you're right.
Phil
Very interesting. Let's keep moving on. I love these groupings.
Lauren
I guess the next category is if your brand loves helping others. So conscious, generous, peaceful, exceptional, a brand that immediately comes to mind is the Honest Company, for me, that that company is rooted in and care, particularly in like the maternal space, and parenting space. So this brand, I guess, to visually show your brand in this way, I think there needs to be a softness to the brand you're wanting low contrast, you maybe are wanting some intricate illustrations and some images that have lots of natural light. We don't want a high contrast brand to fit into this persona.
Phil
I have such a good example for this one. Are you ready?
Lauren
I'm ready.
Phil
Lauren
Oh, yeah.
Phil
Harmonious, essential, convenient. These are words on the PDF and conscious like these are perfect. Helpful. You said this already, but like those that totally describe their brand, that's fine. In general, right now is one of our favorite brands on Instagram, he goes look at their feet. It's like, ah, amazing. Like, you can take a breath. And really their content is geared towards helping people. So there are two other examples of this one?
Lauren
I think Ugmonk would fall in this.
Phil
I was gonna say it. Yeah. That for me was a cross between like viewing the world differently and helping others by helping others is more of a priority for them because they create products that are intended to help you. I think that would be Yeah, Ugmonk is one of our favorite brands I've ordered. I feel like pretty much every product I have og monk, UGMONK if you're wanting to spell that but Jeff Sheldon is the creator of that brand. It's one of our favorites. He just does everything perfectly.
Lauren
Yeah, everything. Everything. It's just mesmerizing, honestly.
Phil
Those are all really good examples. I mean, we could talk about it for longer, but I don't think we need to if I were you, I would go look up all three of those brands work and not not work parties. What did you say? What was the first one of this? Honest Company, Honest Company, Ugmonk, and Five Minute Journal. Those will give you lots of ideas on how some of these brands are incorporating personality into how they describe and how they position their brands.
Lauren
Okay, the next and final category is a brand that's irresistible. So you might want to use words like alluring, dazzling, charming, attractive, modern to describe the brand. To me, these are brands that are ultra confident and want to emit a luxurious, almost untouchable feel that makes them irresistible.
Phil
The silences because I'm thinking of examples.
Lauren
I was hoping you would have something.
Phil
I do have one. Okay, I do have one. Rolls Royce.
Lauren
Oh, yes.
Phil
I have another one. Bang and Olufsen which is my favorite technology brand. I look to them all the time for inspiration, but they are just downright irresistible. Their products, their packaging, the thoughtful copy and very intentional use of everything, their photography. They're totally in this category. eye catching, gorgeous, striking.
Lauren
Yep. Would you think that Peloton falls into this category? Or is the Peloton more life of the party?
Phil
Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one, I might say the more life of the party. And I think they're close. I think this is interesting as a final discussion point here. I think that brands can evolve from one category to the other or they can bounce between the two. I think it's a good idea to decide who you are. But part of what is making the Peloton move towards this category is actually not themselves but the community. Right. It's become such a strong community, that I think they are irresistible. The product is great, but there are lots of other products just like that. It's the community the brand that makes it irresistible.
Lauren
Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I see that potentially. Oh, I know exactly what would fall in this category. Sugar Fish.
Phil
Yes. Good one. That's a sushi restaurant in LA. It's just amazing. Yeah, recently expanded. So you don't order from the menu there. They have essentially three menu items. You can order from the menu, but you don't because you trust them. So the menu item is called Trust Me. And then there's Trust Me light. And then of course, there's Nozawa which is what Lauren and I get anytime we're celebrating some kind of business victory. Honestly, that's the thing I miss the most about LA right there.
Lauren
It’s the only thing I miss. Look at even that example, you brought up when you are guests of Sugar Fish, you don't even choose what you eat. They've decided it for you. If that isn't the sign of sophistication and luxury, then I don't really know what it is. That brand is in the driver's seat. And if we think about the experience when someone goes into Sugar Fish, the color palette is very sophisticated. It's got depth to it, but it's low contrast. They've got a really heavy use of wood, but very, you know, nice tones of wood throughout the restaurant. And their logo is very intricate and detailed. It's something that would probably take someone like 100 hours to do so I think that there are luxurious elements at every point in that guest journey.
Phil
You also cut yourself off when you're talking about Peloton you remember where you were gonna say?
Lauren
Oh, well, I was just thinking that with Peloton I truly wasn't sure if it would go into this luxury category or life of the party. I think that they have a very modern brand. So that was kind of why I was thinking it was going to be a luxury but on the other hand, I think that Peloton is trying to get into every single household, not only in America, but in the world. They just are now expanding to a bunch of countries. So I actually do think Peloton is the life of the party. That's what I conclude.
Phil
So you've got some good examples for this category, which is being downright irresistible. Often luxury brands Rolls Royce, Sugar Fish, great examples.
Lauren
So what should people do next?
Phil
People next if they haven't already, they should download this PDF philp.al/100-words and you can have a look at something tangible in front of you, to figure out first of all, in words how to describe your brand personality. I think yes, this term personality is somewhat ambiguous, but I think being confident in who you are and how you're different from others, is really a good starting place to start to quantify this term personality.
I would also say I gave specific advice earlier. I think everyone you know, person or brand, regardless of grouping, should aim to master the skill of listening to yourself. The way that you describe things, what words you use in conversation how do you show up? I think being aware of those moments really help you put this into words and also put it into visuals.
Lauren
Great. What a fun discussion.
Phil
Yeah, a lot of fun. We'd love to hear from you. What group are you in? What group are you in? We want to hear from you. Let us know you can continue the conversation with us online. #brandtherapy. I'm @philpallen.
Lauren
I'm @thelaurenmoore.
Phil
And for something new this week where you know, it's not new that we asked you to leave a review but we have a new URL to send you to to leave us a review if you enjoyed this episode. ratethispodcast.com/brandtherapy There you can choose where you want to leave your review five star, five star that helps other people discover this podcast that we work very hard to create. Well, this has been fun. And we'll see you back here next week for a new episode of BrandTherapy
Lauren
Bye bye.
Phil
See you then.
