Presenting the core qualities of your brand personality, and ...

Author: Rahul Rajpal

Student number: 10854304

Thesis Supervisor: dhr. drs. Roger Pruppers

Date of submission: 29 June 2015

Presenting the core qualities of your brand

personality, and avoiding the pitfalls

Master’s Thesis - MSc. Business Administration

(Marketing Track)

Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB)

Statement of Originality

This document is written by Student Rahul Rajpal who declares to take full responsibility for

the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources

other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of

completion of the work, not for the contents.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1

1.1 Brands are alive, brands add meaning to our lives ...................................................... 1

1.1.1 Research topic - Brand personality ...................................................................... 2

1.1.2 Research gap in brand personality literature ........................................................ 3

1.2 Problem definition ....................................................................................................... 4

1.2.1 Problem statement ................................................................................................ 4

1.2.2 Sub-questions ....................................................................................................... 4

1.2.3 Delimitations of the study .................................................................................... 5

1.3 Contribution ................................................................................................................ 5

1.3.1 Theoretical contributions ..................................................................................... 5

1.3.2 Managerial contributions ..................................................................................... 6

1.4 Structure of the thesis .................................................................................................. 6

2 Brand personality ................................................................................................................ 8

2.1 Conception of, and early research on brand personality ............................................. 8

2.2 The first brand personality scale ................................................................................. 9

2.3 Replication of Aaker’s scale across cultures and product markets ............................. 9

2.4 Criticism of Aaker’s brand personality scale ............................................................ 10

2.5 Development of new brand personality scale ........................................................... 11

2.6 Brand personality research - as it currently stands .................................................... 12

2.7 Antecedents or drivers of brand personality ............................................................. 12

2.8 Consequences and impact of brand personality ........................................................ 13

2.9 Congruence of consumer and brand personality ....................................................... 13

2.10 Gap in brand personality literature ............................................................................ 14

2.11 Place of this research in brand personality literature ................................................ 15

3 Brand positioning ............................................................................................................. 16

3.1 What is ‘positioning’? ............................................................................................... 16

3.2 Importance and consequences of brand positioning ................................................. 16

3.3 The role of associations in Brand Positioning ........................................................... 17

3.4 The importance of differentiation in brand positioning ............................................ 18

3.5 Is differentiation enough?.......................................................................................... 20

4 Personal and organizational development ........................................................................ 23

4.1 Personal development ............................................................................................... 23

4.2 Organizational development ..................................................................................... 23

4.3 Models of personal and organizational development ................................................ 24

4.3.1 Trait-based approach to human personality ....................................................... 24

4.3.2 Maslow’s theory of human motivation .............................................................. 24

4.3.3 Enneagram ......................................................................................................... 26

4.3.4 Core qualities ..................................................................................................... 27

4.4 Personal development may also imply self-presentation .......................................... 30

5 Study 1 .............................................................................................................................. 31

5.1 Self-presentation vs. brand positioning ..................................................................... 31

5.2 From presenting human personality to presenting brand personality ....................... 32

5.3 Testing Ofman’s model on brand personality ........................................................... 33

5.4 Conceptual framework and hypotheses..................................................................... 33

5.5 Methodology ............................................................................................................. 37

5.5.1 Stimuli generation – Qualitative pre-tests.......................................................... 37

5.5.2 Qualitative pre-test 1 .......................................................................................... 39

5.5.3 Qualitative pre-test 2 .......................................................................................... 41

5.5.4 Stimuli testing - Quantitative pre-test ................................................................ 43

5.5.5 Quantitative Pre-test questionnaire design ......................................................... 44

5.5.6 Results of quantitative pre-test........................................................................... 47

5.5.7 Final experiment design ..................................................................................... 52

5.5.8 Experiment procedure ........................................................................................ 53

5.6 Results ....................................................................................................................... 54

5.6.1 Test for sufficient brand familiarity ................................................................... 54

5.6.2 Factor analysis ................................................................................................... 55

5.6.3 Reliability analysis ............................................................................................. 58

5.6.4 Dimension reduction - Computing scale means ................................................ 58

5.6.5 Manipulation check ............................................................................................ 59

5.6.6 Hypotheses testing ............................................................................................. 60

5.6.7 Additional analyses ............................................................................................ 62

5.7 Discussion ................................................................................................................. 70

6 Study 2 - Ofman’s model as a brand personality positioning tool ................................... 74

6.1 Conceptual framework and hypotheses..................................................................... 75

6.2 Methodology ............................................................................................................. 79

6.2.1 Choice of brand personalities............................................................................. 79

6.2.2 Choice of product categories ............................................................................. 81

6.2.3 Choice of brand names and pictures .................................................................. 82

6.2.4 Final experiment design ..................................................................................... 82

6.2.5 Choice of communication texts and images ...................................................... 84

6.2.6 Experiment procedure ........................................................................................ 85

6.3 Results ....................................................................................................................... 86

6.3.1 Factor analysis ................................................................................................... 86

6.3.2 Reliability analysis ............................................................................................. 88

6.3.3 Dimension reduction - Computing scale means ................................................ 89

6.3.4 Manipulation check ............................................................................................ 90

6.3.5 Hypotheses testing ............................................................................................. 94

6.3.6 Additional analyses .......................................................................................... 106

6.4 Discussion ............................................................................................................... 120

6.4.1 Implications of results of Study 2 on results of Study 1 .................................. 120

6.4.2 Discussion of results of study 2 ....................................................................... 121

7 General discussion and implications .............................................................................. 125

7.1 Theoretical implications .......................................................................................... 127

7.1.1 Applicability of new insights to brand personality literature........................... 127

7.1.2 Mastering the Challenge is perhaps not all that important .............................. 127

7.1.3 Brand personality as a component of associative network .............................. 129

7.2 Managerial implications .......................................................................................... 131

8 Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 134

8.1 Summary ................................................................................................................. 134

8.2 Answer to the problem statement ............................................................................ 135

8.3 Limitations, recommendations, and directions for further research ........................ 136

References

Appendix 1- Qualitative pre-test 1 results

Appendix 2 - Qualitative pre-test 2 results

Appendix 3- Quantitative pre-test questionnaire versions 1 - 6

Appendix 4 - Study 1 Questionnaire

Appendix 5 - Correlation matrices (Study 1)

Appendix 6 - Study 2 experiment set-up


Appendix 8 - SPSS outputs of main analyses (Study 1)


List of Tables

Table 1: Core Quadrant of the personality traits for pre-test 1 ................................................ 39

Table 2: Core Quadrant of "Sympathetic" personality ............................................................ 42

Table 3: Core Quadrants for the personalities in Quantitative pre-test ................................... 44

Table 4: Input for Quantitative pre-test phase ......................................................................... 45

Table 5: Multi-items for Core Quality traits - Quantitative pre-test ........................................ 46

Table 6: Multi-items for Pitfall traits - Quantitative pre-test ................................................... 46

Table 7: Means and std. deviations for stimuli brands - Quantitative pre-test ........................ 48

Table 8: Final stimuli Study 1 .................................................................................................. 51

Table 9: One sample T-test against 4 on mean familiarity ratings .......................................... 55

Table 10: Rotated component table and factor loadings - Exciting ......................................... 56

Table 11: Rotated component table and factor loadings - Rugged .......................................... 57

Table 12: Rotated component table and factor loadings - Competent ..................................... 57

Table 13: Reliability analysis of all Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge items ..................... 58

Table 14: One sample t-test against 4 on Core Quality ........................................................... 60

Table 15: One sample t-test against 4 on Pitfall ...................................................................... 60

Table 16: One sample t-test against 4 on Challenge ................................................................ 60

Table 17: Regression table for 'exciting' brand personality ..................................................... 61

Table 18: Regression table for 'rugged' brand personality ....................................................... 61

Table 19: Regression table for 'competent' brand personality ................................................. 62

Table 20: Mean Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores of the 'exciting' brands ............. 65

Table 21: Mean Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores of the 'rugged' brands ............... 65

Table 22: Mean Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores of the 'competent' brands .......... 66

Table 23: Mean brand attitude scores of all brands shown by personality type ...................... 69

Table 24: Final experiment design - Study 2 ........................................................................... 83

Table 25: Rotated component table and factor loadings - ‘Confidence’ brand personality .... 87

Table 26: Rotated component table and factor loadings - ‘Excitement’ brand personality ..... 87

Table 27: Rotated component table and factor loadings - ‘Excitement’ brand personality ..... 88

Table 28: Reliability analyses - Brand attitude ........................................................................ 89

Table 29: Reliability analyses - Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge items (Confidence brand

personality) .............................................................................................................................. 89

Table 30: Reliability analyses - Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge items (Excitement brand

personality) .............................................................................................................................. 89

Table 31: Mean scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge - Confident brand personality

.................................................................................................................................................. 90

Table 32: Mean scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge - Excitement brand personality

.................................................................................................................................................. 90

Table 33: One sample t-test against 4 on Core Quality ........................................................... 91

Table 34: One sample t-test against 4 on Pitfall ...................................................................... 91

Table 35: One sample t-test against 4 on Challenge ................................................................ 91

Table 36: Mean scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scenarios on Core Quality,

Pitfall, and Challenge - Confidence brand personality ............................................................ 93

Table 37: Mean scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scenarios on Core Quality,

Pitfall, and Challenge - Excitement brand personality ............................................................ 94

Table 38: All within- and between-subjects variables, and their various interactions ............ 95

Table 39: Mean Scores on Brand attitude - Confidence brand personality ............................. 95

Table 40: Mean Scores on Brand attitude - Exciting brand personality .................................. 96

Table 41: Mean Scores on Core Quality - Confidence brand personality ............................. 112

Table 42: Mean Scores on Core Quality - Excitement brand personality ............................. 112

Table 43: Mean Scores on Pitfall - Confidence brand personality ........................................ 115

Table 44: Mean Scores on Pitfall - Excitement brand personality ........................................ 115

Table 45: Mean Scores on Brand attitude - Confidence brand personality ........................... 118

Table 46: Mean Scores on Brand attitude - Excitement brand personality ........................... 118

Table 47: Means, Standard deviations, and Correlations (Brand personality Exciting) .......... 53

Table 48: Means, Standard deviations, and Correlations (Brand personality Rugged) ........... 53

Table 49: Means, Standard deviations, and Correlations (Brand personality Competent) ...... 53

List of Figures

Figure 1: Ads of different brands communicating distinctive personalities; Image source:

(images.google.com, 2015) ........................................................................................................ 1

Figure 2: Example of Anthropomorphism - According to her owner, this car has beautiful

eyes ............................................................................................................................................ 1

Figure 3: Maslow's hierarchy of needs model; Source: (Maslow, 1943) ................................ 25

Figure 4: The Enneagram model; Image source: (Kale & Shrivastava, 2003) ........................ 26

Figure 5: Ofman's Core Quadrant; Source: (Ofman, 2001) ..................................................... 27

Figure 6: Core Quadrant of the personality "Confidence"; Source: (Ofman, 2001) ................ 29

Figure 7: Study 1: Conceptual framework ............................................................................... 37

Figure 8: Mean Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores of the 'exciting' brands .............. 65

Figure 9: Mean Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores of the 'rugged' brands ................ 66

Figure 10: Mean Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores of the 'competent' brands ........ 66

Figure 11: Mean brand attitude scores of all brands shown by personality type ..................... 69

Figure 12: Study 2: Conceptual framework ............................................................................. 78

Figure 13: Mean scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scenarios on Core Quality,


Figure 14: Mean scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scenarios on Core Quality,


Figure 15: ANOVA plots confident brand personality ............................................................ 97

Figure 16: ANOVA plots exciting brand personality .............................................................. 97

Figure 17: ANOVA plots confident brand personality ............................................................ 99

Figure 18: ANOVA plots excitement brand personality ......................................................... 99

Figure 19: ANOVA plots confident brand personality .......................................................... 101

Figure 20: ANOVA plots excitement brand personality ....................................................... 101















Figure 35: Plot of mean brand attitude scores vs. scenario type for both brand personalities

................................................................................................................................................ 119

Figure 36: Harley Davidson's communication messages showing perhaps too much

"Ruggedness"; image source: (images.google.com, 2015) .................................................... 130

file:///C:/PERSONAL/UVA/Courses/BLOCK%203/Thesis/JUNE%2029%20FINAL%20VERSION%20TO%20SUBMIT/Rajpal,%20Rahul%2010854304%20MSc%20BA.docx%23_Toc423333689































Figure 37: Harley Davidson has been able to foster tremendous brand loyalty and community

engagement over several years; image source: (images.google.com, 2015) ......................... 130

Figure 38: A comparison of the communication messages of Dayton and Timberland; image

source: (images.google.com, 2015) ....................................................................................... 132





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1 Introduction

1.1 Brands are alive, brands add meaning to our lives

Consider Apple’s “I’m a MAC and I’m a PC” series of advertisements, or advertisements for

Pillsbury dough, Mr. Muscle power cleaner, and M&M’s candy. What is common in these

advertisements, and why have they been so hugely appealing to consumers?

By either incorporating real people

(Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads), or animated

characters (Pillsbury, Mr. Muscle,

M&M’s) to represent the brands, these

advertisements have endowed their

respective brands with distinctive

personalities, making them come alive.

For e.g. in Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads, PC

has been demonstrated as possessing a

traditional, formal, boring, and rather

awkward personality, while Mac has

been represented as possessing a casual,

fun, informal, hip, and cool personality.

Such personification techniques have been extremely effective in appealing to

consumers, and therefore a key advertising strategy for many firms. It has been suggested that

people seek to form close relationships with brands, and brands can

serve as a relationship partner if they are able to behave as an active

member in the consumer-brand relationship, i.e. if they are able to

reciprocate and respond to consumers (Fournier, 1998). This

tendency of people to form relationships with brands stems from a

phenomenon termed anthropomorphism - people’s tendency to see

inanimate objects as possessing human-like characteristics

(Aggarwal & McGill, 2007). Some other examples of

anthropomorphism include naming objects of personal possession

like cars, bikes, houses, etc. Figure 2: Example of Anthropomorphism -

According to her owner, this car has beautiful

eyes

Figure 1: Ads of different brands

communicating distinctive personalities; Image

source: (images.google.com, 2015)

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It therefore appears as though brands are not considered as merely inanimate constructs

that lack vitality and are meant to differentiate companies and their products, but rather as

living beings with distinct human-like personality traits. Consumers widely seek to form

relationships with brands, and feel that brands can add meaning to their lives (Fournier,

1998).

1.1.1 Research topic - Brand personality

As mentioned above, the notion that brands seem to possess distinct human-like personality

traits and characteristics has long existed in marketing and branding literature. “If the brand

were to come alive as a person, what would it be like? What would it do? Where would it

live? What would it wear? Who would it talk to if it went to a party (and what would it talk

about)?” (Keller & Richey, 2006, p. 74). These are some of the most commonly asked set of

questions when determining the personality traits associated with a brand.

While brand personality as a construct had existed in marketing, branding, and

advertising literature, it’s importance was highlighted when Jennifer Aaker formally defined

the term as “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand” (J. L. Aaker, 1997, p.

347), developed the five dimensions of brand personality, namely - Sincerely, Excitement,

Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness (Aaker, 1997). Currently, much of the existing

body of brand personality research stands at the crossroads of four main sub-categories.

Azoulay (2005) identified three of these sub-domains as - development of scales and

dimensions to measure a brand’s personality, studying the consequences and impact of a

brand’s personality on consumers’ behavior towards the brand, and understanding the extent

to which congruence between a brand’s and consumers’ personality influences their brand

choice (Azoulay, 2005). However, besides the three sub-domains identified by Azoulay

(2005), another sub-stream of literature in brand personality research involves studying the

antecedents and sources of a brand’s personality (J. L. Aaker, 1997; Eisend & Stokburger-

Sauer, 2013; Grohmann, 2009; Maehle & Supphellen, 2011).

While all these existing sub-streams of research in brand personality literature have

added tremendous value and greatly advanced this construct until now, they have also

somewhat limited the scope of brand personality research, since most of the work done on

this construct has not been able to venture outside the boundaries created by these sub-

streams.

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1.1.2 Research gap in brand personality literature

Existing literature has paid significant attention to how consumers perceive a firm’s brand

personality; however, how a firm actually intends its brand personality to be perceived by the

consumers (i.e. a strategic perspective) has largely been neglected (Malär, Nyffenegger,

Krohmer, & Hoyer, 2012). In their research, Malär et al. (2012) have underscored the

relevance of a strategic perspective on brand personality research by pointing out that a

successfully implemented brand personality can positively affect consumers’ loyalty towards

the brand, and hence the firm’s market share. However, one of the limitations of Malär et al’s

research is that it does not point out how consumers process, and react to the different ways

in which a firm communicates its brand and intended personality (Malär et al., 2012).

Moreover, no clear principles exist yet in brand personality research for strategically

positioning a firm’s intended brand personality such that it occupies a desired or favorable

position in consumers’ minds. While several ideas and principles exist for positioning an

organization’s brands, in general (Keller, 2013; Keller, Sternthal, & Tybout, 2002), such

ideas have not been carried over to brand personality research to explore whether a firm can

position its brand personality similar to how it can position its brand. This research therefore

intends to fill these two gaps by developing a framework which studies differences in

consumers’ perception of a firm’s brand personality, depending on how it is communicated

by the firm, thereby allowing brands to frame their personality messages effectively. For this

purpose, this research simultaneously considers both a consumer behavior, as well as a

strategic perspective on brand personality.

Besides the above mentioned two gaps in the literature, another surprising trend to be

noted in brand personality research is that barring Aaker’s research on the development of

brand personality scale that incorporated insights from (human) personality psychology

research (J. L. Aaker, 1997), subsequent literature on brand personality has not incorporated

any new insights from other domains. This comes as a surprise, since brands have since been

widely acknowledged as being anthropomorphized and possessing human-like

characteristics. If this is really the case, then a wide body of literature exists in the field of

personal and organizational development that might possibly endow brand personality

research with relevant insights, and further solidify the parallel drawn between brands and

humans.

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One such tool that has been developed in personal and organizational development

literature is the Core Quadrant (Ofman, 2001), which highlights the importance of

understanding one’s Core qualities, Pitfalls, Challenges, and Allergies. The essence of this

model is to enable people to discover their own, as well as others’ strengths and challenges,

and learn from the people they dislike the most (Ofman, 2001). With a slightly different

interpretation however, this tool could also be used as a self-presentation tool, making people

aware of how they could present their unique and positive personality trait (core quality) to

others by having the right ‘balance’ of certain personality traits. Consider for example a

person with a Core Quality of ‘confidence’. This person might very easily be perceived by

others as being ‘arrogant’ (his/her Pitfall) if he/she doesn’t seem to balance the quality of

confidence with ‘modesty’ (his/her Challenge). Could such an idea be extended to brands?

Do brands, like humans, need to strike the right balance between certain personality traits to

be perceived positively by consumers? Such ideas will be explored in this research in detail.

1.2 Problem definition

The objective of this research is two-fold. The first objective is to fill the existing two gaps in

brand personality literature - regarding the lack of knowledge on how consumers process, and

react to the different ways in which a firm communicates its brand and intended personality,

and regarding the absence of ideas and principles for strategically positioning an intended

brand personality. A second objective of this research is to advance, and broaden the scope of

the existing brand personality research beyond its existing boundaries by interweaving and

applying principles from domains that have previously not been considered in brand

personality literature, namely - personal & organizational development, and strategic brand

positioning. For this purpose, the following problem statement has been developed.

1.2.1 Problem statement

How can principles from personal & organizational development, and brand

positioning literature guide effective positioning of a firm’s intended brand

personality in its consumers’ minds?

1.2.2 Sub-questions

The problem statement can be split into the following sub-questions:

How can a parallel be drawn between the literature on personal & organizational

development and brand positioning?

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How can these insights from the two above mentioned domains be collectively

applied to brand personality literature in order to guide a strategic positioning of brand

personality?

How do consumers process, and react to the different ways in which a firm

communicates its brand and intended personality?

How can consumers’ attitudes towards the brands be influenced depending on the

manner in which brands communicate their personality traits?

1.2.3 Delimitations of the study

The purpose of this research is not to suggest incremental improvements in the existing body

of brand personality research, but to try to add substantial value to it by incorporating new

insights from literature domains such as personal and organizational development, and brand

positioning. Personal and organizational development is a domain which explains how both

human beings and organizations can develop and improve themselves, so that they can realize

their true potential. Being previously unconsidered in brand personality research, such

literature might provide a fresh perspective to this domain, and further solidify the parallel

drawn between brands and humans.

Moreover, while a key aim of this research is to enable strategic positioning of firms’

intended brand personality, it does not intend to develop new principles for this purpose. It

merely intends to interweave and apply existing insights from brand positioning literature,

which has previously not been incorporated in brand personality research. Another point

worth noting is that this research does not try to explain how firms can create a (strong) brand

personality in the first place, since the focus is on positioning an existing brand personality.

Also, no new brand personality scales or dimensions will be developed for the purpose of

conducting this research, but existing scales or dimensions from prior brand personality

research will be used and applied.

1.3 Contribution

1.3.1 Theoretical contributions

The intended theoretical contribution of this research is two-fold - Firstly, this research

intends to fill the existing gaps in brand personality literature regarding the lack of knowledge

on how consumers process, and react to the different ways in which a firm communicates its

brand and intended personality, and regarding the absence of principles for strategically

positioning a firm’s intended brand personality. Secondly, this research intends to advance,

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and broaden the scope of the existing brand personality literature beyond its existing

boundaries by interweaving and applying principles from domains that have previously not

been incorporated in brand personality literature, namely - organizational and personal

development, and strategic brand positioning. Personal and organizational development

domain explains how both human beings and organizations can develop and improve

themselves, and strategic brand positioning domain explains how firms can position their

brands. Therefore, such literature might further solidify the parallel drawn between brands

and humans, and endow the existing brand personality research with relevant insights.

1.3.2 Managerial contributions

The primary managerial contribution of this research is to enable firms to effectively position

their brand personality, such that it occupies an intended or favorable position in the minds of

their consumers which ultimately leads to positive attitude towards the brand. Prior brand

personality research has pointed out numerous advantages of brand personality for firms,

such as direct and indirect consequences on various dimensions such as trust, attachment,

commitment, attitude, and affect towards the brand (Eisend & Stokburger-Sauer, 2013; Louis

& Lombart, 2010; Sung & Kim, 2010). Also, being uniquely associated with a brand, its

personality can be an effective means of differentiation from competitors, and therefore a

source of competitive advantage for the firm (Siguaw, Mattila, & Austin, 1999).

Furthermore, research on congruence of brand’s and consumers’ personalities has

demonstrated that consumers often choose brands with similar personalities to theirs across

various products (Lin & Huang, 2012). Therefore, a successfully implemented brand

personality - such that the firm’s consumers perceive the brand personality similar to what is

intended by the firm can positively affect consumers’ loyalty towards the brand, and hence

the firm’s market share (Malär et al., 2012). Ultimately, a well-communicated brand

personality to the consumers by the firm can foster personal relevance to the consumers,

enabling formation of close relationships with the brand, and hence stimulating Brand

Resonance (Keller, 2001).

1.4 Structure of the thesis

The research will begin with reviewing the existing body of literature on Brand personality

(Chapter 2), since this construct is the central theme around which this research is organized.

Since the existing brand personality research lacks clear principles of strategic positioning of

a firm’s brand personality as pointed out above, literature on the topic of Brand positioning

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will be reviewed in the subsequent chapter (Chapter 3). Furthermore, in order to help further

strengthen the parallel drawn between brands and humans, Chapter 4 will review the

literature on Personal and organizational development, exploring ideas and insights from this

domain that might endow brand personality literature with useful insights. Following the

literature review, the research will continue with the first study (Chapter 5), which aims to

test the applicability of the insights from the domains of personal and organizational

development and brand positioning to the broader domain of brand personality. Following

this initial study, a second study (Chapter 6) will then aim to explain how the combination of

the above mentioned insights can guide effective positioning of a firm’s intended brand

personality in consumers’ minds. Collectively, Chapter 5 and 6 will aim to answer the

research question and sub-questions that have been presented in the paragraphs above.

Finally, the research will be concluded with General discussion and implications (Chapter 7)

and Conclusions (Chapter 8).

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2 Brand personality

Chances are that when the word “personality” is mentioned in any conversation, one would

quickly assume that the subject of the conversation is a human being. Although, it is well

known that all human beings possess individual personality traits, such traits are not

exclusive to us humans. Inanimate objects can also be associated with distinct personality

traits; in fact, it is well acknowledged that people have a tendency to see inanimate objects as

possessing human-like characteristics - a phenomenon termed anthropomorphism (Aggarwal

& McGill, 2007). Anthropomorphism can explain why some people tend to name objects of

personal possession such as cars, bikes, houses, etc.

From a marketing perspective, one such an inanimate construct that has been widely

anthropomorphized over the last several decades has been brands. Whether it be

advertisements demonstrating brands as real people (e.g. Apple’s “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC”

ads), or as animated characters (e.g. Pillsbury, Mr. Muscle or M&M’s ads), or whether it be

marketing, branding and advertising literature, brands have long been acknowledged to

possess distinctive personality traits, as if they were alive.

2.1 Conception of, and early research on brand personality

The concept of brand personality was conceived as early as 1955, when Gardner and Levy

acknowledged the importance of the image, character, and personality that get associated

with brands resulting from the firm’s advertising communication activities, and advocated

that a brand be conceived as more than simply a means to differentiate among the producers

of products (Gardner & Levy, 1955). Research on brand personality has also been done in

advertising. Plummer (1984), for example, pointed out that a firm can benefit by

communicating its brand’s personality to its consumers, enabling them to “see the brand in

themselves”, or “see themselves in the brand” (Plummer, 1984, p. 81). Plummer also noted

that a brand personality consists of two “faces”, called “Brand personality statement” - how

the firm wants its consumers to perceive its brand, and “Brand personality profiles” - how the

consumers actually perceive the brand (Plummer, 1984, p. 80). Furthermore, Keller (1993)

described brand personality as an attribute originating from user and usage imagery

attributes, and highlighted its role in consumers’ self-expression. It is also addressed how

brand personality attributes “reflect emotions or feelings evoked by the brand” by means of

the associations that get attributed with the brand (Keller, 1993, p. 4). This self-expressive

function of brand personality was also brought to attention earlier by (Belk, 1988), who

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described that the personality or image of a brand can enable consumers to express

themselves.

2.2 The first brand personality scale

While the early research on brand personality in marketing, branding, and advertising

literature brought about attention to the construct and underscored its importance, much of

this literature either used the construct interchangeably with, or embedded it within the wider

concept of brand image or user/usage image (Gardner & Levy, 1955; Keller, 1993; Plummer,

1984). Moreover, this early stream of literature also lacked a consensus on a clear definition

of the construct, and its actual contribution to theory and practice.

The one research that brought about such clear definition of brand personality, along

with its defining dimensions was Aaker’s (J. L. Aaker, 1997). In Aaker’s research, she not

only formally defined the term brand personality as “the set of human characteristics

associated with a brand” (J. L. Aaker, 1997, p. 347), but also developed a framework which

drew a parallel with the so-called “Big five” dimensions of human personality in personality

psychology research (J. L. Aaker, 1997). According to Aaker, consumers perceive that brands

have five distinct personality dimensions, namely - Sincerity, Excitement, Competence,

Sophistication, and Ruggedness. The most important implications of this research were that it

highlighted the necessity of looking at brand personality at the level of its multiple

dimensions, and not at the aggregate level of the construct as a whole.

Aaker’s brand personality scale had been the first of its kind and added great value to

brand personality literature, as many studies have made use of this scale to examine the

antecedents and consequences of brand personality, underscoring both the drivers, and the

direct and indirect impact of brand personality on various dimensions such as trust,

attachment, commitment, attitude, and affect towards the brand (Eisend & Stokburger-Sauer,

2013; Louis & Lombart, 2010; Maehle & Supphellen, 2011; Sung & Kim, 2010). These ideas

will also be explained in the subsequent paragraphs in detail.

2.3 Replication of Aaker’s scale across cultures and product markets

Aaker’s brand personality scale has also served as the basic foundation for replication in

various cultural contexts. For example, Jennifer Aaker, Benet-Martinez, and Garolera (2001)

studied the extent to which the basic dimensions of brand personality, as developed by J. L.

Aaker (1997) for the United States can be generalized across Spanish and Japanese contexts,

and concluded that a set of brand personality dimensions (Sincerety, Excitement, and

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Sophistication) are common to all three countries, while a few other dimensions are culture-

specific (Ruggedness - American, Peacefulness - Japanese, Peacefulness, Passion - Spanish)

(Jennifer Aaker et al., 2001). In the Netherlands, the culture-specific brand personality

dimensions were found to be Gentle, annoying, and distinguishing (Smit, Van den Berge, &

Franzen, 2003), while in Korea, they were found to be Passive likeableness and Ascendancy

(Sung & Tinkham, 2005).

Besides being tested for its applicability across various countries, Aaker’s scale has

also been replicated across product markets and categories. For instance, Sung, Choi, Ahn,

and Song (2015) attempted to test the applicability of this scale to luxury brands in the

fashion, automobile and retail sectors, and found that in addition to the Sincerity, Excitement,

and Sophistication dimensions, three other dimensions, namely - Professionalism,

Attractiveness, and Materialism are uniquely applicable to luxury brands. Moreover, Aaker’s

five brand personality dimensions also proved to be robust in the economy hotel sector (Li,

Yen, & Uysal, 2014).

2.4 Criticism of Aaker’s brand personality scale

Despite its significant contribution to the brand personality literature and widespread

replication in numerous empirical studies across different cultures and product-market

contexts, Aaker’s scale has not remained free from criticism. The major criticism came from

Azoulay and Kapferer (2003), who first of all questioned Aaker’s “loose” and “broad”

definition of the construct of brand personality. According to them, including the term

‘human characteristics’ in the definition of brand personality may mean that brands can be

attributed with any and all human attributes, including non-physical ones such as inner

values, intellectual abilities, physical traits, social class, gender, etc. - attributes which have

even been excluded from the human personality definition and scales in psychology

literature, from which Aaker derived the idea of brand personality dimensions in the first

place (Azoulay & Kapferer, 2003, p. 150). Consequently, they proposed a new, stricter

definition of brand personality as “the set of human personality traits that are both applicable

to and relevant for brands” (Azoulay & Kapferer, 2003, p. 151).

Secondly, Azoulay and Kapferer questioned the validity of Aaker’s scale, arguing that

the scale does not actually measure brand personality, but in fact measures attributes of brand

identity and even product performance, since asking people to describe the personality traits

they would normally associate with a particular brand would result in people naming the

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brands best associated with their product categories (E.g. considering Energy drink brands as

possessing Energetic personality, and Electronic equipment as possessing Up-to-date

personality traits) (Azoulay & Kapferer, 2003, p. 153). Moreover, Azoulay and Kapferer

(2003) argue that such a method can enforce people in naming brands for which they possess

typical user or usage imagery associations - which are characteristics of brand identity - and

not brand personality.

With their criticisms of Aaker’s existing brand personality scale, Azoulay and Kapferer

(2003) brought up some very important points for brand personality researchers to consider

when replicating this scale in their empirical studies. Moreover, their newly proposed, more

apt definition of brand personality led to further clarification of the construct. However, these

criticisms and conceptual clarifications of Azoulay and Kapferer (2003) did not suggest ways

for, or lead to any immediate improvements in the methodology or measurement techniques

of brand personality dimensions. It was only until recently that a new brand personality scale

was developed by Geuens, Weijters, and De Wulf (2009) based on the definition of brand

personality which Azoulay and Kapferer (2003) proposed.

2.5 Development of new brand personality scale

Acknowledging the rising criticism of Aaker’s scale in brand personality literature, Geuens et

al. (2009) developed a new brand personality scale consisting strictly of personality items

based on Azoulay and Kapferer’s definition of brand personality. According to their study,

the new dimensions of brand personality are - Activity, Responsibility, Aggressiveness,

Simplicity, and Emotionality (Geuens et al., 2009).

While only three of Aaker’s five brand personality dimensions related to the “Big

five” dimensions of human personality - for Sincerity (similar to

Agreeableness/Conscientiousness), Excitement (similar to Extraversion), and Competence

(similar to Conscientiousness/Extraversion) dimensions, the brand personality scale

developed by Geuens et al. (2009) had a five-factor structure similar to the “Big five” human

personality dimensions (Geuens et al., 2009). Moreover, this scale also tested its reliability

and validity rigorously, such that it can be used for studies across multiple brands of different

product categories, or within a specific product category, on the level of an individual brand,

or for studies across different cultural contexts - something which Aaker’s scale had only

partly been able to do (Geuens et al., 2009).

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2.6 Brand personality research - as it currently stands

Besides development of brand personality scales, there exist three other major sub-streams of

research in the field of brand personality research, as mentioned below. The first two of these

have been previously recognized by Azoulay (2005), however, the last has recently regained

the attention of brand personality researchers.

Understanding the extent to which congruence between a brand’s personality and that

of consumers’ influences their brand choice

Studying the consequences and impact of brand personality on consumers’ behavior

towards the brand

Studying the antecedents and drivers of brand personality.

Subsequent paragraphs will briefly describe the developments in each of these sub-streams.

2.7 Antecedents or drivers of brand personality

Of the four sub-streams of literature on brand personality mentioned above, the one that has

received relatively little attention has been studying the antecedents or sources of brand

personality - i.e. what gives rise to a brand’s personality or its certain dimensions.

While proposing the dimensions of brand personality, Aaker herself pointed out a few

sources or drivers of brand personality in the form of consumers’ user imagery associations,

companies’ CEOs, endorsers, or spokespeople, typical users of a brand, or even product-

related attributes, brand logos, advertising styles, etc. (J. L. Aaker, 1997). However, research

on examining the antecedents of brand personality had been quite limited in the literature,

especially since much attention has been to three sub-streams of brand personality.

Nevertheless, a few studies have made importance contributions in this field by examining

whether or not introduction of brand extensions has any effect on brand personality

(Diamantopoulos, Smith, & Grime, 2005), and studying the effect of gender of a brand

spokesperson on the gender dimensions of brand personality (Grohmann, 2009), effects of

user imagery and price on certain dimensions of brand personality (Lee & Back, 2010), and

effects of advertising with hedonic benefit claims, branding, country of origin, and self-brand

congruent consumer personality (Eisend & Stokburger-Sauer, 2013).

Moreover, Maehle and Supphellen (2011) provided an important contribution towards

this end by studying the impact of various sources on different dimensions of brand

personality. They concluded that various sources affect the different dimensions of brand

personality separately, thereby reiterating Aaker’s conclusion that brand managers should

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focus on specific dimensions of brand personality, rather than the aggregate construct (J. L.

Aaker, 1997; Maehle & Supphellen, 2011).

2.8 Consequences and impact of brand personality

This sub-stream of research in brand personality literature, which deals with studying the

importance of brand personality, has received significant attention in the brand personality

literature. In fact, it has existed since even before Aaker’s seminal work in the field. The

early contribution in this field came from Belk, who underscored the self-expressive benefit

of the personality or image of a brand for consumers (Belk, 1988). Moreover, D. A. Aaker

(1996) brought to attention the role of brand personality in evaluating brand equity over

products and markets, and in serving as a basis for customer/brand relationships and

differentiation (D. A. Aaker, 1996).

However, more concrete research on studying the consequences of brand personality on

consumers’ behavior towards the brand was carried out after the work of J. L. Aaker (1997).

The first of such studies was the one by Kim, Han, and Park (2001), in which they concluded

that attractiveness of the brand personality directly affects positive word-of-mouth reports

and indirectly affects loyalty towards the brand (Kim et al., 2001).

More recently, there have been several other studies which have shown both direct and

indirect consequences of brand personality on various dimensions. For example, brand

personality has been concluded to have an impact on attitude towards the brand, enhancing

commitment to the brand, stimulating positive brand image, and facilitating purchase

intentions (Eisend & Stokburger-Sauer, 2013). Similarly, brand personality has also been

found to have an impact on facilitating trust, attachment, and commitment towards the brand

(Louis & Lombart, 2010). Moreover, brand personality can also increase trust in the brand,

evoke brand affect, thereby stimulating loyalty for the brand (Sung & Kim, 2010).

2.9 Congruence of consumer and brand personality

This sub-stream of research in brand personality literature deals with exploring the effects of

congruence between a brand’s and consumers’ personality on consumers’ brand choice

(Azoulay, 2005). The early research in this field came from Jennifer Aaker (1999), who

concluded that congruence between consumers’ and brands’ personality can have an impact

on consumers’ brand preferences, however, such an impact is situation-specific. In situations

where consumers are able to express themselves and their self-concept through the use of

brands better, brand personality can positively influence consumers’ attitude towards the

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brand (Jennifer Aaker, 1999). The research by Phau and Lau (2001), although having a

slightly different line of reasoning to Aaker’s research, drew very similar conclusions. They

concluded that consumers’ preference levels for a given brand actually play a significant role

in determining how they perceive the brand’s personality. If consumers strongly prefer a

particular brand, then their actual, ideal, or desired personality traits influence the perception

of the brand’s personality, again bringing to attention how brand personality is often used as a

means by consumers to express their own individual personality, either actual, or desire

(Phau & Lau, 2001).

Moreover, Mulyanegara, Tsarenko, and Anderson (2009) found that consumers with

specific personality traits prefer brands with certain brand personality dimensions. For

instance, consumers with Conscientious personality trait prefer brands with personality traits

associated with trust to reflect their reliable personality traits; similarly, Extroverts prefer

sociable brands to reflect their outgoing nature (Mulyanegara et al., 2009). Furthermore, they

concluded that preference of brands to reflect self-expressive personality traits is stronger for

male consumers than female consumers (Mulyanegara et al., 2009).

2.10 Gap in brand personality literature

Existing literature has paid significant attention to how consumers perceive a firm’s brand

personality; however, how a firm actually intends its brand personality to be perceived by the

consumers (i.e. a strategic perspective) has largely been neglected (Malär et al., 2012). In

their research, Malär et al. (2012) have underscored the relevance of a strategic perspective

on brand personality research by pointing out that a successfully implemented brand

personality can positively affect consumers’ loyalty towards the brand, and hence the firm’s

market share. They conclude that a brand personality is successfully implemented if the

firm’s consumers perceive the brand personality similar to what is intended by the firm - i.e. a

strong fit exists between a firm’s intended and realized brand personality. To this end, they

highlight five antecedents that can create such a fit - singularity of the brand’s personality

profile, competitive differentiation of the brand, credibility of brand-related communication

activities, product involvement, and prior brand attitude (Malär et al., 2012).

However, one of the limitations of Malär et al’s research is that it does not point out

how consumers process, and react to the different ways in which a firm communicates its

brand and intended personality (Malär et al., 2012). Moreover, no clear principles exist yet in

brand personality research for strategically positioning a firm’s intended brand personality

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such that it occupies a desired or favorable position in consumers’ minds. While several ideas

and principles exist for positioning an organization’s brands in general (Keller, 2013; Keller

et al., 2002), such ideas have not been carried over to brand personality research to explore

whether a firm can position its brand personality similar to how it can position its brand.

2.11 Place of this research in brand personality literature

Since the development of Aaker’s brand personality scale, most follow-up research on the

construct of brand personality in its various sub-streams has tried to fill existing gaps in the

literature. There is no doubt about the fact that the contributions of all these studies have been

extremely valuable to brand personality literature, and have advanced the construct to a great

degree until now. However, most of these studies can be considered as incremental

improvements in the existing body of research, that have been unable to venture outside the

boundaries created by the existing sub-streams of research. This has inevitably made brand

personality research repetitive and ever so slightly monotonous. Somewhere along the line

since Aaker’s research, the construct of brand personality seems to have lost its core idea -

i.e. the parallel drawn between brands and humans. Too often, studies have analyzed the

construct and its definition with strict, skeptical eyes. Borrowing insights from the domain of

(human) personality psychology research, a major contribution of Aaker’s research in

developing the brand personality scale was to establish a parallel between brands and humans

(J. L. Aaker, 1997). It is hence quite surprising that most follow-up studies have not made

efforts to take this parallel a step further, or to solidify this parallel.

If brands have been widely acknowledged as being anthropomorphized and

possessing human-like characteristics, then a wide body of literature existing in the field of

personal and organizational development might possibly endow brand personality research

with fresh and relevant insights. This might enable brand personality researchers to venture

outside the restrictive boundaries in the current literature. Therefore, besides the intention of

filling the existing two gaps in brand personality literature - firstly regarding the lack of

knowledge on how consumers process, and react to the different ways in which a firm

communicates its brand and intended personality, and secondly regarding the absence of

ideas and principles for strategically positioning an intended brand personality, this research

seeks to advance, and broaden the scope of the existing brand personality research by

interweaving and applying principles from domains that have not been incorporated so far in

brand personality literature, namely - personal & organizational development, and strategic

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brand positioning. Subsequent chapters will provide a detailed literature review on these two

domains.

3 Brand positioning

3.1 What is ‘positioning’?

In the context of branding, the term ‘positioning’ has had slightly different connotations in

different streams of literature. D. A. Aaker and Shansby (1982) consider positioning as an

‘impression’ which results from the combination of many different associations that the firm

brings together, and argue that positioning very often requires the use of competitors as a

‘frame of reference’. Keller describes positioning as a brand’s unique selling proposition that

gives the customers a compelling reason to choose a particular brand, thereby providing the

brand with a sustainable competitive advantage (Keller, 1993). Keller and Lehman describe

brand positioning as a means to establish key brand associations in the consumers’ minds in

order to differentiate the brand from competitors and attain competitive superiority or

advantage (Keller & Lehmann, 2006). A more recent and perhaps more complete definition

of positioning has been given by Kotler, Keller, Ancarani, and Costabile (2014), who define

‘Positioning’ as “the act of designing a company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive

place in the minds of the target market, with the goal of locating the brand in the minds of

consumers to maximize the potential benefit to the firm” (Kotler et al., 2014, p. 276).

With all these different connotations of brand positioning, it becomes quite apparent

that there is no single universal definition available for the construct of brand positioning.

However, from all the above mentioned connotations, positioning can be considered as a

strategic move for a brand in order to achieve a unique and intended place in its consumers’

minds so as to be able to differentiate itself from its competitors. The brand positioning

strategy can be considered effective if consumers hold strong, favorable, and unique

associations about the brand in their minds after the positioning strategy has been deployed

by the brand (Keller, 1993, 1999). Subsequent sections will explain such associations and

their role in brand positioning in detail.

3.2 Importance and consequences of brand positioning

Aaker and Shansby underscore the positioning decision as a crucial strategic decision for a

company or brand since the position can be central to customers' perception and choice about

the brand and the firm (D. A. Aaker & Shansby, 1982). Positioning is also considered quite

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important for a firm, as it sets the tone for what the firm or the brand should and should not

do with its marketing activities (Keller & Lehmann, 2006). Moreover, an effective

positioning of a brand is considered a part of the firm’s overall marketing strategy, and helps

communicate the brand’s essence to the consumers, enabling them to achieve their goals in a

unique way (Kotler et al., 2014).

Various studies have pointed out important consequences (both direct and indirect) of

brand positioning on several important variables. A firm’s brand positioning indirectly (via

advertising and communication activities) affects the brand’s desirability and price sensitivity

among consumers (Boulding, Lee, & Staelin, 1994). Moreover, the study by Jewell and

Barone (2007) demonstrated that competitive differentiation achieved by a brand through

within-category or out-of-category comparisons with its competitors as part of a brand

positioning strategy can impact consumers’ attitudes towards the brand. Kalra and Goodstein

(1998) concluded that a positioning strategy can impact the relationship between a firm’s

advertising communications and consumers’ price sensitivity. It can also be noted that a

brand’s positioning strategy affects the favorability, strength, and uniqueness of associations

that customers hold in their minds about the brands, which can impact the brand’s image, and

ultimately the customer-based brand equity of the firm (Keller, 1993). Moreover, Keller

(2000) includes a properly positioned brand as one of the “top ten traits” of the world’s

strongest brands.

3.3 The role of associations in Brand Positioning

Keller defines Brand positioning as being about “creating the optimal location in the minds of

existing and potential customers so that they think of the brand in the right way” (Keller,

1999, p. 44). Such a position can be created in consumers’ minds by establishing certain

associations about the brand.

Brand associations are described by Keller as the associations that are either created

or reinforced in consumers’ minds by the firms' brand positioning activities (Keller, 1999). A

firm’s marketing or positioning strategy can be translated externally (in the form of brand

associations) for its consumers to convey what the brand stands for, and represents (Keller,

1999). Moreover, a firm can achieve customer-based brand equity when the consumers are

familiar with the brand and hold favorable, strong, and unique associations about it in their

memory; the role of such associations is explained in the following paragraph.

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3.4 The importance of differentiation in brand positioning

While in theory it can all sound quite simple for a firm to achieve a unique and intended place

in its consumers’ minds by communicating its brand’s unique points, it is often quite hard to

do so in practice, especially since a firm can (and will) encounter numerous competitors who

are also trying to do so. Therefore, the need to differentiate from competitors plays an

important role in a firm’s ability to position its brand as it intends.

D. A. Aaker and Shansby (1982) highlight that comparison with competitors can

prove to be a good positioning strategy for a firm, since not only can the image of a well-

established competitor provide the firm with a frame of reference, but it can also make the

firm’s customers believe that the firm is better than (or at least as good as) its competitor(s).

Therefore, competitors play a major role in the development of a positioning strategy, which

consists of six steps, namely: identifying both direct and indirect competitors, determining

how the competitors are perceived and evaluated, determining the competitors' positions,

analyzing the customers, selecting the position, and monitor the position (D. A. Aaker &

Shansby, 1982).

However, a firm does not always need to make direct comparisons with competitors

in order to differentiate its brand. It can also communicate its unique points or differences

implicitly without a competitive point of reference (Keller, 1993). Points of Difference (PoD)

are associations that are unique to a brand; these associations are therefore quite important

and should not be ignored by a firm while positioning its brand (Keller, 2013).

As previously highlighted by (Keller, 1993, 1999) , a brand positioning strategy can

be considered effective if consumers hold strong, favorable, and unique associations about

the brand in their minds after the positioning strategy has been deployed by the brand.

Establishing distinguishable points of difference from competitors can enable a brand to

create such associations (Keller et al., 2002).

Strong brand associations are those associations which are triggered easily in

consumers’ minds and come up relatively quickly when compared to other associations in

their associative networks about the brands (Keller, 2013). Of course, not all strong brand

associations are bound to be favorable. There can be several instances where people may

immediately associate a brand with something unfavorable or negative at its very mention.

For instance, even several years after the mishap, many consumers still strongly, yet

unfavorably associate BP with the oil spill disaster. Favorable associations are associations

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that consumers evaluate positively about the brand, and can be established by convincing

customers that the brand is personally relevant to them, able to solve their needs (Keller,

2013). Lastly, unique associations are associations that, as the name suggests, are uniquely

attributable to a brand and not with any other competing brands (Keller, 2013). They are a

brand’s unique points which the brand’s competitors do not, or cannot possess - what Porter

would describe as a brand’s “competitive advantage” (Porter, 1991, p. 101).

Therefore, a brand can successfully be able to differentiate itself from other

competing brands if it is able to achieve strength, favorability, and uniqueness of the

associations that consumers hold regarding the brand in their minds. However, the question

that then arises is how a brand can manage to achieve such favorable, strong, and unique

associations. There are two important criteria in order to ensure that a brand’s point of

difference can result in unique, favorable, and strong associations - “Desirability”, and

“Deliverability” (Keller et al., 2002, pp. 84, 85).

Desirability criteria is met when a firm can ensure that the associations which it wants

its consumers to perceive as PoDs are considered “personally relevant” and “believable” by

consumers - meaning that these PoDs are fundamental in satisfying consumers’ needs, and

consumers can accept that the firm would actually be able to deliver on its claimed benefits

(Keller et al., 2002, p. 84). On the other hand, Deliverability criteria is met when a firm can

ensure that the associations which it wants its consumers to perceive as PoDs are “feasible”,

“profitable”, and “preemptive/defensible” for the firm - meaning that the firm actually

possesses resources to be able to deliver on its promised claims, and that too in a manner

which can generate sufficient profits for the firm, while ensuring that competitors are unable

to imitate such claims (Keller et al., 2002, p. 85).

When a firm is able to ensure that the associations which it wants its consumers to

perceive as PoDs are desirable and deliverable, these associations can become strong,

relevant, and unique to a firm, resulting in a unique and differentiated position for the firm’s

brand (Keller, 2013; Keller et al., 2002). Ultimately, associations that are strong, favorable,

and unique can enable a brand to achieve favorable customer attitudes, thereby establishing

strong relationships with its customers, ultimately leading to the creation of brand resonance

between the brand and customers (Keller, 2001).

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3.5 Is differentiation enough?

While brand positioning has traditionally been concerned with being unique and

differentiating in order to set brands apart from competitors, such PoDs alone are not

sufficient to establish a strong brand position (Keller et al., 2002). Contrary to conventional

approach to brand positioning, it has been argued that there exist two other aspects of

competitive positioning which a firm must consider, namely: Frame of reference - identifying

the target consumers and existing competitors, and Points of Parity (PoP) - The attributes on

which the brand is similar to competitors (Keller, 2013; Keller et al., 2002). These three

elements - PoP, PoD, and frame of reference, are therefore considered as essential tools to

effectively position a brand in consumers’ minds (Keller, 2013). While PoDs have been

described in detail in the previous section, subsequent paragraphs elaborate each of the other

two elements.

A frame of reference is one of the brand positioning tools which when communicated

to the consumers helps create associations in their minds regarding the benefits they can

expect by using the brand, and establish the competitors against which the firm competes to

offer them the products associated with the firm’s brand (Keller, 2013; Keller et al., 2002).

However, before a firm can communicate the frame of reference to the consumers, it must

first be clearly defined. Establishing a frame of reference can be accomplished in two steps:

by identifying and defining the target market (classic segmentation and targeting processes),

and by identifying the competitors which the firm will compete with for its defined target

market (Keller, 2013).

A frame of reference essentially defines the brand’s boundaries of operation (by

defining the relevant customers and competitors), and hence enables the firm to establish the

types of associations which can be considered as its points of parities and points of

differences relative to other brands (Keller, 2013). Moreover, since in many cases, a frame

can be defined by the category of product which the brand offers, establishing a frame of

reference allows a firm to broadly consider its scope of operation and hence consider both

direct as well as indirect competitors as ‘competition’ (Keller, 2013; Keller et al., 2002).

Points of Parity (PoP) are associations that are not necessarily unique to a brand and

might in fact be shared with other brands (Keller, 2013). One of the main purposes of

establishing PoP with other brands is to enable the brand’s target customers to consider the

brand a “legitimate and credible player” within the established frame of reference (Keller et

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al., 2002, p. 82). Such PoP are called “Category points of parity” (Keller, 2013, p. 84). They

can simply be considered as the minimum set of requirements a brand must fulfil to pass

consumers’ test of a brand’s belongingness to a certain product category.

Besides the category PoP, there are two other types of PoP that can be established by

a brand. The first of this type are the “Competitive” PoP, which are designed to negate

competitors PoD (Keller, 2013, p. 84). These can essentially be used by a brand to achieve

parity with competing brands where they are trying to achieve an advantage over it, in order

to stay relevant within the consumers’ frame of reference. The second type of PoP are called

“Correlational” PoP, which are the potentially negative associations about the brand that may

originate as a result of the presence of other more positive PoD associations (Keller, 2013, p.

84). For instance, consumers might easily be convinced that a car brand that is strongly

positioned on “safety” PoD association will probably be “less powerful”, or meals that a

brand offers which are “healthy” will probably be “less tasty” (Keller, 2013, p. 84).

In order to overcome this problem or conflict between the perception of points of

parity and points of difference to the consumers, Keller (2013) suggests that a brand might

not necessarily need to convey points of parity which are exactly the same as competitors,

there is however a “range of tolerance or acceptance” within which the firm’s demonstration

of points of parity are considered acceptable by the consumers (Keller, 2013, p. 84).

Therefore, in order to effectively position a brand in consumers’ minds, a strike of right

balance is required among all three elements (frame of reference, PoP, and PoD) of the brand,

along with a sound consideration of when and what attributes of the brands consumers might

perceive as mutually exclusive (Keller et al., 2002).

Furthermore, Keller et al. (2002) suggest three ways in order for brands to ensure that

the associations that want consumers to have in their minds do not contradict each other - or

become Correlational PoP. The first way they suggest this problem can be rectified is by

“Sequencing” the two seemingly contradictory associations separately in all of the firm’s

communication activities, as consumers are much less likely in this situation to devote time

and psychological resources to connect multiple brand associations (Keller et al., 2002). The

second way to rectify this problem is by providing credibility to the claims from external

sources such as celebrity brand endorsers (Keller et al., 2002). Finally, if possible, Keller et

al. (2002) suggest brands to be able to stand their ground by claiming that the contradictions

are actually complements.

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In today’s world, where each and every brand is seemingly trying hard to

communicate to its consumers how it is different from its competitors, giving considerable

attention to a brand’s frame of reference and points of parity, as suggested by Keller et al.

(2002) might sound counter-intuitive in a firm’s efforts to position its brand effectively

among consumers’ minds. However, the experimental study conducted by Romaniuk and

Gaillard (2007) across 94 brands in eight markets confirms that the presence of unique

associations about a brand is not positively related to stronger brand preference by

consumers. The main implication that emerged from this study was that brands need not

entirely focus on having unique associations, but rather also on satisfying the criteria of

performing well on the general category needs which are deemed as necessary by the

consumers; this builds up a favorable network of associations in consumers’ memory

regarding the brand, and in turn creates unique associations about the brand in consumers’

memory (Romaniuk & Gaillard, 2007). This implication supports the view of Keller et al.

(2002), and Keller (2013) regarding the effective positioning of brands.

Similar conclusions were also made by Romaniuk, Sharp, and Ehrenberg

(2007),whose studies across seventeen markets concluded that consumers do not perceive a

specific brand as being ‘differentiated’ from other brands that they buy unless there is a great

deal of functional difference in the benefits that the brand offers, especially on price and/or

location characteristics. Moreover, despite this lack of perceived consumer ‘differentiation’,

these brands continue to be bought, with many being successful and profitable (Romaniuk et

al., 2007).

Therefore, from Keller’s work on brand positioning and experimental studies

demonstrating the ineffectiveness of differentiation by itself, it can be concluded that besides

the well-known points of difference (PoD), an effective brand positioning requires careful

consideration of a brand’s frame of reference and competitive Points of Parity (PoP)

associations; the need for a brand to be able to generate certain PoP associations in its

consumers’ minds is so compelling that a brand’s PoD may even be rendered irrelevant by

consumers if it has not demonstrated a certain level of PoP to its consumers (Keller, 2013;

Keller et al., 2002; Romaniuk & Gaillard, 2007; Romaniuk et al., 2007).

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4 Personal and organizational development

4.1 Personal development

In its broadest sense, Personal development can be seen as a tool that enables human beings

to develop themselves and improve their personalities so that they can realize their true

potential in life (Rich, 2010). Personal development can therefore simply be described as the

act of learning about self, usually through the process of self-reflection which usually leads to

self-improvement and self-development.

This process of self-improvement usually begins with the identification of one’s

personality and its various dominant traits, usually leading to the identification of one’s

unique strengths and weaknesses. Once identified, the person’s ultimate goal should be to

improve their strengths and minimize their weaknesses, thereby enabling them to lead a

happy and fulfilling life (Rich, 2010).

4.2 Organizational development

The principle of organizational development involves a set of theories, strategies, and

techniques targeted at bringing organizational change through change in the behavior and

practices of individual members of the organization (Porras & Silvers, 1991).

Ultimately, organizational development aims to bring about a better fit between the

organization's capabilities and its environmental demands by creating organizational change

(Porras & Silvers, 1991).

In this aspect, Organizational development can be considered as a similar tool to

personal development, the difference being that the former is applied to benefit the

organization as a whole rather than an individual. Furthermore, both organizational and

personal development involve the process of learning that is undertaken by humans - on a

collective level in case of the former while on a personal level in case of the latter.

While the ultimate aim of Organizational development is to bring about change, it is

worth pointing out, however, that the principle is not the same as ‘Change Management’.

Woren, Ruddle, and Moore (1999) make a clear distinction between Organizational

development and change management in that while the former focuses primarily on changing

human processes in order to bring about organizational change, the latter focuses on both

human processes as well as structure and systems of the organization. Change management is

therefore driven by, and linked to strategy of the organization, while organizational

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development not directly so (Woren et al., 1999). Subsequent paragraphs will discuss some

models of personal and organizational development in detail.

4.3 Models of personal and organizational development

4.3.1 Trait-based approach to human personality

It has been long argued by various personality theorists that there exists a multi-level,

hierarchical structure of human personality (Cattell & Mead, 2008) . This idea led to the

observation and grouping of several thousands of human personality traits in the early years

of human personality research (Goldberg, 1990). Later, these personality traits were narrowed

down by Raymond Cattell into sixteen major personality traits by a factor analysis (Cattell &

Mead, 2008), and ultimately as they are widely accepted today, into the 5 major “big five”

human personality traits (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to experience, Agreeableness,

and Conscientiousness), each with their individual sub-traits (Costa & McCrae, 1992;

Goldberg, 1990).

The core essence of these trait theories of human personality is that the human

personality can simply not be considered as a one-dimensional construct. It is in fact

comprised of a combination of several traits and sub-traits, where some are more dominant

than others. This is also highlighted by another trait-based approach theory - the Myers-

Briggs personality type approach. The Myers-Briggs type indicators consist of sixteen major

personality types that are formed by the interaction of four dichotomies (Extraversion-

Introversion, Sensation-Intuition, Thinking-Feeling, and Judgment-Perception) (Murray,

1990).

The trait based theories such as Myers-Briggs type indicator find their application in

several areas such as business organizations as well as in schools and other communities

(Murray, 1990). Moreover, since different individuals possess a slightly different

combination of personality traits and sub-traits, it could possibly result in the formation of the

individual’s unique personal strengths and weaknesses. In such cases, these trait theories

might also be applied by the individuals themselves for their own personal growth and

development.

4.3.2 Maslow’s theory of human motivation

Maslow’s theory of human motivation is one of the earliest theories of personal development.

It describes the hierarchical nature of human needs, and the resulting intrinsic motivation of

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human beings for achieving those needs in order to achieve ultimate satisfaction and self-

growth.

According to this theory, human beings have 5 sets of goals (needs) in life -

Physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization (Maslow, 1943). This theory

highlights that the ultimate goal of a human being in life is to achieve self-actualization

(represented by the top level of the pyramid), i.e. to achieve his/her true potential in life and

become what he/she is intended to, and capable of becoming through his/her inherent

personality traits (Maslow, 1943). This ultimately leads to happiness, satisfaction, and self-

fulfillment in life.

The need or intrinsic motivation of an individual for this self-actualization depends upon

whether he/she has achieved the previous lower levels of the pyramid

Figure 3: Maslow's hierarchy of needs model; Source: (Maslow, 1943)

Self-actualization

Esteem

Love

Safety

Physiological

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4.3.3 Enneagram

The Enneagram is an organizational development model that is based upon the different types

of human personality. This model recognizes nine major personality traits, and classifies

individuals as dominantly possessing one of these nine traits (Kale & Shrivastava, 2003).

The nine major personality traits as described by this model are - Perfectionist,

Helper, Achiever, Romantic, Observer, Trooper, Enthusiast, Challenger, and Mediator (Kale

& Shrivastava, 2003). An individual can be seen as possessing one out of the nine

personality types as a dominant trait, however, the “essence” of that person - their true

potential in life can be described by all or some of the nine personality types (Kale &

Shrivastava, 2003).

The model can be used as an organizational development tool, where the organization can

use it to lead the employees in discovering their dominant personality types, thereby helping

them in “uncovering their essence”, and achieving their true potential (Kale & Shrivastava,

2003, p. 319).

Figure 4: The Enneagram model; Image source: (Kale & Shrivastava, 2003)

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4.3.4 Core qualities

Like the Enneagram theory discussed above, another theory that emphasizes recognizing the

essence of one’s own personality is Daniel Ofman’s “Core qualities”. The Core Qualities

theory is primarily a managerial tool from the Human Resource Management (HRM) domain

that is intended to demonstrate managers how they can discover their own, as well as others’

strengths and challenges, and learn from the people they dislike the most (Ofman, 2001).

The essence of this theory lies in a simple quadrant shown below. This quadrant

highlights four elements - Core quality, pitfall, challenge, and allergy. Each of these

elements is discussed briefly in the following paragraphs.

Figure 5: Ofman's Core Quadrant; Source: (Ofman, 2001)

Core Quality

The first element of the quadrant - called the “Core Quality” discusses the idea that every

person possesses some unique qualities that form a part of that person’s essence or core; such

qualities are called “Core qualities” (Ofman, 2001). According to Ofman (2001), core

qualities are those positive qualities or personality traits that being unique to every person

immediately characterize and differentiate them from others. An example of a Core quality

could be the positive trait of “Confidence”.

Ofman’s model therefore calls for managers to recognize their own, as well as others’

core qualities in order to practice effective leadership and management.

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Pitfall

“Pitfall” is defined as “the dark side of the core quality” or “an overly-developed core

quality” (Ofman, 2001, p.30). It is described as the negative opposite of a person’s positive

core quality, and usually the “label” that is given to the person by others because they are

often unable to see the underlying core quality in the person’s personality (Ofman, 2001). An

example of Pitfall of the positive quality of “Confidence” could therefore be the negative too

much of confidence - “Arrogance”.

Ofman therefore encourages managers to recognize other people’s core qualities that

often lie hidden underneath their “Pitfalls”, and to begin seeing the positive traits in others’

seemingly negative traits.

Challenge

“Challenge” is defined as “the positive quality diametrically opposite to the pitfall” (Ofman,

2001, p.32). It is therefore a quality which a person must master in order to prevent his/her

core quality from overly developing and becoming a pitfall. Mastering this quality might

especially be difficult, since it does not come naturally to a person and often conflicts with

their Core Quality - hence the name “Challenge”. An example of the “Challenge” for a

person with the Core Quality of “Confident” can be “Modesty”.

While mastering the Challenge might appear difficult in the first glance, according to

Ofman, it is necessary for a person to strike the right balance between their Core quality and

Challenge, and strive towards possessing at least a certain degree of Challenge along with the

Core Quality in order to prevent the Pitfall (Ofman, 2001).

Allergy

Just like overly-developed Core Quality can turn into one’s Pitfall, in the same way

“Challenge” can result in an overly developed Quality called “Allergy”. “Allergy” is defined

as “an excess of one’s Challenge personified in someone else” (Ofman, 2001, p.33), resulting

in the person disliking the other in which one sees their overly-developed challenge. It is

therefore the negative opposite of one’s Core Quality. For instance, “Timidity” could be an

Allergy for a confident person.

The “Allergy”, being the opposite of one’s Core Quality might force the person to

want to distance themselves from the person in whom they spot their “Allergy”; hence, they

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might overemphasize their “Core Quality”, ultimately resulting in their “Pitfall” (Ofman,

2001). Spotting one’s “Allergy” in another person should therefore be considered as a

reminder for one to adorn their “Challenge” even more in order to avoid their “Pitfall”

(Ofman, 2001).

The following is an example of a completed Core Quadrant for the “Core Quality” of

“Confidence”. Ideally, one should strive to have a balance of “Confidence” and “Modesty” in

order to truly be perceived as “Confident”.

Figure 6: Core Quadrant of the personality "Confidence"; Source: (Ofman, 2001)

From all the various models of personal and organizational development that are highlighted

in the previous section, two key takeaways emerge.

The first key takeaway is the necessity for self-awareness. From a personal development

standpoint, in order to truly develop oneself, one must be aware of their personality traits -

both strengths and weaknesses, and try to minimize the weaknesses while capitalizing on the

strengths as much as possible. From an organizational development standpoint, one must start

to uncover the positive traits that underlie the often negative-seeming traits of others.

The second key takeaway is the need to balance certain qualities. Particularly from

Ofman’s model, it becomes apparent that a person’s true Core Quality will only become

visible to others if this person also possess a certain element of his/her Challenge - or in other

Confidence

+

Arrogance

-

Timidity

-

Modesty

+

Too much of a good thing

Too much of a good thing

Positive Opposite

Positive Opposite

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words when the person manages to balance the Core Quality with the Challenge. Without the

Challenge, there is no Core Quality, since it merely appears as a Pitfall.

Another theory in organizational development literature that highlights the importance of

having a right balance, just as balancing the core qualities and challenge is Herzberg’s

Motivation-Hygiene theory, which explains that employees’ job satisfaction and job

dissatisfaction in a company are produced by different factors, are hence not dependent on

each other (Herzberg, 1974). According to this theory, Motivators are factors whose presence

ensures that employees are satisfied with their jobs (such as achievement, or recognition of

achievement at work), whereas Hygiene factors are those critical factors which, when absent,

almost always guarantee job dissatisfaction, but when present do not necessarily guarantee

job satisfaction; these factors merely guarantee no more job dissatisfaction (such as good

working conditions, salary, security, etc.) (Herzberg, 1974; Sachau, 2007).

Therefore, hygiene factors (analogous to Challenge) can be understood as those

critical and basic factors, whose presence is absolutely essential for even considering an

employee’s satisfaction (analogous to Core Quality) at work, and when absent, deem job

satisfaction irrelevant. The implication for firms of this theory is that employers must first

ensure that employees are not dissatisfied at work by ensuring the presence of basic

conditions (hygiene factors), and then ensure that employees are satisfied by ensuring the

presence of motivation factors. Otherwise, satisfaction would even be out of question.

4.4 Personal development may also imply self-presentation

In addition to being a personal and organizational development tool, a personal development

model such as Ofman’s Core Qualities can also be seen as a self-presentation tool, which can

be deployed by a person to highlight his/her positive qualities in a desired manner to others.

For instance, without being “humble” (Challenge), one will merely be perceived as

“arrogant” (Pitfall), no matter how “confident” (Core Quality) that person is; or without

being “organized” (Challenge), one will merely be perceived as “chaotic” (Pitfall), no matter

how “creative” (Core Quality) that person is. The crucial message here is that in order to

present oneself in a positive light to others, in addition to possessing and demonstrating the

actual positive or the Core Quality, mastering one’s Challenge is the key - or in Daniel

Ofman’s words “striking the right balance” between core quality and challenge (Ofman,

2001, p. 32). The absence of challenge when projecting one’s positive personality traits to

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others will almost always guarantee the core quality to not only not be considered, but in fact

be deemed irrelevant by other people.

5 Study 1

The purpose of this study is to establish the links between the three broad streams of literature

that have been previously discussed, namely - brand personality, brand positioning, and

personal and organizational development. Subsequent paragraphs aim to establish these links,

and will be followed by hypotheses and conceptual model.

5.1 Self-presentation vs. brand positioning

The review of the literature on brand positioning (section 3.5) highlighted two important

aspects of effective positioning of brands, namely - Points of Parity (PoP) and Points of

Difference (PoD) associations. Points of Difference (PoD) were described as those

associations that are uniquely attributable to a brand, and help the brand in differentiating

itself from its competitors in consumers’ minds (Keller et al., 2002). However, as suggested

previously, PoDs by themselves are not sufficient to establish an effective brand positioning

strategy, since a firm must also consider its Points of Parity (PoP) associations - the attributes

on which the brand is not different from its competitors, but is in fact similar to them (Keller

et al., 2002). One of the main purposes of establishing these PoP associations is to avoid the

origination of potentially negative associations about the brand - called “Correlational” PoP

associations, as a result of the lone presence a brand’s PoD associations; for instance,

consumers might be convinced that a car brand that is strongly positioned on “safety” PoD

association will probably be “less powerful”, or meals that a restaurant offers which are

“healthy” will probably be “less tasty” (Keller, 2013).

Therefore, demonstrating at least a par level of such PoP associations, in fact doing so even

before demonstrating the brand’s actual PoD associations can help the brand in avoiding

potentially negative correlational PoP associations (Keller et al., 2002) . This can enable the

brand’s target customers to consider the brand capable of performing on a par level with its

competitors, in addition to it being different and unique from them on the basis of its PoDs.

This not only gives the brand an advantage by providing it with favorable associations, but

avoids the potential disadvantage of unfavorable associations, thereby establishing a strong,

favorable, and unique position in consumers’ minds (Keller, 2013).

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Having discussed Ofman’s theory from a self-presentation perspective, it can be observed

that this model is strikingly similar to the aforementioned ideas about brand positioning. In

terms of Ofman’s Core Qualities model, a person who is strongly focused on demonstrating

only their Core Quality to others will end up being labelled by others as their Pitfall, unless

they can demonstrate a certain element of their Challenge (Ofman, 2001).

Core Qualities, in brand positioning terms can therefore be regarded as a person’s PoD. They

are a person’s uniquely attributable positive personality traits. However, only demonstrating

Core Qualities may lead people to label the person as the negative too much of their Core

Quality - Pitfall, which can be regarded as the potentially “unfavorable” associations - just

like the Correlational PoPs in brand positioning terms. Therefore, in order to avoid such

unfavorable associations, a person must demonstrate a certain element of their Challenge -

which can be regarded as the PoP in brand positioning terms (Keller et al., 2002; Ofman,

2001).

It is therefore important to understand that both Ofman (2001) and Keller et al. (2002) state

the importance of striking the right amount of balance between that key quality which is

unique (Core Quality and PoD respectively) and the quality that is not unique but is

extremely necessary in order for the key unique quality to even be considered relevant

(Challenge and PoP respectively). The negative consequences of not doing so, according to

both Ofman (2001) and Keller et al. (2002) is the origination of other negative associations

(Pitfall and Correlational PoP respectively) which are unfavorable.

5.2 From presenting human personality to presenting brand personality

The above analogy between personal development literature and brand positioning literature

only deepens the parallel drawn between brands and humans. The question that now arises is

whether these insights can be applied to brand personality literature. If a personal and

organizational development tool like Ofman’s model (that can guide human beings in

presenting their personality effectively to others) has similar underlying principles to a brand

positioning model such as Keller’s (that can guide firms in positioning their brands

effectively to consumers), can Ofman’s model be applied to brand personality literature in

order to guide effective presentation of brand personalities to a brand’s consumers?

This research will aim to answer the aforementioned question in two main steps: the first

study of this research will aim to determine whether Ofman’s model that is mainly applicable

for human personality presentation, but has similar underlying principles to brand positioning

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literature can in fact be applied to brand personality literature. The second study of this

research will then aim to explore whether and how these insights can guide brands to control

the attitudes of their consumers towards the brand’s personality, thereby allowing effective

positioning of the brand’s personality in consumers’ minds.

5.3 Testing Ofman’s model on brand personality

The first study of this research will aim to discover whether Ofman’s model of human

personality is also applicable to brand personality. In order to explore this, the following

assumptions have been made for this study with respect to application of Ofman’s Core

Quadrant model on brands and their personalities (Ofman, 2001):

Core Quality is assumed to be the personality trait of a brand that most strongly

differentiates its personality from other brands, and forms the essence of who the

brand is.

Pitfall is assumed to be the negative opposite of the brand’s positive Core quality. It

can be seen as an overly-developed Core Quality which is negatively perceived by

consumers.

Challenge is assumed to be the positive personality trait diametrically opposite to the

Pitfall. It is the personality trait of a brand that it not only finds the most difficult to

possess due to the nature of its Core Quality, but also that which consumers do not

easily imagine the brand as possessing.

Allergy is assumed to be the excess of a brand’s Challenge. It is therefore the negative

opposite trait of the brand’s Core Quality.

5.4 Conceptual framework and hypotheses

In impression management theory of human personality, the implied complementarity of one

personality trait from another has been a topic that has received widespread attention. It has

been widely claimed that people form impression of others on the basis of “expectancies of

certain traits going together” (Kaplan, 1971, p. 280). This phenomenon is known as the

“Halo effect”, and is explained as “the influence of a global evaluation on evaluations of

individual attributes of a person” (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977, p. 250). It has been claimed that

Halo effect often leads to judgmental bias (Wetzel, Wilson, & Kort, 1981). This is because

people are often observed as having a false psychological belief that "nice people tend to

have nice attributes and less nice people have less nice attributes" (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977,

p. 250). For instance, Halo effect might lead to the perception of a person who is physically

attractive as being more intelligent than someone who is less physically attractive.

At the same time, another effect seemingly contradictory to the “Halo effect” that has

received some attention is the “Innuendo effect”, which has been defined as “the tendency for

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individuals to draw negative inferences from positive descriptions” (Kervyn, Bergsieker, &

Fiske, 2012, p. 77). For instance, a person describing himself as fun-loving and adrenaline

junkie - a supposedly positive personality trait in one context might be easily perceived as a

negative trait in another context - such as when applying for a serious desk job (Kervyn et al.,

2012). The Halo effect and Innuendo effect demonstrate that certain human personality traits

can be implied from certain other personality traits, even without their explicit mention.

This implied perception of personality traits is also similar to what Ofman (2001)

describes as a person’s Pitfall originating from the person’s Core Quality. According to

Ofman, a person’s positive attribute - Core Quality will often be labelled by others as a

seemingly negative attribute - Pitfall. The Core Quality and Pitfall are described as being

“inextricably bound” and “going together like light and darkness” (Ofman, 2001, p. 31). For

instance, a “helpful” (Core Quality), might easily be labeled as “interfering” (Pitfall), or a

“decisive” (Core Quality) person, might easily be labeled as “pushy” (Pitfall) (Ofman, 2001).

It therefore becomes clear that in the context of human personality management, certain

positive attributes of human personality can easily be labelled, and perceived by others as

negative attributes. However, as described previously, not only does this effect take place for

people, but it also works for brands in a similar manner. It was discussed that the presence a

brand’s PoD associations (which are the brand’s uniquely positive attributes) lead to

origination of potentially negative associations about the brand - called “Correlational” PoP

associations; for instance, consumers might be convinced that a car that is “safe” (PoD) will

probably be “less powerful” (Correlational PoP), or healthy meals (PoD) offered by a

restaurant will probably be “less tasty” (Correlational PoP) (Keller, 2013).

After establishing that such negative perceptions originate from seemingly positive

perceptions of human personality and brand positioning, it is therefore interesting to know

whether the same happens for the personality of brands as well. Therefore, applying these

insights from human personality and brand positioning literature to brand personality

literature, it is hypothesized in Ofman’s terminology that if a brand is perceived as possessing

positive attributes - or Core Quality, it will invariably also be perceived as possessing some

element of negative attributes - or Pitfall that go along with those positive attributes.

H1 - There is a positive relationship between a brand’s perceived level of Core

Quality and Pitfall

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Furthermore, Ofman describes Challenge as “the positive quality diametrically opposed to

the Pitfall” (Ofman, 2001, p. 32). For instance, the positive opposite of an “interfering”

(Pitfall) person is a person who is “autonomous” (Challenge), or the positive opposite of a

“pushy” (Pitfall) person is a person who is “patient” (Challenge) (Ofman, 2001). Again,

drawing the parallel with brand positioning literature, a brand’s PoP associations which is

shares with other brands, can help the brand in avoiding potentially negative correlational

PoP associations. This can enable the brand’s target customers to consider the brand capable

of performing on a par level with its competitors. For instance, if a car brand can successfully

demonstrate to consumers that its car is powerful (PoP), it will avoid the possible perceptions

of the opposite attribute originations of the car not being safe enough (Correlational PoP).

Similarly, if a restaurant can successfully demonstrate to consumers that its meals are tasty

(PoP), it will avoid the perceptions of the opposite attribute origination of the food not being

tasty enough (Correlational PoP) (Keller, 2013).

The presence of such antagonistic traits in both human personality as well as brand

positioning literature again leads to the interesting question of whether the same happens for

the personality of brands as well. Therefore, applying these insights from human personality

and brand positioning literature to brand personality literature, it is hypothesized in Ofman’s

terminology that a brand that is perceived as possessing certain positive attributes - or

Challenge, cannot be simultaneously seen as possessing the negative opposite attributes - or

Pitfall.

H2 - There is a negative relationship between a brand’s perceived level of Challenge

and Pitfall

Ofman further explains the importance of having the right balance between the Challenge

and Core Quality to prevent the Pitfall; in order “to prevent the pitfall it is advisable to

develop the challenge” (Ofman, 2001, p. 33). For instance, a person who is “helpful” (Core

Quality) has to be able to demonstrate a certain element of “autonomy” (Challenge) in order

to avoid being labelled as “interfering” (Pitfall), or a person who is “decisive” (Core Quality)

has to be able to demonstrate a certain element of “patience” (Challenge) in order to avoid

being labelled as “pushy” (Pitfall) (Ofman, 2001).

This is similar to what human personality literature on “Innuendo effect” also suggests.

When listeners hear other people’s personality descriptions containing only positive traits,

with no mention of the contextually salient dimension, they will make negative inferences on

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the omitted dimension about the person described (Kervyn et al., 2012). For instance, a

person describing himself as fun-loving and adrenaline junkie - a supposedly positive

personality trait in one context might be easily perceived as a negative trait in another context

- such as when applying for a serious desk job, unless the person can also demonstrate the

important positive trait of being a serious and responsible person, which is necessary in the

context of the desk job. Therefore, being able to demonstrate at least a certain element of the

contextually relevant trait is necessary to avoid the “Innuendo effect” (Kervyn et al., 2012).

Amazingly, this is also what brand positioning literature would suggest. Demonstrating at

least a par level of PoP associations, in fact doing so even before demonstrating the brand’s

actual PoD associations can help a brand in avoiding the origination of potentially negative

correlational PoP associations. This can enable the brand’s target customers to consider the

brand capable of performing on a par level with its competitors, in addition to it being

different and unique from them on the basis of its PoDs. This avoids the potential

disadvantage of unfavorable associations, thereby establishing a strong, favorable, and unique

position in consumers’ minds (Keller, 2013). For instance, in order to avoid being perceived

as “less powerful” (Correlational PoP) by consumers, a car brand that is positioned on

“safety” (PoD) will need to demonstrate that it also “powerful” (PoP); or in order to avoid

being perceived as “less tasty” (Correlational PoP) by consumers, a restaurant chain that is

positioned on “healthiness” (PoD) will need to demonstrate that its meals are “delicious”

(PoP) (Keller, 2013).

The above insights highlight the importance of striking the right amount of balance between

that key quality which is unique and positive and the quality that is not unique but is

extremely necessary in order for the key unique quality to even be considered relevant. The

negative consequence of not being able to do so is the origination of another negative

association which are unfavorable. Applying these interesting insights from human

personality and brand positioning literature to brand personality literature, it is hypothesized

in Ofman’s terminology that perception of Challenge will weaken the relationship between

the Core Quality and Pitfall, such that when a brand is perceived as possessing sufficient

levels of Challenge, its Core Quality will no longer (or at least less likely to) be perceived as

Pitfall.

H3 - The relationship between a brand’s perceived level of Core Quality and Pitfall is

weakened by its perceived level of Challenge.

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In order to explain the above hypotheses, the following conceptual model has been

developed:

In this model, the Core Quality and Challenge are the two independent variables, while the

Pitfall is the main dependent variable.

5.5 Methodology

The first step to testing the conceptual model was finding human personality traits that can

best represent brands, and vice-versa. This was the main aim of the phase of Stimuli

generation. This phase proved to be especially important since it was decided that in order to

derive rigorous and conclusive results out of this study, not just one but three distinct human

personality traits will be employed and their applicability to brands will be tested.

However, the final choice of these personality traits as well as selection of brands took quite a

substantial amount of time. Subsequent paragraphs describe all the phases one by one - from

the initial stimuli generation phase up until the final experiment.

5.5.1 Stimuli generation – Qualitative pre-tests

Once it was decided that the study will be based upon testing the conceptual model on three

distinct human personality traits in order to provide more rigorous results, the first major

hurdle was selecting those three traits, along with finding the brands that would be the perfect

archetypes of being seen as possessing those specific personality traits as their primary

personality (Core Quality).

H1

H2

H3

Core Quality Pitfall

Challenge

Figure 7: Study 1: Conceptual framework

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In order to select the three human personality traits, the famous sixteen factor personality

scale was used, which has a description of the primary scales for sixteen major human

personality traits, as well as the personality descriptors of their low to high ranges (Cattell &

Mead, 2008). The choice of selection of three personality scales was based on the criterion

that their respective personality traits should be applicable enough to brands, since some

scales out of these sixteen would make it extremely hard to find suitable brands as archetype

stimuli. For instance, a few of the human personality scales that were initially considered

from Cattell’s 16 personality factor scales were Privateness (N) and Apprehension (O)

(Cattell & Mead, 2008). However, finding suitable brands as stimuli to represent the

descriptors of the low and high ranges of these three scales, personality traits such as Genuine

& non-disclosing (in case of Privateness) and Complacent & apprehensive personality traits

(in case of Apprehension) proved to be extremely difficult, as these traits are generally more

suitable for representing human personality rather than brand personality.

This difficulty led to the selection of three personality scales - Abstractedness (M), Liveliness

(F), and Social boldness (H), as these scales seemed to be more suitable to be able to generate

brands as stimuli (Cattell & Mead, 2008). Then, based on the descriptors of the low and high

ranges of these three scales, three personality traits - Creative - representing Abstractedness

(M), Enthusiastic representing Liveliness (F), and Confident representing Social boldness (H)

were initially chosen as the three human personality traits that could potentially generate

suitable brands as archetype stimuli.

Application of Ofman’s theory to these personality traits resulted in the development of 3

distinct Core Quadrants - one for each these brand personalities. Each Core Quadrant has its

own distinct Core Quality (which is the brand personality itself), Pitfall, Challenge, and

Allergy. It is worthwhile mentioning here that since Allergy is not directly a part of the

conceptual model, it was decided to not include Allergy as part of the stimuli development

phase just for the sake of simplicity and saving valuable time. The three Core Quadrants

along with their corresponding Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge that were therefore

developed are shown in Table 1:

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Table 1: Core Quadrant of the personality traits for pre-test 1

Core Quality Pitfall Challenge

Creative Chaotic Analytical

Enthusiastic Unserious Inexpressive

Confident Arrogant Modest

After the selection of the three personality traits and development of their respective

Challenge and Pitfall traits, the next step was to find 9 archetype brands (one each for 3 Core

Quality, Pitfall and Challenge traits) which would be seen as possessing each of these traits

as their primary personality traits. It was initially decided to assign a suitable distinct product

category to each of the core quadrants developed above, so that all brands within one Core

Quadrant could belong to the same product category.

Therefore, a product category was assigned to each of the 3 Core Quadrants - Consumer

electronics (Creative), Beers (Enthusiastic), Cars (Confident). The choice of assignment of

product categories to these 3 core quadrants was based purely on the intuitive suitability of

the personality traits within each of the core quadrants to the category.

The next step was to discover which brands within a specific product category are seen as the

typical representatives of each of the personality traits in a quadrant. For this purpose, a

qualitative pre-test was employed.

5.5.2 Qualitative pre-test 1

The main purpose of this pre-test was to generate stimuli of brands that are seen as typical

representatives of each of the personality traits in the three quadrants described above. The

sample used for this qualitative pre-test were students of the “Branding” course of the MSc.

Programme of Business Administration, since the construct of Brand personality is also a part

of this course. It was therefore assumed that having some prior knowledge of the construct of

brand personality would enable this sample to be able to conceive of brands as human beings

relatively easily, and therefore contribute effectively to the stimuli generation.

The participation in these semi-structured interviews was voluntary. Questions were asked in

face-to-face interviews or telephonic conversations, and were fairly standardized open-ended

questions, with room to probe using the laddering technique.

Examples of the questions asked are:

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“Which brand within the product category of consumer electronics, if it were to come

alive as a human being, would you describe as a creative/chaotic/analytical brand,

and why?”

“Which brand within the product category of beers, if it were to come alive as a

human being, would you describe as an enthusiastic/unserious/inexpressive brand,

and why?”

“Which brand within the product category of cars, if it were to come alive as a human

being, would you describe as a confident/arrogant/modest brand, and why?”

This semi-structured first qualitative pre-test led to identification of several brands within the

chosen product categories that were apparently seen as typically possessing the distinct

human personality trait in question. Based on these interviews, word-cloud of brands were

formed within these three product categories as shown in Appendix 1.

However, the results obtained from this pre-test were highly unreliable and unrealistic for a

few reasons:

Firstly, it was realized that the three personality traits (Creative - Enthusiastic- Confident)

were not sufficiently mutually exclusive of each other. For instance, the brands that could be

seen as creative can also be seen as enthusiastic. This was a problem since it was important

that the stimuli that were generated would represent the typical brands of a particular

personality trait, with that and only that trait as their primary identifying trait. Using

quadrants that were not sufficiently exclusive of each other might inhibit that.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it was observed from the results that the brands that

were seen as ideal archetype brands of a certain personality trait by many were in fact more

so because of the associations that people have with those brands rather than these traits

being their actual (brand) personality traits. It seemed that the respondents failed to imagine

the brands as human beings. For instance, Philips was seen as a creative brand probably not

due to its personality, but due to its perceived “innovativeness”. Stimuli like this clearly

implied that people were unable to think of brands in terms of brand personality, but were

still thinking in terms of other associations such as products, slogans, etc. even after

repeatedly being prompted to think of the brand as a person.

Thirdly the fact that respondents had to stay confined within a particular product category

limited their scope of thinking about representative brands. Moreover, for a core quadrant

such as “Enthusiastic - Unserious - Inexpressive”, the stimuli were the hardest to obtain, since

the product category assigned to this quadrant (beer) is in itself an expressive one. This

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implied that even if a beer brand represented an inexpressive personality trait, there could

still, outside the product category of beer, be other brands that are perhaps more inexpressive,

implying that perhaps the most suitable brand for that personality trait could have been

outside the product category of beers.

Furthermore, the stimuli were also quite scattered, with no single brand clearly emerging as a

clear representative of a particular personality. Brands within one quadrant appeared in

multiple places in that quadrant (please refer to Appendix 1 for the complete results of the

qualitative pre-test). For instance, the brand Philips appeared as being a representative of

both a Creative as well as Analytical brand, and Apple was perceived as being both Creative

as well as Chaotic. Such scattered results imply that these brands were not perceived as the

typical representatives of a particular personality trait.

5.5.3 Qualitative pre-test 2

The less-than-appropriate results obtained from the first qualitative pre-test meant that the

stimuli had to be re-developed. For this purpose, it was decided to conduct a second

qualitative pre-test with a few changes.

Firstly, it was decided to not restrict each Core quadrant to a product category, since it

strictly limits the scope of thinking about the brands, and more importantly, this ultimately

leads to less-than-optimal results in terms of the stimuli that is obtained since all brands

within a specific product category may not necessarily be the perfect representatives of a

particular personality trait.

Secondly, it was also decided to re-consider the personality traits that were chosen for the

first pre-test, since some of the traits ended up being not sufficiently mutually exclusive of

each other. For instance, a brand’s primary personality could be both Creativity and

Enthusiasm. Again, this would deem the brand as not being a perfect representative of a

particular personality trait.

Therefore, in addition to the two personality traits of confident and creative that were selected

for the first pre-test, a third one (sympathetic) was added representing Warmth (A)

personality scale in Cattell’s sixteen personality factors (Cattell & Mead, 2008). The criterion

of selection of this personality scale was again based on its applicability to brands and their

personalities.

The core quadrant that was developed for this personality was as follows:

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Table 2: Core Quadrant of "Sympathetic" personality


Sympathetic Sentimental Pragmatic

The same sample was used again for this qualitative pre-test as the previous one. However,

this time, the questions were framed in a slightly different way in order to get the respondents

thinking in terms of the brand personality, rather than products or free associations, as

observed from the results previously. Examples of the questions asked are:

“Mention a typically confident/creative/sympathetic person or a celebrity. Now which

brand would this person typically use that would complement his/her personality?

“If you were to think of a brand as a living person, which brand would you typically

describe as being confident/creative/sympathetic, and why?”

This qualitative pre-test again led to identification of several brands within the three core

quadrants (Appendix 2). However, just like the first qualitative pre-test, the results obtained

from this pre-test were quite unreliable and unrealistic, and a few problems clearly emerged.

Firstly, the stimuli were very scattered again, with no clear brand appearing as being an ideal

representative of a personality trait. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly was the problem

that the brands were again failed to be seen by many respondents as human beings, even after

more rigorous prompting and cueing of the construct of brand personality while conducting

the interviews. The stimuli clearly indicated this, with brands appearing mostly based on their

associations and type of products, rather than their actual personality traits. For instance,

brands such as Ray Ban, Rolex, and Hugo Boss were perceived as Confident brands, possibly

due to the impact that using the products of these brands might have on making the user feel

more Confident. However, this doesn’t necessarily imply that the personality of these brands

themselves is Confident.

The repeated failure of these qualitative interviews not only led to a lot of lost time in the

initial set-up of the study, but also brought to attention a few important points. It firstly

implied that despite the fact that the respondents were well capable of grasping the concept of

brand personality and its overall idea, they repeatedly failed to actively associate brands with

a particular personality trait. It was therefore inferred that perhaps if the respondents are

given the brands instead of the personality traits, and asked whether they associated a

particular personality trait with that brand, that might solve this problem.

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Another important takeaway from the first two qualitative pre-tests were that looking at the

results, it seemed that there might also have been a conceptual problem with the personality

traits that were used for these two tests. Looking back at the selection criteria of these traits,

they were not part of a brand personality scale, but rather of human personality scales. The

fact that the respondents were not able to conceive of brands that specifically possessed these

very traits could have implied that perhaps these personality traits might have been very

specific to human personality, so much so that their application to brands might be very

difficult. It might have instead been possible to assign brands to relatively general personality

trait descriptions (such as that described in Aaker’s framework). Therefore, it was ultimately

decided to not rely on qualitative pre-tests anymore to generate stimuli. Instead, it was

decided to pre-test quantitatively whether enough respondents perceive a given brand as

possessing a specific personality trait.

5.5.4 Stimuli testing - Quantitative pre-test

At this point, it was decided to consider broader and more generic brand personality scales

instead of more specific human personality scales. For this purpose, it was decided to consult

the brand personality literature - specifically the two frameworks that were mainly considered

were that of J. L. Aaker (1997) and Geuens et al. (2009). The main criteria for finalizing a

particular brand personality trait were twofold: Firstly, it should be relatively easy to derive

the Pitfall and the Challenge traits once the Core Quality (brand personality trait itself) was

identified. Secondly, it should be relatively easy to think of brands as the perfect archetypes

of these personality traits, since that would imply that the personality traits are applicable

enough to brands.

Furthermore, it was decided to pre-test six brand personality traits this time instead of three,

so that as much stimuli can be pre-tested as possible, leaving more possibility to test and then

retain the suitable stimuli. A few personality traits emerged from the frameworks of J. L.

Aaker (1997) and Geuens et al. (2009) as possible candidates for the quantitative pre-tests,

namely: Responsibility and Activity from Geuens et al. (2009), while Excitement, Sincerity,

Sophistication, Ruggedness, and Competence from J. L. Aaker (1997). Since both Activity

and Exciting measure similar traits, it was decided to choose Exciting as one of the five brand

personality traits. Responsibility seemed similar to the Challenge of Excitement

(Responsible), and was therefore not included as a separate Core Quality trait. The remaining

three traits of Sincerity, Sophistication and Competence were also selected as part of the five

Core Quality traits to pre-test. Finally, one of the human personality traits of Creativity was

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also included as part of the six brand personality pre-test stimuli (to confirm the previous

assumption that more specific human personality traits seemed less capable of representing

brands than the actual brand personality traits).

The core quadrants that were developed for these traits are shown in Table 3:

Table 3: Core Quadrants for the personalities in Quantitative pre-test


Exciting Impulsive Responsible

Sincere Sentimental Pragmatic

Sophisticated Condescending Humble

Rugged Rude Kind

Competent Boring Enthusiastic

Creative Chaotic Analytical

Looking at the Core Quadrants at this stage revealed that some Core Quality and Challenge

traits appeared to not be sufficiently exclusive of each other. For e.g. brands that could be

seen as Competent could also be seen as Responsible, and brands that could be seen as

Exciting could also be seen as Enthusiastic. For this reason, it was decided to pre-test only the

Core Quality and Pitfall brands quantitatively. Challenge brands were not pre-tested

quantitatively and Core Quadrants were accepted even if they were not necessarily

completely mutually exclusive of each other as was intended previously. This is because

previously this had led to loss of valuable stimuli development and testing time, and also

limited the scope of the stimuli and put an additional constraint on the chances of finding the

stimuli that practically work. At this stage, finding the right Core Quality and Pitfall brands

was considered the biggest priority.

5.5.5 Quantitative Pre-test questionnaire design

Having excluded the Challenge brands from the pre-test for the sake of simplicity, and to

avoid the constraint of limiting the scope of the stimuli, four brands were chosen in each

Core Quadrant from this stage on for the pre-test - two for Core Quality and two for Pitfall

traits (in order to test multiple stimuli for each personality trait and leave room for

elimination and refinement at later stages). These four brands were assumed as being the

ideal candidates to represent their respective traits. However, for the sake of comparison of

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how each Core Quality brand fared on the Pitfall and vice-versa, it was decided to pre-test

each brand’s perceived levels of both Core Quality and Pitfall.

Therefore, ultimately 24 brands were selected for the final input for the pre-test - with 4

brands belonging to one Core Quadrant (2 brands each for Core Quality and Pitfall) with 6

Core Quadrants being pre-tested. Table 4 shows the input for the Quantitative pre-test phase:

Table 4: Input for Quantitative pre-test phase

Core Quality Pitfall

Exciting

Red Bull

Virgin

Impulsive

MTV

Lamborghini

Sincere

Dove

Calve

Sentimental

Pampers

Ben & Jerry’s

Sophisticated

Chanel

Rolex

Condescending

Louis Vuitton

Ferrari

Competent

BBC

Philips

Boring

Microsoft

Oracle

Rugged

Timberland

Caterpillar

Rude

Harley Davidson

Blendtec

Creative

Apple

Google

Chaotic

Facebook

V&D

Furthermore, it was decided to pre-test three items each measuring each of the Core Quality

and Pitfall. For this purpose, human personality development as well as brand personality

literature was consulted - specifically Cattell’s 16 human personality factors, Saucier’s mini

markers of human personality traits, Aaker’s brand personality dimensions, and that of

Geuens et al. (J. L. Aaker, 1997; Cattell & Mead, 2008; Geuens et al., 2009; Saucier, 1994).

For the constructs for which no direct match was found, the closest items were selected either

based on the same scales, or common English language synonyms - such as cocky and

pretentious, uncharismatic and nerdy, sloppy and unorganized (Table 5 and 6)

Based on the above mentioned criteria, the following items that measure same or similar

constructs of human or brand personality were determined for each Core Quality and Pitfall

to be pre-tested:

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Table 5: Multi-items for Core Quality traits - Quantitative pre-test

Core Quality Multi-items for Core Quality

Exciting Active, Daring

Sincere Warm, Sympathetic

Sophisticated Classy, Elegant

Competent Intelligent, Reliable

Rugged Tough, Outdoorsy

Creative Imaginative, Idea-oriented

Table 6: Multi-items for Pitfall traits - Quantitative pre-test

Pitfall Multi-items for Pitfall

Impulsive Undependable, Careless

Sentimental Emotional, Over-protective

Condescending Pretentious, Cocky

Boring Nerdy, Uncharismatic

Rude Unkind, Uncharitable

Chaotic Sloppy, Unorganized

Based on the above Core Quadrants, the 24 brands were pre-tested in the form of a printed

Quantitative pre-test questionnaire, consisting of 6 different questionnaire versions - each

testing 4 brands (Appendix 3). These questionnaires were distributed randomly in the

Branding course of the MSc. programme of Business Administration. In these questions,

each brand’s familiarity was measured, alongside each brand’s rating on its Core Quality (and

its corresponding 2 multi-items) as well as Pitfall (and its corresponding 2 multi-items). This

was done to determine whether a brand that is assumed to be a Core Quality brand is also

seen by the respondents that way. In addition, an open question about brand personality was

included to observe people’s inferences about the brands’ primary personality traits. All other

questions were measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from Strongly Disagree to

Strongly Agree.

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5.5.6 Results of quantitative pre-test

There were a total of 71 respondents, with an average of 12 respondents for each

questionnaire version and therefore for each brand. The results revealed that out of the 24

brands tested, 21 were sufficiently familiar, since their mean familiarity scores were

significantly higher than 4 - which is the mid-point of the Likert scale. A sufficient score

above this scale would ensure that overall, the average brand familiarity is high, ensuring

reliable results for the personality scores of the brands. A mean familiarity rating lower than 4

would imply low and even possibly poor brand familiarity. Therefore, the remaining three

brands - Caterpillar (M =3.08; SD = 1.881), Blendtec (M = 1.33; SD = 0.492), and Oracle (M

= 2.73; SD = 2.054) were excluded from further analyses, since respondents had to be

sufficiently familiar with the brands in order to be able to rate their respective personalities

correctly.

Furthermore, since there were very few respondents (approximately 11 to 13) per

questionnaire version (and therefore per brand), it resulted in poor results of the reliability

analysis, with very low Cronbach’s alpha ratings (< 0.3) for almost all constructs, barring a

few with very high Cronbach’s alphas (> 0.8) - Sincere, warm, and sympathetic (Sincerity),

and Sophisticated, classy, and elegant (Sophistication). Seeing the inconsistency in these

patterns, it was realized that they were due to the small sample size. Therefore, the

Cronbach’s alpha ratings were ignored in the pre-test for further analyses and two summated

variables were formed for each brand based on its score on the three items for Core Quality

and three items for Pitfall, resulting in 2 variables per brand - one for Core Quality and one

for Pitfall.

A one-sample t-test against the score of 4 was then conducted to compare each set of four

brands (2 for Core quality and 2 for Pitfall) for within each Core Quadrant to compare their

mean ratings on both Core quality and Pitfall. This was done so that it can be determined

which brand was seen as the Core quality brand, and which as the Pitfall brand within each

quadrant. A score higher than 4, just like the familiarity score criterion of 4 explained above

would establish whether a brand is on average seen as possessing the Core quality and Pitfall.

For instance, a score lower than 4 for an expected Core Quality brand on its perceived levels

of Core Quality would imply that the brand does not seem to possess enough levels of Core

Quality to be perceived that way by the respondents. The same applies to testing Pitfall levels

as well.

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The results showed that the brands Red Bull, MTV, Timberland, Harley Davidson, BBC,

Philips, Chanel, Dove, and Microsoft, and Google fared particularly high on the personality

traits as they were assigned to prior to the pre-test (Table 7). The next step was to finalize

three Core Quadrants that work the best in terms of the stimuli having clear personality traits

as either Core Quality or Pitfall.

Based on these criteria, firstly the Core Quadrants of Sincere and Sophisticated brand

personalities was eliminated from the possible choices due to the lack of a clear Pitfall brand

in both cases. Secondly, the Core Quadrant of Creative brand personality was eliminated

from the possible choices due to the lack of a clear Pitfall brand. Even though results

suggested that the brand V&D was seen as a Chaotic brand, its relatively low brand -

familiarity ratings (M = 5.00) suggested that it might not be familiar enough if used as a

stimulus in the final study. Moreover, since V&D is a Dutch brand, its familiarity scores

could be expected to drop even further if used in the final study, since the survey was

expected to reach a lot of international respondents as well who might not be familiar with

V&D. Therefore, the remaining three brand personalities which were finalized to be used in

the first study were: Exciting, Competent, and Rugged

Table 7: Means and std. deviations for stimuli brands - Quantitative pre-test

Mean scores and Std. deviations on Core

Quality

Mean scores and Std. deviations on Pitfall

Exciting

Red Bull (M = 6.39; SD = 0.6)

Virgin (M = 5.87; SD = 0.70)

MTV(M = 5.37; SD = 0.70)

Lamborghini (M = 5.51; SD = 1.05)

Impulsive

Red Bull (M = 4.52; SD = 0.85)

Virgin (M = 4.60; SD = 0.84)

MTV (M = 5.17; SD = 0.86)

Lamborghini (M = 4.64; SD = 0.78)

Sincere

Dove (M = 5.72; SD = 0.65)

Calve (M = 4.72; SD = 0.85)

Pampers (M = 5.48; SD = 0.72)

Ben & Jerry’s (M = 5.22; SD = 0.80)

Sentimental

Dove (M = 4.60; SD = 0.75)

Calve (M = 4.00; SD = 1.02)

Pampers (M = 4.89; SD = 0.95)

Ben & Jerry’s (M = 3.89; SD = 0.97)

Sophisticated

Chanel (M = 6.50; SD = 0.67)

Rolex (M = 5.05; SD = 1.47)

Louis Vuitton (M = 5.18; SD = 0.79)

Ferrari (M = 4.30; SD = 1.52)

Condescending

Chanel (M = 4.27; SD = 1.42)

Rolex (M = 5.07; SD = 1.46)

Louis Vuitton (M = 5.42; SD = 0.77)

Ferrari (M = 5.27; SD = 1.20)

Competent

BBC (M = 5.60; SD = 1.37)

Philips (M = 5.83; SD = 0.82)

Microsoft (M = 5.35; SD = 1.39)

Boring

BBC (M = 3.84; SD = 1.01)

Philips (M = 3.61; SD = 0.97)

Microsoft (M = 4.74; SD = 0.91)

Rugged Rude

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Timberland (M = 5.53; SD = 0.77)

Harley Davidson (M = 6.09; SD =

0.53)

Timberland (M = 2.84; SD = 1.10)

Harley Davidson (M = 4.27; SD =

1.31)

Creative

Apple (M = 5.61; SD = 0.69)

Google (M = 5.78; SD = 0.80)

Facebook (M = 4.92; SD = 1.27)

V&D (M = 2.12; SD = 0.93)

Chaotic

Apple (M = 1.97; SD = 0.99)

Google (M = 3.18; SD = 0.50)

Facebook (M = 3.76; SD = 1.25)

V&D (M = 4.96; SD = 1.11) * Note: Caterpillar & Blendtec (Ruggedness) and Oracle (Competence) were deleted due to low familiarity

ratings

After having finalized upon the three brand personalities to be used for the first study, each

quadrant’s Core Quality and Pitfall brands were re-considered, since the pre-tests results

could not be completely relied on because of the small sample size obtained per brand.

It was determined that Red Bull and MTV were clear candidates of the Exciting brand

personality to represent Core Quality and Pitfall brands respectively having scored high on

these traits respectively. Similarly, it was also determined that Timberland and Harley

Davidson were clear candidates of the Rugged brand personality to represent Core Quality

and Pitfall brands respectively.

Finally, after considering that both Philips and BBC had similar mean ratings as representing

the Core Quality of the Competent brand personality from the pre-test, it was determined that

BBC might be a better candidate of this brand personality due to the more informational and

reliable nature of the category that BBC is in (broadcasting news and media).

At this stage, a slight adaptation in the conceptual model was made, and the original idea of

only considering the Core Quality and Pitfall brands was reconsidered. It was concluded that

it might be better to have a wider spread of brands across all levels of Core Quality, Pitfall,

and Challenge in the actual experiment. Therefore, it was decided to include two more types

of brands - namely a Challenge brand (representing high levels of Challenge and low levels

of Core Quality) and a Neutral brand (representing both low levels of Challenge and Core

Quality). In this way, each Core Quadrant would have 4 brands, two representing high levels

of Core Quality - the Core Quality and Pitfall brands, low levels of Core Quality - the

Challenge and Neutral brands, and low levels of Challenge - the Pitfall brand and Neutral

brand.

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After careful consideration, it was decided that Philips could represent the Challenge of

Exciting personality, since it also scored high on the trait of Reliability in the pre-test. Dove

was considered to be the Challenge brand of the Rugged personality, since it scored high on

the trait of sympathy in the pre-test. Axe, which was not tested in the pre-test was considered

as the Challenge brand of the Competent personality due to its enthusiastic personality

perception. This was also confirmed by brief qualitative pre-test in which a few respondents

were asked whether they perceived Axe as having an enthusiastic personality.

Finally, three more brands were included as the neutral brands based on the criteria that no

primary (brand) personality trait should come to mind when thinking of them. Based on this

criterion - Zara, Sprite, and Lays were concluded as the Neutral brands. This was again

confirmed by brief qualitative pre-tests, asking a few respondents about these brands and

their perceived dominant personality traits. Most respondents could not assign any particular

dominant personality trait to any of the three brands.

This led to the completion of the stimuli development phase. The final stimuli which was to

be used in the actual experiment is shown in Table 8.

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Table 8: Final stimuli Study 1

CQ = Exciting/Active/Daring

High CQ, High CH

Pitfall = Impulsive/Undependable/Careless

High CQ, Low CH

Allergy = Unadventurous

Challenge = Responsible/level-

headed/sensible

Low CQ, High CH

Neutral brand (low CQ, low CH) =

CQ =Rugged/Tough/Outdoorsy

High CQ, High CH

Pitfall = Rude/disrespectful/Harsh

High CQ, Low CH

Allergy = Sentimental

Challenge = kind/considerate/soft-hearted

Low CQ, High CH


CQ = Competent/Intelligent/Reliable

High CQ, High CH

Pitfall = Boring/Nerdy/Uncharismatic

High CQ, Low CH

Allergy = Unintellectual Challenge =Enthusiastic/lively/fun

Low CQ, High CH


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5.5.7 Final experiment design

Finally, the experiment was a 3 X 4 experimental set-up, with 3 distinct brand personalities -

Excitement, Ruggedness, and Competence; and 3 distinct positions in the quadrant - Core

Quality brand (High Core Quality + possibly High Challenge), Pitfall brand (High Core

Quality + possibly Low Challenge), Challenge brand (Possibly Low Core Quality + High

Challenge), along with an additional brand that is Neutral in nature (Possibly both Low Core

Quality and Challenge).

It was decided to make four different versions of the final questionnaire, each with three

brands to be evaluated on all three dimensions - their levels of Core Quality, Pitfall, and

Challenge - each measured with three items, along with one additional item for measuring

each brand’s level of Allergy, even though Allergy is not directly a part of the conceptual

model.

The variable that was manipulated within each questionnaire was the actual brand personality

(Core Quality) - Excitement, Ruggedness, and Competence, and was therefore the Within-

Subjects variable. Each version of the questionnaire received the brands to be evaluated from

the same position on the quadrant (i.e. one version with all Core Quality brands from the 3

quadrants, second with all Pitfall brands from the 3 quadrants, third with all Challenge brands

from the 3 quadrants, and fourth with all Neutral brands from the 3 quadrants). Therefore the

variable that was manipulated between each different version of the questionnaire was the

position where each of the brand was located in the Core Quadrant - Core Quality, Pitfall,

Challenge, or Neutral; and was therefore the Between-Subjects variable. The reason for this

particular choice and combination of within- and between-subjects variable was to avoid the

possibility of potential hypotheses guessing, which would be quite high if for instance, the

same set of respondents were asked to rate all three brands within a Core Quadrant on their

perceived levels of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge. For instance, the chances of

hypotheses guessing would be much higher if the same set of respondents were asked to rate

Red Bull, MTV, and Philips on their perceived levels of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge,

rather than if asked to rate only Red Bull, and two other brands representing only the Core

Quality positions of two different Core Quadrants - Timberland and BBC.

It is also worthwhile mentioning that in the actual study, some of the multi-items that

measured the Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge were slightly adjusted according to both

the results of the pre-test, as well as keeping in mind the fact that majority of the sample was

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going to be Dutch, and due to the fact that their native language is not English, the words that

expressed the constructs had to be relatively easy to understand. For instance, unkind and

uncharitable were replaced with harsh and disrespectful as being the pitfalls traits (Rudeness)

of the Rugged personality.

Also, the Allergy was measured with just one item so as to avoid making the questionnaires

too long, especially considering that Allergy was not a direct part of the conceptual model. It

was still measured in order to have the possibility of explanation of any unexpected results

later that might be otherwise hard to explain, or simply for conducting additional analyses if

needed at later stages.

5.5.8 Experiment procedure

The experiment was created and distributed in the form of an online questionnaire via the

Qualtrics survey platform. The four different versions or conditions (Core Quality, Pitfall,

Challenge and Neutral) of the questionnaire (Appendix 4), each with three separate brands

from three different Core Quadrants were created in the form of blocks in the same

questionnaire link, and assigned to be distributed randomly to the participants. It was decided

that there needed to be a minimum number of responses of 30 for each condition in order to

draw conclusive results.

The survey and the randomized blocks were conditioned so as to generate approximately

even number of respondents randomly per condition. The experiment was designed to last

approximately 5 minutes, and consisted of an open question on the brand personality that the

respondents associated with the brand prior being asked questions to rate the selected

personality traits. This was done so as to gauge the primary personality trait that the

respondents associate with a particular brand, which could be useful in case the results

showed at later stages that the chosen personality traits were not perceived as the brands’

primary ones. Besides this item, all other items were measured on a 7-point Likert scale of

Strongly Disagree - Strongly Agree.

Furthermore, some control variables were also measured such as Respondent personality,

Product category involvement, and brand attitude, alongside the usual demographics

measuring age, gender, and nationality of the respondents.

Section 2.9 in the literature review of brand personality revealed that the congruence between

consumers’ personality and brand personality can have an impact on their brand preferences,

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as well as their attitude towards the brand. For this purpose, the respondents’ personality and

their attitude towards the brand were measured. Furthermore, another factor that could

potentially influence the respondents’ perceived levels of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge

of a particular brand might be their involvement with the product category of that brand. For

this purpose, the product category involvement of the respondents was also measured as a

control variable.

Finally, demographic variables could reveal whether the respondents of being of a certain age

(group) or nationality, or male or female could influence their perceptions of personality of a

particular brand.

5.6 Results

The results of the experiment were analyzed in IBM SPSS V.20. The data collection was

ended after reaching 147 total respondents and more than 30 for each condition.

In order to prepare the raw data for analyses, the dataset was sorted so that the responses

appear neatly as separate blocks of data. Out of the 147 respondents, 135 completed the

questionnaires. A frequency check was then conducted to check for any errors or missing

values in the data. Based on this check, 2 missing values were found. Hence, these 2 data

were removed from the analyses, reducing the final sample size (N) to be 133.

After this initial data cleaning process, the sample (N) was 32 each for Core Quality, Pitfall,

and Challenge conditions, and 37 for Neutral condition.

a new variable called “Quadrant_Position” was created, and labelled with dummy values

from 1 to 4, which symbolizes the position of a brand on each Core Quadrant (i.e. whether a

brand is a Core Quality, Pitfall, or Challenge brand, or a Neutral one). The variables were

also renamed to match the items being measured.

5.6.1 Test for sufficient brand familiarity

The first step before performing any actual tests towards the conceptual model was to

ascertain whether all brands selected in the experiment were sufficiently familiar. Just like the

quantitative pre-test, a one sample t-test was conducted against a value of 4 (mid-point in the

Likert scale) for this purpose. Again, a sufficient score above this scale would ensure that

overall, the average brand familiarity is high, which would ensure reliable results for the

personality scores of the brands.

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All brands were sufficiently familiar (Table 9), with brand familiarity scores significantly

greater than 4 (p < 0.05).

Table 9: One sample T-test against 4 on mean familiarity ratings

Brand Mean familiarity score SD t df Sig. (1-tailed)

Red Bull 6.34 0.90 14.70 31 0.000

MTV 6.25 1.21 10.45 31 0.000

Philips 6.06 1.36 8.53 31 0.000

Zara 6.54 1.14 13.49 36 0.000

Timberland 5.31 1.73 4.28 31 0.000

Harley Davidson 5.66 1.57 5.93 31 0.000

Dove 6.06 1.36 8.53 31 0.000

Sprite 6.16 1.16 11.27 36 0.000

BBC 5.19 1.78 3.76 31 0.001

Microsoft 6.41 0.79 17.06 31 0.000

Axe 5.75 1.60 6.16 31 0.000

Lay’s 6.27 1.14 12.04 36 0.000

5.6.2 Factor analysis

The next step in the data analysis process was to determine the belongingness of the 10 items

(3 items each for Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge, and 1 item for Allergy) for each brand

personality with each other, to determine which items load together and seem to measure the

same construct. The factor analysis was conducted three times for three different brand

personalities - (Excitement, Ruggedness, and Competence). Principal components analysis

with Varimax rotation of the 10 items for the brand personalities Exciting, Rugged, and

Competent resulted in quite different results.

Brand personality ‘Exciting’ - Three separate components with eigen values greater than 1

were observed. The first component consisted of five items that loaded together - 3 items

measuring Core Quality, one of the Pitfall items (Impulsive), as well as the Allergy item

(albeit with a negative sign). The second component consisted of three items measuring

Challenge, while the third consisted of the remaining two Pitfall items (Undependable and

careless).

The fact that the item impulsive loaded well with the Core Quality factors can possibly imply

that impulsive might not necessarily be perceived as having the same (possibly negative)

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connotation as the other two Pitfall items. Furthermore, the fact that the Allergy item loaded

well with the Core Quality factors with a negative sign can possibly imply that they are seen

by the respondents as the polar opposites, which also supports Ofman’s theory of Core

Quality and Allergy being opposites.

Table 10: Rotated component table and factor loadings - Exciting

Item Component 1 Component 2 Component 3

Active .828

Exciting .827

Unadventurous -.698 .352

Daring .694

Impulsive .683 .468

Level-headed .841

Sensible .768 -.309

Responsible -.342 .756

Careless .760

Undependable .736 Extraction method: Principal component analysis

Rotation method: Varimax with Kaiser normalization

Brand personality ‘Rugged’ - Two separate components with eigen values greater than 1

were observed. The first component consisted of 3 items measuring Core Quality, 3 items

measuring Challenge (albeit with a negative sign possibly implying theoretically same, but

polar opposite items), and again, one Allergy item negatively loading. The second component

consisted of the three items measuring Pitfall and 3 items measuring Challenge (albeit with a

negative sign possibly implying theoretically same, but polar opposite items). Since

theoretically it was known that there must be at least 3 components each to represent Core

Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge, the factor analysis was run by forced extraction of the items

into three components. Following this, it was observed that the three items of Core Quality

loaded together, the three items of Challenge and one item of Allergy loaded together, and the

three items of Pitfall loaded together.

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Table 11: Rotated component table and factor loadings - Rugged


Considerate .787

Sentimental .786 -.338

Soft-hearted .743 -.431 -.318

Kind .735 .735 -.379

Tough -.303 .863

Outdoorsy -.392 .791

Rugged .790

Harsh -.462 .539 .450

Disrespectful .896

Rude -.446 .676 Extraction method: Principal component analysis


Brand personality ‘Competent’ - Two separate components with eigen values greater than 1

were observed. The first component consisted of 3 items measuring three items measuring

Pitfall (albeit with a negative sign possibly implying theoretically same, but polar opposite

items) and 3 items measuring Challenge. The second component consisted of the three items

measuring Core Quality and one Allergy item negatively loading with it. After forced

extraction into three components, the three items of Core Quality and one for Allergy loaded

together, the three items of Challenge loaded together, and the three items of Pitfall loaded

together.

Table 12: Rotated component table and factor loadings - Competent


Enthusiastic .917

Fun .843

Lively .830

Boring -.756 .374

Intelligent .873

Reliable .838

Unintelligent -.835

Competent .815

Uncharismatic -.354 .850

Nerdy -.429 .381 .507 Extraction method: Principal component analysis


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5.6.3 Reliability analysis

In order to check the internal consistency of items in one scale, a reliability analysis was

conducted three times - once for the three Core Quality items, once for the three Pitfall items,

and once for the three Challenge items for each of the three brand personalities.

Table 13: Reliability analysis of all Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge items

Brand personality - Variable (items) Cronbach's alpha

Excitement - Core Quality (Exciting, Active, Daring) .756

Excitement - Pitfall (Impulsive, Undependable, Careless) .673

Excitement - Challenge (Responsible, Level-headed, Sensible) .757

Rugged - Core Quality (Rugged, Tough, Outdoorsy) .879

Rugged - Pitfall (Disrespectful, Harsh, Rude) .764

Rugged - Challenge (Kind, Soft-hearted, Considerate) .888

Competent - Core Quality (Competent, Intelligent, Reliable) .858

Competent - Pitfall (Nerdy, Uncharismatic, Boring) .748

Competent - Challenge (Enthusiastic, Lively, Fun) .865

Brand personality ‘Exciting’

The Cronbach’s alpha for the Core Quality and Challenge items scales was > .7, indicating a

high level of internal consistency. Meanwhile, the Cronbach’s alpha for the Pitfall items

scales was < .7 indicating a low level of internal consistency. However, if the item

‘Undependable’ was deleted, then the Cronbach’s alpha increased to 0.697. Based on this

reasoning, the item ‘Undependable’ was excluded while forming the summated variables for

later analyses.

Brand personality ‘Rugged’

The Cronbach’s alpha for all three Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge item scales was > .7,

indicating a high level of internal consistency the three items.

Brand personality ‘Competent’

The Cronbach’s alpha for all three Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge item scales was > .7,

indicating a high level of internal consistency between the three items.

5.6.4 Dimension reduction - Computing scale means

Following the reliability analysis, scale means were created for the 3 constructs (Core

Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge) for all three brand personalities. At this stage it was

important to make a choice between the results of factor analysis or reliability analysis while

considering the brand personality Exciting. Factor analysis showed the Pitfall item of the

Exciting brand personality ‘Impulsive’ loading together, implying that perhaps in the eyes of

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the respondents, being impulsive is not a negative thing per se. Despite this case, the Pitfall

item of the Exciting brand personality ‘Undependable’ was ultimately deleted while

computing the scale means since deleting the item increased the Cronbach’s alpha 0.697.

Therefore, the mean of remaining two Pitfall items of the Exciting brand personality

(Impulsive and Careless) were used to represent one scale and hence new variables called

“Summated” were formed.

For all the other constructs which showed high level of internal consistency between their

individual items, the mean consisted of all items that were used to represent that scale. The

means and standard deviations of the variables can be seen in the correlation matrix in

Appendix 5.

5.6.5 Manipulation check

The main purpose at this stage of the data analysis of a manipulation check was to ensure that

the predicted levels of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge at the experimental set-up phase

for each brand personality has been achieved after the experiment. For instance, the

experimental set-up suggested the need for a Core Quality brand (High Core Quality +

possibly High Challenge), Pitfall brand (High Core Quality + possibly Low Challenge),

Challenge brand (Possibly Low Core Quality + High Challenge).

Therefore, the purpose of manipulation check at this stage was to confirm whether this

aforementioned spread of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge has been obtained after the

experiment. This was done by conducting a one sample t-test against a value of 4 (mid-point

in the Likert scale) for all Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge brands for each brand

personality. This was done in order to ensure that a brand which has been pitted to represent

the archetype of a particular position in a Core Quadrant (whether Core Quality, Pitfall, or

Challenge) scores at least sufficiently high on that position. An overall average score

significantly higher than 4 on the brand’s predicted position would suggest that the brand can

be considered a suitable candidate to represent that particular position in the Core Quadrant.

Therefore, a variable “Position” was created which indicates each brand’s expected position

on the Core Quadrant (Core Quality, Pitfall, or Challenge). Tables 14, 15, and 16 show the t-

value and significance of the brands for their own expected position on the quadrant. All

brands scored significantly higher than 4 on their expected position in the quadrant (p <

0.05). The results have been described in the tables 14, 15, and 16.

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Table 14: One sample t-test against 4 on Core Quality

Core Quality

brands

Core Quality

Scores t-value against 4 on Core Quality df Sig. (1-tailed)

Red Bull 5.91 14.39 31 0.000

Timberland 5.25 6.77 31 0.000

BBC 5.54 10.16 31 0.000

Table 15: One sample t-test against 4 on Pitfall

Pitfall brands Pitfall Scores t-value against 4 on Pitfall df Sig. (1-tailed)

MTV 5.02 5.27 31 0.000

Harley Davidson 4.33 2.00 31 0.027

Microsoft 4.72 4.24 31 0.000

Table 16: One sample t-test against 4 on Challenge

Challenge brands Challenge Scores t-value against 4 on Challenge df Sig. (1-tailed)

Philips 4.72 3.37 31 0.001

Dove 6.17 22.60 31 0.000

Axe 5.69 12.93 31 0.000

5.6.6 Hypotheses testing

In order to test the hypotheses, a regression analysis was conducted using the Process macro

by Andrew Hayes for SPSS (Hayes, 2012) for each of the three brand personalities. The

process model 1 in the Process manual matches the conceptual model explained above, with

variables X (independent variable) being the Core Quality, Y (dependent variable) being the

Pitfall, and M (moderator) being the Challenge.

Hierarchical multiple regression was performed to investigate the ability of perceived person-

organization fit and psychological contract breach to predict levels of job satisfaction, after

controlling for gender and age.

Brand personality ‘Exciting’ - In the first step of the regression, the predictor variable of the

Exciting brand personality (Pitfall score) was entered. Overall, the model was statistically

significant, F (3, 129) = 47.20; p < .01 and explained 52.3 % of variance in the Pitfall score.

Further observation of the results for each variable revealed the Core Quality to be a

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significant predictor of the Pitfall scores, = .72, t(3.53) = 6.53, p < .001, demonstrating a

positive relationship between the Core Quality and Pitfall. However, the Challenge failed to

significantly predict the Pitfall scores, = -.40, t(0.27) = -1.46, p = .1448. The interaction

effect of Core Quality and Challenge was also statistically insignificant p = .7578, indicating

no moderation effect of Challenge on the Core Quality and Pitfall relationship.

Table 17: Regression table for 'exciting' brand personality

R R2 SE F df1 df2 p

.72 .52 1.11 47.21 3.00 129.00 .000

Dependent variable = Pitfall

Independent variables B SE t p

Core Quality .72 .20 3.53 .000

Challenge -.40 .27 -1.46 .144

Core Quality*Challenge -.015 .05 -.30 .757

Brand personality ‘Rugged’ - In the next step of the regression, the predictor variable of the

Rugged brand personality (Pitfall score) was entered. Overall, the model was statistically

significant, F (3, 129) = 55.31; p < .01 and explained 56.26 % of variance in the Pitfall score.

Further observation of the results for each variable for each variable revealed that for this

brand personality, Core Quality does not significantly predict the Pitfall, = .164, t(0.18) =

0.90, p = .368. However, for this brand personality, the Challenge does significantly predict

the Pitfall scores, = -.51, t(0.17) = -2.89, p < 0.05. The interaction effect of Core Quality

and Challenge was again statistically insignificant p = .9519, indicating no moderation effect

of Challenge on the Core Quality and Pitfall relationship.

Table 18: Regression table for 'rugged' brand personality

R R2 SE F df1 df2 p

.75 .56 .82 55.31 3.00 129.00 .000



Core Quality .16 .18 .90 .368

Challenge -.51 .17 -2.89 .004

Core Quality*Challenge .00 .03 .06 .951

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Brand personality ‘Competent’ - In the final step of the regression, the predictor variable of

the Competent brand personality (Pitfall score) was entered. Overall, the model was again

statistically significant, F (3, 129) = 64.07; p < .01 and explained 59.84 % of variance in the

Pitfall score. Further observation of the results for each variable for each variable revealed

that for this brand personality, Core Quality is a significant predictor of the Pitfall, = .455,

t(0.18) = 2.40, p < .05. Challenge also significantly predicts the Pitfall scores, = -.51,

t(0.20) = -2.47, p < 0.05. However, the interaction effect of Core Quality and Challenge was

again statistically insignificant p = .3682, indicating no moderation effect of Challenge on the

Core Quality and Pitfall relationship.

Table 19: Regression table for 'competent' brand personality

R R2 SE F df1 df2 p

.77 .59 .73 64.07 3.00 129.00 .000



Core Quality .45 .18 3.53 .000

Challenge -.51 .20 -2.47 .014

Core Quality*Challenge -.03 .03 -.90 .368

The results therefore revealed inconclusive and mixed evidence for all the three brand

personalities. For the Exciting brand personality, only the Core Quality seems to have a direct

effect on the Pitfall, while the Challenge does not. For the Rugged brand personality, the

results are quite the opposite - Challenge seems to have a direct effect on the Pitfall, while

the Core Quality does not. For Competent brand personality, both Core Quality and

Challenge seem to have a direct effect on the Pitfall. While for all the three brand

personalities, the Challenge does not seem to moderate the relationship between the Core

Quality and Pitfall.

Therefore, it can be concluded that none of the hypotheses have been sufficiently supported.

5.6.7 Additional analyses

In order to explore the reason behind the mixed and inconclusive results of the regression

model for the three hypotheses, additional analyses were conducted. The first logical step to

troubleshooting the apparent failure of the hypotheses was taking a step backwards and

analyzing the stimuli that had been picked for the experiment again. This was done in order

to rule out the possibility of having chosen inappropriate stimuli for the experiment.

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A manipulation check had previously been conducted to test whether a brand actually

represents its expected position on the Core Quadrant. While this initial t-test confirmed that

all brands scored sufficiently high on their expected positions in the Core Quadrant, it does

not necessarily imply that the selection of the right stimuli has been made. In order to really

establish whether a brand is a perfect representative of a particular position on the Core

Quadrant, it should satisfy two main criteria: firstly, its score on that particular position

should be the highest compared to its scores on the other positions in the quadrant; secondly,

its score on that particular position should be higher than the scores of other brands on the

same position that are in the quadrant. For instance, in order to really establish whether Red

Bull is the Core Quality brand of the Core Quadrant of the Exciting brand personality, Red

Bull’s scores on Excitement should be higher than its scores on its Pitfall (Impulsive) and

Challenge (Responsible), as well as higher than the scores of any other brand within the same

Core Quadrant (MTV, Philips, Zara). Therefore, for this purpose, there was a need to

perform a mixed-measures ANOVA.

A three-way mixed measures ANOVA with two within-subjects independent factors (Type of

brand personality - Exciting, Rugged, Competent; Mean scores on Core Quality, Pitfall, and

Challenge) and one between-subjects independent factor (Expected position of brand on the

Core Quadrant - Core Quality, Pitfall, or Challenge) was conducted to see whether there are

were any major differences between the Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores of each

of the three (Core Quality, Pitfall, or Challenge) brands in a Core Quadrant compared to the

other brands in its own Quadrant.

There was a significant main effect of type of brand personality on perceived levels of Core

Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge, F(2, 186) = 33.42, p < .01, η² = .264, indicating that the

perceived levels of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge can vary depending on the type of

brand personality. Ideally across the three Core Quadrants, the brand Red Bull’s level of Core

Quality (Excitement) should not be significantly different from the brand Timberland’s level

of Core Quality (Ruggedness) and the brand BBC’s level of Core Quality (Competence) if

they all truly represent the Core Quality brands of their respective Core Quadrants. The same

would also apply for all Pitfall as well as Challenge brands. However, the significant results

for the main effect of type of brand personality on perceived levels of Core Quality, Pitfall,

and Challenge shows that this is not the case, and the type of brand personality determines

the perceived levels of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge.

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There was also a significant main effect of the expected position of brand on the Core

Quadrant on perceived levels of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge, F(2, 93) = 60.72, p <

.01, η² = .566, indicating that the perceived levels of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge can

vary depending on whether a brand is a Core Quality, Pitfall, or Challenge brand.

However, surprisingly, it was observed that there both a significant main effect [F(2, 113.5) =

78.41, p < .01, η² = .457] of the perceived scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge as

well as their interaction effect [F(4, 208.8) = 144.30, p < .01, η² = .756] with position of

brand on the Core Quadrant on the perceived levels of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge.

This implies that overall, some scores out of the Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores

are higher than some others. Ideally, the perceived levels of Core Quality, Pitfall, and

Challenge should not have any major differences, since the Core Quality brands should score

equally as high on their Core Quality as the Pitfall brands on their Pitfall and the Challenge

brands on their Challenge. For instance, Red Bull should score equally as high on Excitement

as MTV on Impulsivity and Philips on Responsibility. Therefore, overall, the levels of

perceived scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge should remain about the same.

However, the fact that these tests are significant implies that it is not the case.

The ANOVA plots revealed an interesting finding. The first plot for the Exciting brand

personality shows that the Core Quality brand (Red Bull) and the Challenge brand (Philips)

scored highest on their Core Quality and Challenge respectively out of all their three scores

(Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge). However, the line plot for the supposedly Pitfall brand

(MTV) reveals that not only does MTV not score higher on its Pitfall than its other two scores

(Core Quality and Challenge), it in fact scores highest on its Core Quality. Moreover, the fact

that MTV scores even lower on its Pitfall than the Core Quality brand (Red Bull) indicates

wrong stimuli selection to represent the Pitfall brand of the Exciting brand personality.

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Table 20: Mean Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores of the 'exciting' brands

Brands - Exciting brand

personality

Mean Core

Quality scores

Mean Pitfall

scores

Mean Challenge

scores

Core Quality brand - Red Bull 5.85 5.56 3.09

Pitfall brand - MTV 5.50 5.25 2.90

Challenge brand - Philips 3.80 2.93 4.71

Figure 8: Mean Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores of the 'exciting' brands

The second and the third plot for the Rugged and Competent brand personality also show a

similar pattern. While the Core Quality and the Challenge brands scored highest on their

Core Quality and Challenge respectively out of all their three scores (Core Quality, Pitfall,

and Challenge), the supposedly Pitfall brands (Harley Davidson and Microsoft) do not score

highest on their Pitfall but it in fact on their respective Core Qualities. Therefore, what were

supposed to represent the Pitfall brands for all the three Core Quadrants actually turned out

to be the Core Quality brands by scoring highest on their Core Qualities.

Table 21: Mean Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores of the 'rugged' brands

Brands - Rugged brand

personality

Mean Core

Quality scores

Mean Pitfall

scores

Mean Challenge

scores

Core Quality brand - Timberland 5.21 3.15 4.12

Pitfall brand - Harley Davidson 5.87 4.37 2.68

Challenge brand - Dove 2.09 1.71 6.15

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Figure 9: Mean Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores of the 'rugged' brands

Table 22: Mean Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores of the 'competent' brands

Brands - Competent brand

personality

Mean Core

Quality scores

Mean Pitfall

scores

Mean Challenge

scores

Core Quality brand - BBC 5.53 3.68 4.40

Pitfall brand - Microsoft 5.93 4.68 3.78

Challenge brand - Axe 4.03 2.03 5.68

Figure 10: Mean Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores of the 'competent' brands

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There were however some interesting differences between Exciting and the other two the

brand personalities. Independent t-tests revealed that for the Exciting the brand personality,

the Core Quality brand’s (Red Bull) score on the Core Quality (M = 5.91, SD = 0.749) was

significantly higher than the supposedly Pitfall brand - MTV (M = 5.52, SD = 0.743) t(62) =

2.067, p = 0.043. However, for the Rugged brand personality, the opposite was the case. The

Pitfall brand - Harley Davidson scored higher on the Core Quality (M = 5.82, SD = 0.838)

than even the actual Core Quality brand - Timberland (M = 5.25, SD = 1.044). This

difference was significant with t(62) = 2.421, p = 0.018. For the Competent brand personality,

the general pattern was quite the same as Rugged brand personality. The Pitfall brand

(Microsoft) scored higher on the Core Quality (M = 5.94, SD = 0.745) than even the actual

Core Quality brand - BBC (M = 5.54, SD = 0.858). However, this difference was statistically

insignificant with t(62) = 1.970, p = 0.053.

Furthermore, for the Exciting brand personality, the Pitfall brand (MTV) scored lower on its

Challenge (M = 2.94, SD = 0.849) than the Core Quality brand - Red Bull (M = 3.08, SD =

0.935). This difference was however, statistically insignificant with t(62) = 1.043, p = 0.301.

However, for the other two brand personalities (Rugged and Competent), the results were

slightly less surprising. The Pitfall brands (Harley Davidson and Microsoft respectively)

scored higher on the Pitfall than the Core Quality brands (Timberland and BBC respectively).

These differences were also statistically significant with t(62) = 4.625, p < 0.01 and t(62) =

4.472, p < 0.01 respectively for Rugged and Competent brand personalities.

Also, for the Exciting brand personality, the Pitfall brand (MTV) actually scored lower on its

Pitfall (M = 5.02, SD = 1.089) than the Core Quality brand - Red Bull (M = 5.30, SD =

1.069). This difference was however, statistically insignificant with t(62) = 0.653, p = 0.516.

However, for the other two brand personalities (Rugged and Competent), the results were

slightly less surprising. The Pitfall brands (Harley Davidson and Microsoft respectively)

scored lower on the Challenge than the Core Quality brands (Timberland and BBC

respectively). These differences were also statistically significant with t(62) = 5.623, p < 0.01

and t(62) = 2.047, p < 0.05 respectively for Rugged and Competent brand personalities.

In conclusion, all the above mentioned additional analyses and the various plots revealed that

the all the three Pitfall brands of all three brand personalities actually scored higher on their

Core Quality than on their Pitfall. This means that the manipulation checks failed for the

Pitfall brands for all three brand personalities, and the supposedly Pitfall brands were not

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perceived that way by the respondents, since brands that are supposed to represent the Pitfall

brands should score highest on their Pitfall levels. However, this is not the case. The

manipulation checks, however, succeeded for all the Core Quality and Challenge brands that

were part of the experiment, since these brands scored highest on their Core Quality and

Challenge levels respectively. The apparent failure to select the perfect representatives of the

Pitfall brands could therefore possibly explain the failure of the hypotheses of this

experiment.

Besides these analyses conducted on the actual scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and

Challenge, it was decided to also analyze the same ANOVA patterns but this time with the

Brand Attitude scores of the respondents for each brand, to look for any other possible

explanations of the failed hypotheses. However, the results revealed an inconsistent and

chaotic pattern, since the attitude scores seemed to be quite unrelated to the position in the

Core Quadrant the brands belonged to, and rather related to the individual associations of the

various brands. For instance, Microsoft (the Pitfall brand of the Competent brand personality)

had the highest rating out of the three brands tested in its Core Quadrant, while Dove and

Philips (the Challenge brands of the Rugged and Exciting brand personalities respectively)

had the highest rating out of the three brands tested in their respective Core Quadrants.

However, perhaps one key takeaway that emerges from this analysis is that none of the

brands that were selected for this study have really low attitude scores towards the brand, not

even the Pitfall brands as would be suggested by Ofman’s model, Pitfall being the negative

too much of the Core Quality (Ofman, 2001).

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Table 23: Mean brand attitude scores of all brands shown by personality type

Brands

Mean attitude

scores - Core

Quality brands

Mean attitude

scores - Pitfall

brands

Mean attitude

scores - Challenge

brands

Exciting brand personality

brands (Red Bull, MTV,

Philips)

4.15 4.15 5.06

Rugged brand personality

brands (Timberland, Harley

Davidson, Dove)

4.43 3.84 5.31

Competent brand personality

brands (BBC, Microsoft, Axe) 4.37 5.09 4.18

Figure 11: Mean brand attitude scores of all brands shown by personality type

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5.7 Discussion

The research began with the main research question of how principles from personal and

organizational development can guide effective positioning of a brand’s personality. The

main purpose of the first study was to answer the first half of this research question by

seeking to test whether Ofman’s model of human personality could be applied to brands (and

their personalities).

Mixed results were obtained by the regression model and all the hypotheses that were

laid out were not simultaneously supported for any of the three brand personalities. For the

exciting brand personality, only a significant positive relationship between the Core Quality

and Pitfall was observed indicating support for H1, while the Challenge failed to significantly

predict the Pitfall scores as well as failed to moderate the relationship between the Core

Quality and Pitfall.

For the Rugged brand personality, only a significant negative relationship between the

Challenge and Pitfall was observed indicating support for H2, while the Core Quality failed

to significantly predict the Pitfall scores. No moderation effect of the Challenge on the

relationship between the Core Quality and Pitfall was observed.

Finally, for the Competent brand personality, both a significant positive relationship

between the Core Quality and Pitfall was observed and a significant negative relationship

between the Challenge and Pitfall was observed indicating support for both H1 and H2.

However, also for this personality trait, no moderation effect was observed for the Challenge

on the relationship between the Core Quality and Pitfall, indicating failure of H3.

In order to dig deeper into the reasons behind this apparent lack of practical support

for Ofman’s model, additional analysis using ANOVAs were conducted, These additional

analyses revealed that even though the brands scored significantly high on the levels of their

predicted positions in the Core Quadrant, they might not have been the ideal stimuli for

testing Ofman’s model on brands and their personalities for a few reasons - firstly, all three

Pitfall brands (MTV, Harley Davidson, and Microsoft) in all the Core Quadrants scored

higher on their respective Core Qualities than their Pitfalls. Secondly, the Pitfall brands

(Harley Davidson and Microsoft) of the Rugged and Competent brand personalities

respectively even scored higher on Core Quality levels than the actual Core Quality brands in

their respective Core Quadrants (Timberland and BBC). Thirdly, in the Core Quadrant of

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the Exciting brand personality, The Pitfall brand MTV even scored lower on the Pitfall than

the Core Quality brand (Red Bull).

Furthermore, an analysis of respondents’ attitude towards the brands was also done in order

to look for any possible explanations. However, this also gave scattered results. The

Challenge brands of the Exciting and Rugged brand personalities (Philips and Dove) had the

highest brand attitude scores in their respective Core Quadrants, while the Pitfall brand

(Microsoft) had the highest brand attitude scores in its Core Quadrant, demonstrating that

whether a brand which the study expected to be a Core Quality, Pitfall, or a Challenge brand

did not influence the respondents’ attitudes towards the brand. This probably implies that

perhaps their attitudes were influenced by other associations which these brands have built up

with the respondents irrespective of their perceived brand personality.

In conclusion, the results of this study therefore indicated that the respondents perceive all the

Core Quality and Challenge brands by their respective Core Quality and Challenge traits,

indicating successful identification and manipulation of the stimuli. However, this was not

the case for the Pitfall brands (MTV, Harley Davidson, and Microsoft) of all three brand

personalities (Exciting, Rugged, and Competent) respectively. These brands were not rated

with the highest scores on their Pitfall characteristics, indicating that perhaps the respective

Pitfall traits (Impulsive, Rude, and Boring respectively) of these three brands are not

perceived to be their primary personality traits by the respondents. The fact that these brands

scored higher on the Core Quality than the Pitfall indicates that perhaps the Core Quality

traits (Exciting, Rugged, and Competent) are their primary personality traits. Results were

especially surprising for the Exciting brand personality, since not only does the Pitfall brand

(MTV) not score the highest on its Pitfall, but the Core Quality brand (Red Bull) scores

higher on the Pitfall than MTV which was supposed to represent the Pitfall brand of this

quadrant. This indicates wrong stimuli selection to represent the Pitfall brand of this brand

personality. It can also perhaps be concluded that both Red Bull and MTV are likely

perceived as very similar brands in terms of their personalities, since they are both perceived

to possess high levels of excitement (Core Quality) and impulsivity (Pitfall), and a low levels

of responsibility (Challenge).

However, barring the fact that the Pitfall brands were not perceived that way by the

respondents also for the Rugged and Competent brand personalities, the results for these two

brand personalities were otherwise in line with Ofman’s model according to the ANOVA

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analysis. The Pitfall brands (Harley Davidson and Microsoft) scored higher on their Pitfall

than the Core Quality brands in their respective Core Quadrants (Timberland and BBC). This

can perhaps be explained by the fact that both these Pitfall brands scored low on their levels

of Challenge, while the Core Quality brands were perceived to possess a high element of

Challenge. This seems to support Ofman’s claim of the Challenge being “the positive quality

diametrically opposed to the Pitfall” (Ofman, 2001, p. 32), implying that the Pitfall and

Challenge cannot co-exist. Furthermore, it was observed that Harley Davidson and Microsoft

scored higher on the Core Quality than even the actual Core Quality brands in their

respective quadrants (Timberland and BBC). Even though these results seem slightly

surprising in the first glance, they can also be explained by Ofman’s theory, according to

which the Core Quality and Pitfall are “inextricably bound” and “go together like light and

darkness” (Ofman, 2001, p. 31), implying that the Core Quality does not diminish with the

possession of Pitfall.

These results are also in line with what brand positioning literature would suggest. A strike of

the right balance is needed between the key differentiating quality (PoD) - which is analogous

to the Core Quality here, and the quality without which the differentiating quality (PoD) is

irrelevant (PoP) - which is analogous to the Challenge here in order to avoid the perception of

negative associations about the brand (Correlational PoP) - which is analogous to the Pitfall

(Keller, 2013; Keller et al., 2002).

This partial support for Ofman’s and Keller’s model provided by the ANOVA results may be

capable of deepening the parallel drawn between brands and humans, with possible new

insights for brand personality literature. For instance, this might imply that a brand can avoid

being labelled as its Pitfall personality trait which originates a consequence of possessing a

high level of its Core Quality personality trait if it can communicate a sufficient level of its

Challenge personality trait. In human personality terms, the results also provide a support to

the suggestion provided by Kervyn et al. (2012) that in order to avoid an “Innuendo effect”, a

person who is communicating their personality traits to others must pay attention to the

contextually salient dimension, since when listeners hear other people’s personality

descriptions containing only positive traits, with no mention of the contextually salient

dimension, they will make negative inferences on the omitted dimension about the person

described. The “Innuendo effect” can be compared to the brand’s Pitfall perception,

originating from the communication of only its positive personality trait - its Core Quality

without the contextually salient dimension - the brand’s Challenge.

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From all the above insights, a few important findings can be highlighted. First of all, proper

stimuli for the Exciting brand personality could not be found, even after multiple elaborate

pre-tests. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the supposedly Pitfall brands were

actually not perceived that way by the respondents for all three brand personalities. This can

imply that there might have been an improper selection of the Pitfall brands for all three

brand personalities even after rigorous pre-tests.

However, there might be another plausible explanation for this finding. Could the fact that

none of the brands proved to be really the ‘Pitfall’ brands possibly imply that brands that can

truly be described as ‘Pitfall’ brands according to Ofman’s theory might not actually exist in

reality? Pondering over the methodology and stimuli selection of the study revealed that all

the Pitfall brands that were chosen for this study had to be well-known and successful brands

in order for respondents to be able to rate them on their personality traits. If they were to be

truly the ‘Pitfall’ brands, then they perhaps might not be as well-known and successful as

they are, since a Pitfall trait is identified by a negative connotation.

Therefore, in order to find the real reason behind the apparent failure of the quest for what

would be the true definition of Pitfall brands, this first study was followed by a second study

conducted on fictitious brands, which should remove this limitation.

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6 Study 2 - Ofman’s model as a brand personality positioning tool

Aside from the fact that the typical archetypes of the Pitfall brands were hard to find in the

first study, the other results seemed to be in line with the insights from Ofman’s model and

the Innuendo effect, as well as brand positioning literature, suggesting that there is a

possibility of brand personality literature to benefit from these principles and insights. The

purpose of this follow-up study is two-fold. Firstly, after having failed to identify what can be

considered as the typical archetypes of the Pitfall brands in the first study, this study would

establish whether Pitfall brands really exist in reality, or whether their Pitfall puts an end to

their very existence even before the brand gets famous and successful. The second purpose of

this study, and perhaps a more important one, is to provide an answer to the second half of

the problem statement of how combined principles from personal and organizational

development, as well as brand positioning literature can be used to guide effective positioning

of a firm’s intended brand personality in consumers’ minds.

The additional analyses of the first study revealed inconclusive and scattered results

for respondents’ attitudes towards the brands. This variable was, however mainly a control

variable in the previous study, since the primary goal of that study was to test and establish

the relationships between the Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge in order to determine

whether principles from human personality literature such as that of Ofman (2001) as well as

Kervyn et al. (2012), and brand positioning literature such as Keller et al. (2002) could be

applicable to brand personality domain. However, this follow-up study, being mainly

conducted from a brand personality positioning perspective will hold attitude towards the

brand as its central theme. The primary focus of this study is to explore what kinds of brands

(and personalities) do consumers like, and have a favorable attitude towards. Based on these

insights, it can benefit brands to strategically communicate their personalities to consumers

so that it occupies a favorable position in their minds. If a brand does indeed need to strike

the right balance between its Challenge personality trait and its Core Quality personality trait

in order to avoid being labelled as its Pitfall trait, is it possible for brands to manipulate the

communication of their personality traits in such a way in order to observe favorable

consumer attitudes towards the brand? This study will aim to explore the answer to this

question in detail.

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6.1 Conceptual framework and hypotheses

It was previously discussed in section 2.8 that brand personality has several consequences on

various dimensions, such as influencing attitude towards the brand, enhancing commitment to

the brand, stimulating positive brand image, and facilitating purchase intentions (Eisend &

Stokburger-Sauer, 2013).

One of the above mentioned consequences that this research is particularly interested in is the

consumers’ attitude towards the brand, specifically how it can be influenced by

communicating the brand’s personality. This is because awareness of this can help brands to

effectively communicate their brand personalities so as to position them in consumers’ minds

in an intended way. Consumers’ attitude towards the brand is an important construct,

especially from a managerial perspective since it often forms the basis for consumers’ choice

of the brands (Keller, 1993). Ultimately, a well-communicated brand personality to the

consumers by the firm can foster personal relevance to the consumers, enabling formation of

close relationships with the brand, and hence stimulating Brand Resonance (Keller, 2001).

Section 3.4 of the literature review on brand positioning highlighted that a brand’s

positioning strategy can be considered effective if consumers hold strong, favorable, and

unique associations about the brand in their minds (Keller, 1993, 1999). Establishing

distinguishable points of difference (PoD) from competitors can enable a brand to create such

associations (Keller et al., 2002). These insights about strength, favorability, and uniqueness

of associations from the domain of brand positioning have also been incorporated in the

domain of brand personality. One of the studies that has previously researched the impact of

brand personality in influencing consumers’ attitude towards the brand is that of Freling and

Forbes (2005), which concluded that a strong and positive brand personality leads to more

favorable, unique, strong, and congruent brand associations. This effect - which they refer to

as the “Brand Personality effect” was found to take place irrespective of the type of brand

personality, suggesting that any brand personality that is perceived as strong and favorable by

the consumers is likely to be associated with positive attitude towards the brand (Freling &

Forbes, 2005). Turning the wheel back to insights from Ofman (2001), it can be realized that

a person’s Core Quality is a strong and positive personality trait that is unique to that person.

Combining this insight with the above mentioned findings from brand positioning and brand

personality literature, the following is hypothesized:

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H1: Communication of a brand’s Core Quality trait has a positive effect on attitude towards

the brand

Like the Core Quality, Ofman (2001) describes the Challenge as a positive personality trait

of a person, and defines it as a person’s “Challenge” trait as “the positive quality

diametrically opposite to the pitfall” (Ofman, 2001, p.32). Even though this is a personality

trait that is not unique to the person, it can still be considered another positive or favorable

personality trait. Applying this insight to the findings of Freling and Forbes (2005) that have

been explained above, the following is hypothesized:

H2: Communication of a brand’s Challenge trait has a positive effect on attitude towards the

brand

Ofman (2001) describes Pitfall as the negative opposite of a person’s positive Core quality.

Although, specific literature does not exist in brand personality research about the possible

impact of a brand’s negatively perceived personality traits on consumers’ attitude towards the

brand, insights from more general branding literature highlight the potential impact of

negative information about a celebrity endorser on the brand that the celebrity endorses. Till

and Shimp (1998) found that negative information about a celebrity resulted in a decline in

attitude toward the endorsed brand. From the literature review on antecedents of brand

personality in section 2.7, it was explained that a few sources or drivers of brand personality

exist, such as user imagery associations, companies’ CEOs, endorsers, or spokespeople, or

even product-related attributes, brand logos, advertising styles, etc. (J. L. Aaker, 1997).

Therefore, celebrity endorsers can also be considered as a source of formation of a brand’s

personality.

Combining the above mentioned insights from the three domains of personal development,

branding literature, as well as brand personality literature, the following is hypothesized:

H3: Communication of a brand’s Pitfall trait has a negative effect on attitude towards the

brand

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A corporate brand personality is a form of brand personality that is explained as “the human

characteristics or traits of the employees of the corporation as a whole” (Keller & Richey,

2006, p. 74). According to Keller and Richey (2006), a corporate brand personality consists

of three key personality dimensions, each with two traits or sub-dimensions, namely the

‘heart’ (passionate and compassionate), the ‘mind’(creative and disciplined) and the ‘body’

(agile and collaborative), each of which has a multiplicative or interactive effect on each

other, thereby creating valuable synergistic effects. Ofman (2001) describes both Core

Quality and Challenge as positive human personality traits, while Freling and Forbes (2005)

described the “Brand Personality effect”, suggesting that any brand personality that is

perceived as strong and favorable by the consumers is likely to be associated with positive

attitude towards the brand. If these three insights are combined, it appears as though the Core

Quality and Challenge traits could perhaps synergistically increase the influence of the so-

called “Brand Personality effect”. Therefore, the following can be hypothesized:

H4: The positive effect of Core Quality on attitude towards the brand is strengthened by the

presence of Challenge

As discussed above, the Pitfall is hypothesized to have a negative influence on the attitude

towards the brand, while the Challenge is hypothesized to have a positive influence on the

attitude towards the brand. Therefore, collectively, if the Challenge is communicated along

with the Pitfall, its influence due to the “Brand Personality effect” could add certain strong

and favorable associations for the consumers, thereby increasing the likelihood of a positive

attitude towards the brand (Freling & Forbes, 2005). Therefore, the following is

hypothesized:

H5: The negative effect of Pitfall on attitude towards the brand is weakened by the presence

of Challenge

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In order to explain the above hypotheses, the following conceptual model has been

developed:

In this model, the Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge are the three independent variables,

while the Attitude towards the brand is the main dependent variable.

H1 Core Quality PF

CH

Challenge

Pitfall

Brand Attitude

H2

H3

H4

H5

Figure 12: Study 2: Conceptual framework

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6.2 Methodology

The results of study 1 led to the possible explanation that perhaps the respondents’ prior

associations with the brands might have inhibited their perception of the brands’ personality

traits, especially their Pitfalls. Therefore, it was decided to use fictitious brands for this study,

which would provide a strict control for all prior associations that the respondents might have

had with the real and well-known brands that were used as stimuli in the first study, leading

to more rigorous and credible results. For carrying out this study, it was decided to use two

fictitious brands, where each was demonstrated as possessing a brand personality, and all

three aspects (Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge) and their various combinations were

communicated in the form of communication messages for each brand to measure

respondents’ attitude towards the brand for each scenario. This was done in order to evaluate

under which scenario the respondents would demonstrate the most favorable as well as the

least favorable attitudes towards the brand. The detailed set-up of this study is explained in

the following paragraphs.

6.2.1 Choice of brand personalities

The first step in setting up this experiment was to decide which two brand personalities

would be the most suitable to represent the personalities of the two fictitious brands. The

most obvious choice at this point was to select the brand personalities that had been

employed in the preceding study. Previously, relatively consistent results were observed for

Rugged and Competent brand personalities, while Exciting brand personality had resulted in

somewhat scattered results (although that could have been because of the wrong stimuli

selection for the Pitfall brand MTV, which demonstrated less Pitfall elements than even the

Core Quality brand Red Bull). Moreover, the patterns for the Rugged and Competent brand

personalities were very similar with respect to the perception of their respective levels of

Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge.

With this in mind, it was initially decided to choose Rugged and Competent brand

personalities as part of the second study to represent the two fictitious brands. The next step

was to then assign a suitable product category to each of these personalities. Since the

personality of a fictitious brand had to be communicated in this study, assigning a product

category to each of the two brands would facilitate the communication of the message with

the brand’s personality traits. Due to lack of time to carry out an elaborate quantitative pre-

test at this stage of the study, this was done based on brief qualitative interviews, asking a

few respondents the category which they would typically see as representing each of these

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personalities. The results revealed product categories of ‘tires’ and ‘outdoor apparel and

footwear’ for the personality Rugged, and the product category of ‘news channels’ and

‘broadcasting stations’ for the personality Competent.

However, since building and communicating the personality of a brand should transcend

the (type of) products, and instead should be about who the brand really is, tires could not be

a very suitable choice since not only are they a very functional product, but could also

possibly be less interesting, and their personality more difficult for the survey respondents to

grasp. Moreover, since all three aspects (Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge) and their

various combinations had to be communicated, it would be hard to demonstrate the

Challenge - ‘Kindness’ with such a personality, particularly since Kindness and Ruggedness

are usually perceived as highly mutually exclusive and conflicting personality traits, even

more so than some other Core Quality - Challenge combinations such as Exciting -

Responsible, or Competent - Enthusiastic, etc.

Furthermore, it was decided that the communication of messages about the brands’

personality to the respondents in the online survey would be done in the form of a few lines

of text, since reading the texts would take the least time for the respondents to answer the

survey questions. Moreover, using a few lines of text, only the key personality traits of the

brand can be highlighted without any additional distractions and possibility for respondents to

relate any associations other than the apparent personality traits of the brands. Therefore,

such communication of the personality of the fictitious brands in the form of short lines of

text would make it even more difficult to properly convey personality traits such as

Ruggedness and Kindness for which more explanations are needed to paint a true picture in

respondents’ minds. The same logic also applies to the Competent brand personality, which

using a product category of ‘News channels’ and ‘broadcasting stations’ would make it hard

to demonstrate the Pitfall of being ‘boring’ due to lack of elaborate means to properly

communicate the brand personality in an online survey form.

Therefore, due to these limitations, it was decided to choose two different brand

personalities to represent the dominant traits of the fictitious brands to be used in this study

that would satisfy mainly two criteria. Firstly, all the three personality characteristics

belonging to that specific personality (Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge) and the

combinations thereof should be both easy to communicate in the form of brief pieces of text

in the online survey as well as easy for the audience to grasp the brand personality from these

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texts. Secondly, staying true to the idea of brand personality, the personality traits should be

such that communicating them should not be dependent on the product that the brand would

be described as delivering, but rather the personality characteristics that the brand would be

seen as possessing.

Based on the above-mentioned two criteria, a few brand personalities were given

consideration, namely Exciting, Sophisticated, Sincere, and Confident. However, it was

realized that not only the personalities Confident and Exciting seemed relatively easier to

form a Core Quadrant, with all three traits - Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge coming to

mind easily, but both these personalities could also be easier for the respondents to relate to

in their personal lives, thus making the experiment more interesting and relatable. Even

though the personality Exciting had led to less than ideal and expected results in the first

study, this was most likely due to the selection of the improper stimuli for the Core Quality

(Red Bull) and Pitfall (MTV) brands rather than any limitation due to the personality trait

itself. Hence, these personality traits (Confident and Exciting) were finalized and selected to

be used for the actual experiment.

6.2.2 Choice of product categories

Once again, brief qualitative pre-tests like the first one revealed that some respondents

consider product categories like ‘deodorants’ or ‘toothpaste’ as suitable for Confident brand

personality, while ‘cars’ and ‘beer’ were considered more relevant for Exciting brand

personality. Considering the broad reach and usage of both toothpaste and beer products and

their respective categories, these two were selected for the final experiment to represent

Confident and Exciting brand personalities respectively and the product categories of

deodorants and cars were discarded.

It was decided to slightly modify the product category of the toothpaste brand to

“whitening” toothpaste and the product category of the beer brand to “lager” beer. The

choice of these specific product categories was made in order to facilitate the communication

messages of the brand personalities Confidence and Excitement, since the consequence of

having white teeth could demonstrate a brand’s typical user as more confident while the

consequence of drinking a lager beer could demonstrate a brand’s typical user as more

exciting. The inclusion of the consequences on the brand’s typical user was important, since

prior brand personality research suggests that a brand’s personality can also be formed by the

brand’s typical users (J. L. Aaker, 1997).

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6.2.3 Choice of brand names and pictures

It was decided to name the fictitious toothpaste brand as “Crystal White” and the beer brand

as “Carlisle”, after considering various options such as “Magic White” and “White shine” for

the toothpaste brand, and “Carlington”, “Sterling”, and “Milner” for the beer brand. The

names that were finally chosen for the toothpaste and beer brands (“Crystal White” and

“Carlisle” respectively) were due to their likely ability to trigger their respective product

categories easily, as well as the fact that some of the other brand names that were being

considered turned out to already be names of other real brands.

Furthermore, in addition to simply creating descriptive texts to communicate Core

Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge of the brand’s personality, it was decided to incorporate

pictures to represent these personality traits. The pictures would demonstrate the typical users

of the brands, since it has been proposed that typical users and people around the brand can

strengthen the brand’s personality and act as key drivers or antecedents of its personality (J.

L. Aaker, 1997). Moreover, images of the products (toothpaste and beer) were also used

along with the image of typical users. A search on the internet for images resulted in some

images which were rejected due to their lack of appropriateness, while some which were

retained due to their seemingly effortless ability to communicate the personality trait which

was to be communicated by the texts. For the various combinations of texts and images of

typical users and products see appendix 6 and appendix 7.

6.2.4 Final experiment design

Finally, the experiment was a 2 X 2 X 2 X 2 experimental set-up, with 2 distinct brand

personalities - Confidence and Excitement; and the other eight combinations representing the

presence or absence of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge. This would ensure that all

possible combinations could be made with these three variables and the attitudes of the

respondents could be measured for each scenario, in order to ultimately determine the best

and the worst possible scenario for a brand to position its personality.

Based on the length of the questionnaire - which was decided to be kept around 5 minutes in

order to keep the respondents from getting fatigued and thereby sacrificing the quality of the

results, it was decided that each respondent can rate up to a maximum of four scenarios.

Within each questionnaire, the variables that were decided to be manipulated were the actual

brand personality - Excitement and Confidence, and the presence or absence of Core Quality.

The between -subjects variables were the presence or absence of Pitfall and the Challenge.

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Just like the experiment design of the first study, this combination of within and between-

subject variables in the experiment design was also implemented to avoid the possibility of

potential hypotheses guessing by the respondents. The final experiment design therefore

looked as shown in Table :

Condition 1

Table 24: Final experiment design - Study 2

Scenario 1 - Confidence

Neutral


Core Quality

Scenario 4 - Excitement

Core Quality


Neutral

Condition 2


Pitfall


Pitfall + Core Quality


Pitfall + Core Quality


Pitfall

Condition 3


Challenge


Challenge + Core Quality


Challenge + Core Quality


Challenge

Condition 4


Pitfall + Challenge


Pitfall + Challenge + Core Quality


Pitfall + Challenge + Core Quality


Pitfall + Challenge

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Each of these four conditions and each of their representative scenarios would independently

measure the attitude towards the brand (which is the main dependent variable in the

conceptual model) based on the manner in which the brand presents its personality in the

form of a communication message.

It was also decided that within each condition, a respondent would be alternatively presented

with the scenarios about the same brand personality so as to reset the respondents’ memories

briefly by keeping them involved with different scenarios involving two different personality

traits. Therefore, it was decided to implement the order of the scenarios to 1, 3, 2, and 4

instead of presenting the scenarios order-wise one after the other from 1 to 4.

6.2.5 Choice of communication texts and images

Following this set-up, communication texts and their respective chosen images were first

created that would convey typical Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge traits of each

personality. These were then pre-tested qualitatively by asking a few respondents whether a

particular piece of text and its associated image conveys the personality trait that it was

intended to convey. Questions were asked such as:

“Do you think this combination of text and image communicates

Confidence/Arrogance/Modesty?”

“Do you think this combination of text and image communicates

Exciting/careless/responsible behavior?”

Then, in order to make various possible combinations of Core Quality, Pitfall, and

Challenge, the texts and images were simply followed by the previous text so as to avoid the

potential risk of not knowing which scenario actually drives the attitude change of the

respondents. For instance, if a Pitfall + Challenge scenario had to be created, then the Pitfall

text and image was simply followed by the Challenge text and image of the brand. However,

only in case of the scenarios with the presence of Core Quality, the Core Quality text and

image dominated and preceded any other text and image. This was done based on the

reasoning from Ofman’s theory that the Core Quality is the primary, and hence the dominant

personality trait that differentiates a person (Ofman, 2001). For the various combinations of

texts and images see appendix 7.

Furthermore, the two brands were evaluated on all three dimensions - their levels of Core

Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge - each measured with three items. For the brand personality

Excitement, all the items except the ones measuring Pitfall were retained from the previous

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study. The Pitfall items were changed since reliability analysis in Study 1 showed low

Cronbach alpha ratings for the term Undependable. Therefore the item ‘Reckless’ replaced

this item, and the three new items measuring the Pitfall of Excitement were - Careless,

Reckless, and Impulsive.

The personality scale of Confidence was selected based on Cattell and Mead (2008) 16

personality factor of Social boldness (H) while its traits were based on more general synonym

descriptors of the English language - e.g. Confident - Self-assured - Self-reliant; Arrogant -

Pretentious - Cocky; Modest - Humble - Down-to-earth

6.2.6 Experiment procedure

The experiment was created and distributed in the form of an online questionnaire via the

Qualtrics survey platform. The four different versions (conditions) of the questionnaire

(Appendix 7), each with two separate brands and four scenarios were created in the form of

blocks in the same questionnaire link, and assigned to be distributed randomly to the

participants. As explained above, in order to prevent the same brand being presented one after

the other, the order of the scenarios was changed to represent the two brands alternatively,

once without, and once with the Core Quality. It was decided that there needed to be a

minimum number of responses of 25 for each condition in order to draw conclusive results.

The survey and the randomized blocks were conditioned so as to generate approximately

even number of respondents randomly per condition. The experiment was designed to last

approximately 5 minutes. The questions consisted of asking the respondents to rate three

items for attitude towards the brand - liking, favorable attitude, and appeal. Furthermore,

some control variables were also measured such as attitude towards the brand’s

communication message and purchase intention based on the communication message. The

primary motive of these control variables was to be able to carry out some additional analyses

if needed at later stages to evaluate other behavior related actions towards the brands by the

respondents. These control variables were each measured with one item. All variables were

measured on a 7-point Likert scale of Strongly Disagree - Strongly Agree. Finally, some

other control variables were measured such as product-category involvement of the

respondents with the brands’ presented category, perceived message realism, and brand name

appropriateness. These were again measured in case at later stages some additional analyses

would be required to explain findings which would otherwise be inexplicable. The

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questionnaire also incorporated the usual demographic questions, measuring age, gender, and

nationality of the respondents.

Finally, in order to be able to do manipulation checks to evaluate whether people perceive the

personality of the brand the way it was intended to be, the respondents were also asked to

evaluate the given brand on three items each for its personality components (Core Quality,

Pitfall, and Challenge). All these items were also measured on a 7-point Likert scale of

Strongly Disagree - Strongly Agree.

6.3 Results

The results of the experiment were analyzed in IBM SPSS V.20. The data collection was

ended after reaching 103 total respondents and approximately 25 for each condition.

In order to prepare the raw data for analyses, the dataset was sorted so that the responses

appear neatly as separate blocks of data. A frequency check was then conducted to check for

any errors or missing values in the data. Based on this check, no missing values were found.

Hence, the final sample size (N) was 103. After this initial data cleaning process, the sample

(N) was 26 each for Version 3 and 4 (Challenge, and Pitfall+Challenge), and 24 and 27 for

Neutral and Pitfall condition respectively.

A new variable called “Questionnaire_version” was created, and labelled with values from 1

to 4, which symbolizes the between subjects variable - the version of questionnaire the

respondents answered (i.e. whether a brand was evaluated on its Core Quality, Pitfall,

Challenge, and Pitfall+Challenge personality traits. The variables were also renamed to

match the items being measured.

For the data analysis, three dummy variables - representing the presence or absence of Core

Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge were created for each condition and were labelled as 0 or 1

depending on whether the respective elements were absent or present in the scenario that was

responded to.

6.3.1 Factor analysis

The first step in the data analysis process was to determine the belongingness of the 9 items

(3 items each for Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge) for each brand personality with each

other, to determine which items load together and seem to measure the same construct. The

factor analysis was conducted twice for the two different brand personalities - (Confidence

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and Excitement). Principal components analysis with Varimax rotation of the 9 items for the

brand personalities Confidence led to the following result:

Table 25: Rotated component table and factor loadings - ‘Confidence’ brand personality


Pretentious .901

Arrogant .899

Cocky .897 -.305

Modest .922

Humble .893

Down-to-earth -.332 .851

Self-assured .922

Confident .897

Self-reliant .889 Extraction method: Principal component analysis


Three separate components with eigen values greater than 1 were observed. The first

component consisted of three items for Pitfall that loaded together, the second component

consisted of three items measuring Challenge, while the third consisted of the three Core

Quality items. The fact that one of the Challenge and Pitfall items loaded with the Pitfall and

Challenge components respectively with a negative sign can possibly imply that they are seen

by the respondents as the polar opposites.

Principal components analysis with Varimax rotation of the 9 items for the brand

personalities Excitement led to the following result:

Table 26: Rotated component table and factor loadings - ‘Excitement’ brand personality

Item Component 1 Component 2

Daring .885

Exciting .858

Active .836

Reckless .826 -.358

Impulsive .810 -.353

Careless .778 -.356

Sensible .933

Level-Headed .884

Responsible .877 Extraction method: Principal component analysis


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Two separate components with eigen values greater than 1 were observed. The first

component consisted of all three items for Pitfall that loaded together with the three items for

Core Quality; the second component consisted of three items measuring Challenge.

After being forced to extract three components, the following output was observed:

Table 27: Rotated component table and factor loadings - ‘Excitement’ brand personality


Careless .907

Reckless .888 .326

Impulsive .836 .350

Active .928

Exciting .894

Daring .420 .810

Sensible .936

Level-Headed .902

Responsible .885 Extraction method: Principal component analysis


The first component consisted of the three Pitfall items that loaded together with one Core

Quality item, albeit with a low correlation score. The second component consisted of the

three Core Quality items that loaded together with two Pitfall items, albeit with a low

correlation score. The third component consisted of the three Challenge items that loaded

together.

6.3.2 Reliability analysis

The next step in performing the tests towards the conceptual model was to ascertain whether

all three items that were intended to measure attitude towards the brand in the experiment

were sufficiently correlated. For this purpose, two separate reliability analyses were carried

out for the two brands. In each case, the three items measuring attitude towards the brand -

Brand Liking, Favorable brand attitude, and Brand appeal were tested for reliability.

All items were sufficiently correlated for both brands, with Cronbach alpha scores > .70

(Table 28).

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Table 28: Reliability analyses - Brand attitude

Brand (items) Cronbach's alpha

Crystal White (Brand liking, favorable attitude, appeal) 0.983

Carlisle (Brand liking, favorable attitude, appeal) 0.980

The next step was to ascertain whether all three items that were intended to measure all three

constructs - Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge were sufficiently correlated. For this

purpose, three reliability analyses were carried out for the two brands. In each case, the three

items measuring Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge were tested for reliability.

All items were sufficiently correlated for both brands and all three constructs - Core Quality,

Pitfall, and Challenge, with Cronbach alpha scores > .70 (Table 29 and 30).

Table 29: Reliability analyses - Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge items (Confidence brand personality)

Brand personality - Confidence

Variable

(items)

Cronbach's alpha

Core Quality (Confident, Self-assured, Self-reliant) .888

Pitfall (Arrogant, pretentious, cocky) .940

Challenge (Modest, humble, down-to-earth) .928

Table 30: Reliability analyses - Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge items (Excitement brand personality)

Brand personality - Excitement

Variable

(items)

Cronbach's alpha

Core Quality (Exciting, active, daring) .921

Pitfall (Impulsive, careless, reckless) .944

Challenge (Responsible, sensible, level-headed) .910

6.3.3 Dimension reduction - Computing scale means

Following the reliability analysis, scale means were created for the 3 constructs (Core

Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge) as well as for the brand attitude scores for both the brand

personalities. These scale means were created twice for each construct, once for scenario

without the presence of the Core Quality, and once with the presence of the Core Quality.

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Tables 31 and 32 demonstrate the mean scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge traits

of each personality (Confidence and Excitement respectively), both prior to, and after the

addition of the Core Quality to the brand’s communication messages.

Table 31: Mean scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge - Confident brand personality

Brand

attitude

Core

Quality Pitfall Challenge

Mean scores prior to Core Quality 4.21 4.30 4.02 3.69

Mean scores after the addition of Core

Quality 4.46 5.27 4.31 3.58

Table 32: Mean scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge - Excitement brand personality

Brand

attitude

Core

Quality Pitfall Challenge

Mean scores prior to Core Quality 4.20 4.31 4.25 3.74

Mean scores after the addition of Core

Quality 4.83 5.56 4.76 3.66

-

6.3.4 Manipulation check

The main purpose at this stage of the data analysis of a manipulation check was to confirm

whether each of the three scenarios - Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge have been

individually perceived by the respondents as they were intended. This was done by

conducting a one sample t-test against a value of 4 (mid-point in the Likert scale) for the

Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scenarios for each brand personality. This was done in

order to ensure that a scenario that was chosen to represent either a Core Quality, Pitfall, or

Challenge manages to score at least sufficiently high on that construct. An overall average

score significantly higher than 4 would suggest that the scenario can be considered a suitable

representative of that particular scenario type in the questionnaire.

Tables 33, 34, and 35 show the t-value and significance of the brands for their own expected

scenario type. All three scenarios (Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge) for both brand

personalities scored significantly higher than 4 on their expected value (p < 0.05). The results

have been described in tables 33, 34, and 35.

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Table 33: One sample t-test against 4 on Core Quality

Scenario type = Core

Quality

Mean rating on

Core Quality SD

t-value against 4 on

Core Quality df

Sig. (1-

tailed)

Brand personality -

Confidence 5.51 1.51 4.89 24 0.000

Brand personality -

Excitement 5.58 1.54 5.00 24 0.000

Table 34: One sample t-test against 4 on Pitfall

Scenario type = Pitfall Mean rating on

Pitfall SD


Pitfall df

Sig. (1-

tailed)

Brand personality -

Confidence 5.12 1.43 4.05 27 0.000

Brand personality -

Excitement 5.62 1.09 7.73 27 0.000

Table 35: One sample t-test against 4 on Challenge

Scenario type =

Challenge

Mean rating on

Challenge SD


Challenge df

Sig. (1-

tailed)

Brand personality -

Confidence 5.25 1.43 4.47 26 0.000

Brand personality -

Excitement 4.89 1.53 2.98 26 0.000

The results above demonstrate that the scenarios that were intended to represent the Core

Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scenarios were indeed perceived that way by the respondents

for both brand personalities.

While this initial t-test confirmed that all scenarios scored sufficiently high on their expected

values, it does not yet necessarily imply that these scenarios can be selected to represent these

conditions (Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge) for further analyses. The results of the first

study demonstrated that even though the Pitfall brands scored significantly higher than 4 on

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their respective positions in the quadrant, additional analyses in ANOVA plots revealed that

these brands were not perceived that way by the respondents.

Therefore, in order to really establish whether a scenario is a perfect representative of a

particular construct, it should satisfy two main criteria: firstly, its score on that particular

condition should be the highest compared to its own scores on the other two conditions;

secondly, its score on that particular condition should be higher than the scores of other

scenarios on the same condition. For instance, in order to really establish whether the Core

Quality scenario is indeed a Core Quality scenario, first of all, it should score the highest on

its Core Quality scores out of all three of its scores for Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge.

Secondly, the other two conditions’ (Pitfall, and Challenge) scores on Core Quality should be

less than the scores of the Core Quality scenario on the Core Quality condition.

A three-way mixed measures ANOVA with two within-subjects independent factors (Type of

brand personality - Confident or Exciting; Mean scores on Core Quality, Pitfall, and

Challenge and one between-subjects independent factor (Questionnaire version answered by

the respondent) was conducted to see whether there are were any major differences between

the Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores of each of the three conditions (Core Quality,

Pitfall, or Challenge) compared to the other conditions.

There was a significant main effect of the Scenario type on perceived levels of Core Quality,

Pitfall, and Challenge, F(2, 74) = 3.46, p < .05, η² = .086, indicating that the perceived levels

of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge can vary depending on whether a Core Quality,

Pitfall, or Challenge scenario is being presented to the respondent.

There was both a significant main effect [F(2, 148) = 17.37, p < .01, η² = .190] of the

perceived scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge as well as their interaction effect

[F(4, 148) = 35.11, p < .01, η² = .487] with the type of scenario on the perceived levels of

Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge. This implies that overall, some scores out of the Core

Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scores are higher than some others. Ideally, the perceived

levels of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge should not have any major differences, since

the Core Quality scenario should score equally as high on the Core Quality as the Pitfall

scenario on its Pitfall and the Challenge scenario on its Challenge. Therefore, overall, the

levels of perceived scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge should remain about the

same. However, the fact that these tests are significant implies that it is not the case.

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The following tables indicate the mean scores of the Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge

scenarios on their perceived levels of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge. It can be observed

that the manipulations were carried out successfully for both brand personalities, since the

Core Quality scenarios scored the highest on its Core Quality than its other scores, as well as

neither the Pitfall nor the Challenge scenario scored higher on their perceived levels of Core

Quality than the Core Quality scenario for both brand personalities. The same was true for

the Pitfall and Challenge scenarios as well. This can also be seen in the graphs shown below.

Table 36: Mean scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scenarios on Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge -

Confidence brand personality

Scenario Mean Core Quality

Scores Mean Pitfall scores Mean Challenge scores

Core Quality 5.51 3.40 3.30

Pitfall 4.53 5.12 2.50

Challenge 4.32 2.56 5.25

Figure 13: Mean scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scenarios on Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge -


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Table 37: Mean scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scenarios on Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge -

Excitement brand personality

Scenario Mean Core Quality

Scores Mean Pitfall scores Mean Challenge scores

Core Quality 5.58 4.11 3.25

Pitfall 5.23 5.63 2.65

Challenge 3.48 2.48 4.89

Figure 14: Mean scores of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge scenarios on Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge -


6.3.5 Hypotheses testing

In order to test the hypotheses, a four-way mixed measures ANOVA with two within-subject

independent factors (Type of brand personality: Confidence or Excitement; Absence or

presence of Core Quality) and two between-subjects independent factors (Absence or

presence of Pitfall; absence or presence of Challenge) was conducted. The main dependent

variable in this analysis was the respondents’ scores on their attitude towards the brand; this

is also the main dependent variable in the conceptual model. The main purpose of this

analysis was to see whether there are were any major differences between Brand attitude

scores each of the three conditions (Core Quality, Pitfall, or Challenge) and their various

combinations.

Table 38 displays all within- and between-subjects variables, and their various interactions.

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Table 38: All within- and between-subjects variables, and their various interactions

Variable df SE F p η²

Core Quality 1 99 17.05 .000 .147

Pitfall 1 99 5.39 .022 .052

Challenge 1 99 2.59 .111 .026

Brand Personality 1 99 1.32 .252 .013

Core Quality*Challenge 1 99 2.44 .121 .024

Core Quality*Pitfall 1 99 2.005 .160 .020

Core Quality*Pitfall*Challenge 1 99 2.00 .160 .020

Challenge*Pitfall 1 99 2.91 .091 .029

Brand Personality*Core Quality 1 99 7.68 .007 .072

Brand Personality*Pitfall 1 99 8.23 .005 .077

Brand Personality*Challenge 1 99 .66 .417 .007

Brand Personality*Core Quality* Pitfall 1 99 4.86 .030 .047

Brand Personality*Core Quality*Challenge 1 99 .77 .381 .008

Brand Personality*Pitfall*Challenge 1 99 .33 .562 .003

Brand Personality*Core Quality* Pitfall*Challenge 1 99 .24 .624 .002

Dependent variable: Brand attitude

Table 38 shows that there is a significant main effect of Core Quality and Pitfall on the

attitude towards the brand, as well as a significant interaction effect of Brand personality with

the Core Quality, significant interaction effect of Brand personality with the Pitfall, and a

significant interaction effect of Brand personality with both Core Quality and Pitfall. These

results are explained in the subsequent paragraphs in more detail.

Tables 39 and 40 indicate the mean scores on brand attitude for each scenario for both the

brand personalities:

Table 39: Mean Scores on Brand attitude - Confidence brand personality

No Challenge Challenge

No Core Quality No Pitfall 4.09 5.29

No Core Quality Pitfall 3.72 3.73

Core Quality No Pitfall 4.58 5.32

Core Quality Pitfall 3.97 4.00

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Table 40: Mean Scores on Brand attitude - Exciting brand personality






Hypothesis 1 - main effect of Core Quality on Brand attitude

Table 38 shows that there is an overall significant main effect of Core Quality on attitude

towards the brand F(1, 99) = 17.05, p < .005, η² = .147, indicating that the difference in

perceived levels of Core Quality leads to a significant change in attitude towards the brand.

Looking at the plots in the ANOVA for both brand personalities, a direct positive effect of

the addition of Core Quality can be observed in all scenarios, since all the lines slope

upwards when the Core Quality is present than when it is absent. This indicates an increase in

attitude towards the brand when the Core Quality is communicated than when it is not

communicated. Therefore, since overall, Core Quality appears to have a significant positive

effect on the brand attitude scores, hypothesis 1 is accepted.

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1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality

Mean scores on Brand attitude

Brand personality - Confidence (Without Pitfall)

Without Challenge

With Challenge

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality


Brand personality - Confidence (With Pitfall)

Without Challenge

With Challenge

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality


Brand personality - Excitement (Without Pitfall)

Without Challenge

With Challenge

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality


Brand personality - Excitement (With Pitfall)

Without Challenge

With Challenge

Figure 15: ANOVA plots confident brand personality

Figure 16: ANOVA plots exciting brand personality

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Hypothesis 2 - main effect of Challenge on Brand attitude

Table 38 shows that there is no significant main effect of Challenge on attitude towards the

brand F(1, 99) = 2.59, p = .111, η² = .026, indicating that overall, the difference in perceived

levels of Challenge does not lead to a significant change in attitude towards the brand.

However, looking at the plots in the ANOVA for both brand personalities, a direct positive

effect of the addition of Challenge is observed, but only in plots without the Pitfall for both

brand personalities, since the dashed line (scenario when Challenge is communicated) is

higher than the solid line (scenario when Challenge is not communicated), indicating an

increase in attitude towards the brand when the Challenge is present than when it is absent.

This effect is however extremely small and almost negligible in the scenarios when the Pitfall

has previously been communicated to the respondents for both brand personalities. Perhaps

due to this reason, the overall main effect of the Challenge on the brand attitude scores is not

significant, and therefore, hypothesis 2 has to be rejected.

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1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality



Without Challenge

With Challenge

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality



Without Challenge

With Challenge

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality



Without Challenge

With Challenge

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality



Without Challenge

With Challenge


Figure 18: ANOVA plots excitement brand personality

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Hypothesis 3 - main effect of Pitfall on Brand attitude

Table 38 shows that there is a significant main effect of Pitfall on attitude towards the brand

F(1, 99) = 5.39, p < .05, η² = .052, indicating that the difference in perceived levels of Pitfall

leads to a significant change in attitude towards the brand.

Looking at the plots in the ANOVA for both the brand personalities, a direct negative effect

of the addition of Pitfall can be observed in almost all scenarios, since the dashed line

(scenario when Pitfall is communicated) is almost always lower than the solid line (scenario

when Pitfall is not communicated), indicating a general decrease in attitude towards the brand

when the Pitfall is present than when it is absent. Only in case of Exciting brand personality,

when no Core Quality and no Challenge is communicated, addition of Pitfall actually

increases attitude towards the brand compared to when nothing is communicated. However,

since overall, Pitfall appears to have a significant negative effect on the brand attitude scores,

hypothesis 3 is accepted.

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1

3

5

7

Without CoreQuality

With Core Quality


Brand personality - Confidence (Without Challenge)

Without Pitfall

With Pitfall

1

3

5

7

Without CoreQuality

With Core Quality


Brand personality - Confidence (With Challenge)

Without Pitfall

With Pitfall

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With Core Quality


Brand personality - Excitement (Without Challenge)

Without Pitfall

With Pitfall

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With Core Quality


Brand personality - Excitement (With Challenge)

Without Pitfall

With Pitfall



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Hypothesis 4 - interaction effect of Core Quality and Challenge on Brand attitude

Table 38 shows that there is no significant interaction effect of Core Quality and Challenge

on attitude towards the brand F(1, 99) = 2.44, p = .121, η² = .024, indicating that

communicating additional information about the Challenge when information about the Core

Quality has been communicated does not lead to significant change in attitude towards the

brand.

However, looking at the ANOVA plots for both Confident and Exciting brand personalities, a

negative interaction effect of the Core Quality and Challenge is observed, since the slope of

the lines in case of presence of Core Quality decrease from the first plot (when the Challenge

is absent) to the second plot (when the Challenge is present) for both brand personalities.

This indicates that in case when the Core Quality is present, the presence of Challenge

actually weakens the positive effect of Core Quality on attitude towards the brand than when

the Challenge was absent. Therefore, contrary to expectations, the addition of Challenge

seems to marginally dampen the positive effect of Core Quality instead of strengthening it, as

predicted by the hypothesis 4. This effect is observed for both brand personalities; however, it

is not significant.

Therefore, due to insignificant interaction results and contrary expectations, hypothesis 4 is

rejected.

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1

3

5

7

Without CoreQuality

With Core Quality



Without Pitfall

With Pitfall

1

3

5

7

Without CoreQuality

With Core Quality



Without Pitfall

With Pitfall

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With Core Quality



Without Pitfall

With Pitfall

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With Core Quality



Without Pitfall

With Pitfall



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Hypothesis 5 - interaction effect of Challenge and Pitfall on Brand attitude

Table 38 shows that there is no significant interaction effect of Challenge and Pitfall on

attitude towards the brand F(1, 99) = 2.91, p = .091, η² = .029, indicating that communicating

additional information about the Challenge when information about the Pitfall has been

communicated does not lead to a significant change in attitude towards the brand.

However, looking at the ANOVA plots for both Confident and Exciting brand personalities, a

negative interaction effect of the Pitfall and Challenge is observed in almost all scenarios,

since the slope of the lines in case of presence of Pitfall decrease from the first plot (when the

Challenge is absent) to the second plot (when the Challenge is present) for both brand

personalities. This indicates that in case when the Pitfall is present, the presence of Challenge

actually strengthens the negative effect of Pitfall on attitude towards the brand (makes the

attitude towards the brand more negative) than when the Challenge was absent. Therefore,

contrary to expectations, the addition of Challenge seems to marginally strengthen the

negative effect of Pitfall instead of dampening it, as predicted by the hypothesis 5. This effect

is observed for both brand personalities; however, perhaps this effect is not significant overall

since it is not observed only in case of Exciting brand personality without the presence of

Core Quality (denoted by the solid line).

Therefore, due to insignificant interaction results and contrary expectations, hypothesis 5 is

rejected.

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1

3

5

7

Without Pitfall With Pitfall



Without Core Quality

With Core Quality

1

2

3

4

5

6

7





With Core Quality

1

2

3

4

5

6

7


Mean scores on Core Quality



With Core Quality

1

2

3

4

5

6

7





With Core Quality



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6.3.6 Additional analyses

In order to explain the surprising significant results which were observed for interactions of

brand personality both with Core Quality and Pitfall separately as well as collectively,

additional analyses were conducted to observe these specific interactions. Furthermore, in

order to explore the reason behind the insignificant as well as contrary results to expectations

for hypotheses 2, 4 and 5, additional analyses were conducted using a 4-way ANOVA, this

time with mean scores on Core Quality and Pitfall as the dependent variable instead of brand

attitude scores as was done previously.

Interaction effect of Brand personality and Core Quality

From the following ANOVA plots, it can be observed that communication of Core Quality

leads to an increase in attitude towards the brand for both brand personalities. However, for

the Excitement brand personality this increase is larger than for Confidence, since the lines

sloping upwards are steeper for Excitement brand personality than for Confidence. This

explains the significant interaction effect of Core Quality and Brand personality. This

perhaps indicates that communication of the Core Quality of Excitement has a larger positive

effect on attitude towards the brand than communication of the Core Quality of Confidence,

perhaps indicating that in general, the (brand) personality trait of Excitement has a more

positive connotation than Confidence.

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1

2

3

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5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality



Without Challenge

With Challenge

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality



Without Challenge

With Challenge

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality



Without Challenge

With Challenge

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality



Without Challenge

With Challenge



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Interaction effect of Brand personality and Pitfall

From the following ANOVA plots, it can be observed that communication of Pitfall leads to

a decrease in attitude towards the brand for both brand personalities (denoted by a drop in

levels of the dashed line which communicates Pitfall). However, for the Confidence brand

personality, this decrease in attitude is much larger than for the Excitement brand personality.

This explains the significant interaction effect of Pitfall and Brand personality. This perhaps

indicates that communication of the Pitfall of arrogance has a larger negative effect on

attitude towards the brand than communication of the Pitfall of carelessness, perhaps

indicating that in general, the (brand) personality trait of arrogance has a more negative

connotation than carelessness.

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1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without Core Quality With Core Quality



Without Pitfall

With Pitfall

1

2

3

4

5

6

7




Without Pitfall

With Pitfall

1

2

3

4

5

6

7




Without Pitfall

With Pitfall

1

2

3

4

5

6

7




Without Pitfall

With Pitfall



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Interaction effect of Brand personality, Core Quality, and Pitfall

Looking at the ANOVA plots for both Confident and Exciting brand personalities, no

interaction effect of the Core Quality and Pitfall is observed in almost all scenarios, since the

slope of the lines in case of presence of Core Quality does not change much from the first

plot (when the Pitfall is absent) to the second plot (when the Pitfall is present). However,

only in case of the Confident brand personality, a decrease of slope of lines in case of

presence of Core Quality is observed from the first plot (when the Pitfall is absent) to the

second plot (when the Pitfall is present), indicating that in case when the Core Quality is

present, the presence of Pitfall weakens the positive effect of Core Quality on attitude

towards the brand than when the Pitfall was absent for the Confident brand personality.

Perhaps this offers an explanation as to why the interaction effect of only the Core Quality

and Pitfall is not significant, but the interaction of this effect with brand personality is

significant.

This again reinforces the relative negative strength of arrogance as a Pitfall personality trait

than carelessness.

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2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With Core Quality



Without Challenge

With Challenge

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With Core Quality



Without Challenge

With Challenge

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With Core Quality



Without Challenge

With Challenge

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With Core Quality



Without Challenge

With Challenge



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In order to explore the reason behind the reason behind the insignificant as well as contrary

results to expectations for hypotheses 2, 4 and 5, additional analyses were conducted using a

4-way ANOVA, this time with mean scores on Core Quality and Pitfall as the dependent

variable instead of brand attitude scores as was done previously. The following tables show

the mean scores on Core Quality for all scenarios for both the brand personalities.

Table 41: Mean Scores on Core Quality - Confidence brand personality






Table 42: Mean Scores on Core Quality - Excitement brand personality






Results of the ANOVA indicate that overall, Pitfall has a significant effect on the Core

Quality perceptions F(1,99) = 14.42, p < .05, η² = .127. However, an analysis for the plots

reveals that this effect is largely driven by the Excitement brand personality, for which the

Core Quality scores are much higher when Pitfall is present that without it, especially when

no explicit mention is made of the Core Quality. This probably explains the significant

interaction effect of brand personality and Pitfall on the Core Quality perceptions F(1,99) =

50.47, p < .05, η² = .338.

Moreover, it perhaps implies that a brand that is perceived as Careless is also perceived as

Exciting, even when there is no explicit mention of excitement. However, a somewhat

opposite effect is seen for the Confidence brand personality, for which presence of Pitfall

actually reduces the Core Quality perception, irrespective of whether or not the Core Quality

is communicated, perhaps indicating that a brand’s Core Quality of confidence is diminished

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as soon as it is perceived as arrogant, either with, or even without the explicit mention of

confidence.

Furthermore, Challenge does not have a significant effect on the Core Quality perceptions

F(1,99) = 0.15, p = .699, η² = .002. The plots also reveal that for the Confidence brand

personality, communication of Challenge with the Core Quality even marginally decreases

the perception of Core Quality, especially when the Pitfall is communicated. This perhaps

indicates that a brand’s Core Quality of confidence is diminished when it is perceived as

humble, either with, or even without the explicit mention of confidence. This can mean that

for the confident brand personality, confidence and humility are seen as somewhat mutually

exclusive personality traits. For the Excitement brand personality, as opposed to the

confidence brand personality, communication of Challenge generally leads to increased

perception of Core Quality.

Perhaps due to these opposing effects of Challenge on the respective Core Quality

perceptions of the two brand personalities, no overall significant interaction effect was

observed for the Core Quality and Challenge on attitude towards the brand. This offers an

explanation as to why hypothesis 4 could not be accepted.

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1

3

5

7

Without Challenge With Challenge


Brand personality - Confidence (Without Core Quality)

Without Pitfall

With Pitfall

1

3

5

7



Brand personality - Confidence (With Core Quality)

Without Pitfall

With Pitfall

1

2

3

4

5

6

7



Brand personality - Excitement (Without Core Quality)

Without Pitfall

With Pitfall

1

2

3

4

5

6

7



Brand personality - Excitement (With Core Quality)

Without Pitfall

With Pitfall



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Mean scores on Pitfall

Table 43: Mean Scores on Pitfall - Confidence brand personality






Table 44: Mean Scores on Pitfall - Excitement brand personality






Results of the ANOVA indicate that overall, Core Quality has a significant main effect on the

Pitfall perceptions for both brand personalities F(1,99) = 22.60, p < .05, η² = .186. An

analysis of the plots confirms this, as almost all the lines slope upwards on the Pitfall scores

when Core Quality is communicated than when it is not. This indicates the implied

perception of Pitfall trait from the communication of Core Quality traits, confirming Ofman’s

claim (Ofman, 2001).

Overall, Challenge does not have a significant main effect on the Pitfall perceptions for both

brand personalities F(1,99) = 0.60, p = .441, η² = .006. An analysis of the plots however

reveals an interesting finding. Additional communication of Challenge decreases the

perception of Pitfall for both brand personalities, but this is only the case when no Pitfall is

communicated. Once the Pitfall is communicated, additional communication of Challenge

leads to only a marginal decrease in the perception of Pitfall for the Confidence brand

personality. For the Exciting brand personality, surprisingly, addition of Challenge in case

when Pitfall is also communicated even leads to an increase in perception of Pitfall.

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Therefore, it appears that addition of Challenge leads to a decrease in the perception of Pitfall

for both the brand personalities, but only as long as no explicit mention is made of the Pitfall.

As soon as the Pitfall is mentioned, this damping effect of Challenge is lost. Perhaps due to

this reason, the overall interaction effect of Challenge with Pitfall on attitude towards the

brand was not observed in hypothesis 5.

Overall, the interaction effect of Core Quality and Challenge does not have a significant

effect on the Pitfall perceptions for both brand personalities F(1,99) = 0.21, p = .648, η² =

.006. An analysis of the plots confirms this, as communicating Challenge with the Core

Quality only seems to slightly decrease perceptions of Pitfall for the confident brand

personality. Only in this case does the slope of the dashed line (representing Challenge)

decreases compared to the slope of the solid line (representing no Challenge) in the presence

of Core Quality, indicating an interaction effect of Core Quality and Challenge on the Pitfall.

In all other cases, addition of Challenge to the Core Quality does not seem to influence the

perception of Pitfall. In fact, the addition of Challenge to the Core Quality even slightly

increases the perception of Pitfall in case of exciting brand personality in case when Pitfall is

communicated.

These results perhaps indicate the inability of Challenge to reduce the perceptions of Pitfall,

especially when the Pitfall is explicitly communicated. It thereby offers an explanation as to

why Challenge does not seem to have a direct positive effect on attitude towards the brand in

the presence of the Pitfall, which was the main reason why hypothesis 2 had to be rejected.

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1

3

5

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality



Without Challenge

With Challenge

1

3

5

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality



Without Challenge

With Challenge

1234567

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality



Without Challenge

With Challenge

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Without CoreQuality

With CoreQuality



Without Challenge

With Challenge



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Plot of mean brand attitude scores

The third and final additional analysis that was conducted was to compare the mean brand

attitude scores for each scenario for the two brand personalities in one plot.

The following tables, which were also presented above display the means of the brand

attitude scores for both brand personalities.

Table 45: Mean Scores on Brand attitude - Confidence brand personality






Table 46: Mean Scores on Brand attitude - Excitement brand personality






Based on the plot, a few interesting points emerge:

Communication of only the Challenge has a higher brand attitude score than communication

of only the Core Quality for Confident brand personality, implying that perhaps being humble

is perceived to be better than being confident. This, however, is not the case for the Exciting

brand personality, for which the communication of only the Core Quality has a higher brand

attitude score than communication of only the Challenge, perhaps implying that being

exciting is perceived to be better than being responsible for Exciting brand personality.

When Challenge is communicated both separately and together with the Core Quality, the

brand attitude is higher for Confident brand personality than for Exciting brand personality.

This perhaps shows that humility is perceived better than responsibility, even though both are

Challenge traits, implying perceived differences in brand personalities.

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1

2

3

4

5

6

7


Brand attitude scores -Confidence

Brand attitude scores -Excitement

Whenever Pitfall is communicated (both separately and together with the Core Quality or

Challenge) the brand attitude for Confident brand personality decreases. This decrease is

more than that of the Exciting brand personality in the same scenarios. This perhaps implies

that arrogance in general is considered as a more negative personality trait than carelessness,

even though both are Pitfall traits, again implying perceived differences in brand

personalities.

For Confident brand personality, the most negative brand attitudes occur when Pitfall is

communicated alone while for Exciting brand personality, the most negative brand attitudes

occur in the Neutral scenario when nothing is communicated. This effect is perhaps driven by

the product category, and implies that being Careless is better than being nothing at all for

beer, while being arrogant is worse than being nothing at all for toothpaste.

Interestingly, adding Challenge certainly doesn’t seem to help the cause much for both brand

personalities, especially compared to when Pitfall has previously been communicated, as the

brand attitude scores are almost the same in both scenarios for both brand personalities (only

a difference of 0.01). This perhaps implies that communicating Pitfall and Challenge together

is equally as bad in terms of brand attitude as communicating only the Pitfall, further

highlighting the failure of hypothesis 5.

Figure 35: Plot of mean brand attitude scores vs. scenario type for both brand personalities

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6.4 Discussion

6.4.1 Implications of results of study 2 on results of study 1

Prior to this study, the results of the first study demonstrated mixed evidence of the

applicability of Ofman’s principles on brands, as all the hypotheses that were laid out were

not simultaneously supported for any of the three brand personalities. Furthermore, the first

study also concluded that the respondents failed to perceive the Pitfall traits in the brands, as

all of the Pitfall brands scored higher on their Core Quality than their Pitfall, thereby

contradicting the true conceptual meaning of what a Pitfall brand should be.

This follow-up second study therefore had two main purposes: firstly, after having failed to

identify what can be considered as the typical archetypes of the Pitfall brands in the first

study, the use of fictitious brands would confirm whether Ofman’s principles are

conceptually incompatible with brands and their personality traits, or whether there is an

alternative explanation to the results of the first study. The second and perhaps a larger

motive of the second study was to provide an answer to the second half of the problem

statement by holding the attitude towards the brand as its central theme in order to be able to

explore what kinds of brands (and personalities) do consumers like, and have a favorable

attitude towards. This would help brands manipulate the communication of their personality

traits in such a way in order to observe favorable consumer attitudes towards the brand and its

personality.

Contrary to the results of the first study, the results of this study revealed that the respondents

were clearly able to perceive the three personality traits (Core Quality, Pitfall, and

Challenge) in a brand’s personality in the brand’s communication messages. Furthermore, the

effects on respondents of the communication of these personality traits were also largely in

line with Ofman’s model, as reflected in the change in the respondents’ attitudes towards the

brand depending on the combination of personality traits that were being communicated. This

indicates that conceptually, a framework like that of Ofman (2001) can be applicable to

brands and their personalities. This also offers perhaps an alternative explanation to the

reason why results of the first study were the way they were.

The brands that were picked to represent the archetypes of the Pitfall brands in the first study

were all real and successful brands that the respondents were widely familiar with, and had a

moderately high to highly positive attitude towards (as observed in the additional analysis of

the first study). Choosing real and well-known brands was important in that study, otherwise

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the respondents would not have been able to rate the brands on their personalities if they were

not sufficiently aware of them. As indicated by the results of the second study, and in line

with Ofman’s model, the perception of Pitfall trait in a brand’s personality leads to a

significant decrease in attitude towards the brand. Based on these findings, if respondents in

the first study were to have perceived the brands as Pitfall brands, then these brands would

have fared poorly in terms of their attitude ratings. However, that was not the case. This was

reflected both from the additional analyses conducted on the attitude scores, as well as the

fact that the brands were well-known with very high familiarity ratings. Therefore, it can be

concluded that the results of the first study were not due the conceptual incompatibility of

Ofman’s model with brands and their personalities, but primarily due to the selection of

successful brands as stimuli.

6.4.2 Discussion of results of study 2

As for the second purpose of this study, the results clearly demonstrate that it is possible to

influence consumers’ perceptions of the brand as well as their attitudes depending on the

manner in which the brands present and communicate their personalities. Significant positive

and negative results were observed for both Core Quality and Pitfall respectively on the

attitude towards the brand offering support for hypotheses 1 and 3. These results imply that

communication of Core Quality leads to increased positive perceptions of the brand, while

communication of Pitfall leads to increased negative perceptions of the brand. These results

are in line with Ofman’s framework (Ofman, 2001).

Overall, there was no significant effect of Challenge on attitude towards the brand. However,

looking at the plots in the ANOVA for both brand personalities revealed a direct positive

effect of the addition of Challenge on attitude towards the brand, for both Confident and

Exciting brand personalities. However, this effect was only to be seen in the scenarios when

the Pitfall was not communicated to the respondents. In scenarios when the Pitfall was

communicated to the respondents for both brand personalities, the direct positive effect of the

addition of Challenge on attitude towards the brand was lost. Perhaps due to this reason, the

overall main effect of the Challenge on the brand attitude scores was not significant, and

hypothesis 2 had to be rejected. Moreover, the finding of the additional analysis of the

ANOVA plots with Pitfall as the main dependent variable indicated that communication of

the Challenge also does not seem to diminish the perceptions of Pitfall. Therefore, it seems

that the positive influence of the Challenge diminishes in the presence of Pitfall, perhaps

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indicating that the relative strength of the negativity of Pitfall supersedes the relative strength

of the positivity of Challenge.

There was also no significant effect found for the interaction of Core Quality and Challenge

on attitude towards the brand. Surprisingly, observing the plots from the ANOVA for both

Confident and Exciting brand personalities revealed that contrary to expectations, a negative

interaction effect of the Core Quality and Challenge was observed, perhaps implying that not

only is the combined effect of Core Quality and Challenge not as synergistic as expected, but

there is a greater positive effect of Core Quality on attitude towards the brand when the

Challenge is absent that when it is present. Additional analysis with Core Quality scores as

the main dependent variable confirmed these unexpected results. For the Confidence brand

personality, communication of Challenge with the Core Quality seems to dampen the

positive effect of Core Quality instead of strengthening it, especially when the Pitfall is

communicated. This perhaps indicates that a brand’s Core Quality of confidence is

diminished when it is perceived as humble, either with, or even without the explicit mention

of confidence. This can mean that for the confident brand personality, confidence and

humility are seen as somewhat mutually exclusive personality traits. For the Excitement brand

personality, as opposed to the confidence brand personality, communication of Challenge

generally leads to increased perception of Core Quality. Perhaps due to these opposing

effects of Challenge on the respective Core Quality perceptions of the two brand

personalities, no overall significant interaction effect was observed for the Core Quality and

Challenge on attitude towards the brand. This offers an explanation as to why hypothesis 4

could not be accepted.

There was also no significant effect found for the interaction of Challenge and Pitfall on

attitude towards the brand, indicating that communicating additional information about the

Challenge when information about the Pitfall has already been communicated does not lead

to a significant change in attitude towards the brand. An analysis of the ANOVA plots for

both the brand personalities revealed that contrary to expectations, a negative interaction

effect of the Pitfall and Challenge is observed in almost all scenarios. Although this effect

was not significant, it indicates that in case when the Pitfall is present, the presence of

Challenge might actually strengthen the negative effect of Pitfall on attitude towards the

brand (makes the attitude towards the brand more negative) than when the Challenge was

absent. Therefore, due to the contrary results to expectations and insignificance of the

interaction, hypothesis 5 had to be rejected.

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However, Additional analysis with Pitfall scores as the main dependent variable revealed that

for both Confident and Exciting brand personalities, addition of Challenge leads to a decrease

in the perception of Pitfall, but only as long as no explicit mention is made of the Pitfall. As

soon as the Pitfall is mentioned, this damping effect of Challenge is lost. Perhaps due to this

reason, the overall interaction effect of Challenge with Pitfall on attitude towards the brand

was not observed in hypothesis 5.

Furthermore, additional analyses revealed that that communication of Core Quality leads to

an increase in attitude towards the brand for both brand personalities. However, for the

Excitement brand personality this increase was larger than for Confidence, thereby

confirming the significant interaction effect of Core Quality and brand personality. Similarly,

communication of Pitfall led to a decrease in attitude towards the brand for both brand

personalities. However, for the Confidence brand personality, this decrease in attitude was

much larger than for the Excitement brand personality, thereby confirming the significant

interaction effect of Pitfall and Brand personality.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, communicating Challenge with the Core Quality only

seems to slightly decrease perceptions of Pitfall for the confident brand personality,

indicating a slight interaction effect of Core Quality and Challenge on the Pitfall. However,

this slight interaction effect was only seen for the confident brand personality when the Pitfall

was explicitly communicated. In all other cases, addition of Challenge to the Core Quality

does not seem to influence the perception of Pitfall. In fact, the addition of Challenge to the

Core Quality even slightly increases the perception of Pitfall in case of exciting brand

personality in case when Pitfall is communicated.

In conclusion, a few key takeaways emerge from the second study:

1. Core Quality has a strong positive effect on attitude towards the brand for both brand

personalities, however, this effect is larger for the exciting brand personality, perhaps

indicating that exciting (brand) personality trait is perceived as more positive than

confident.

2. Pitfall has a strong negative effect on attitude towards the brand however, this effect

is larger for the confident brand personality, perhaps indicating that arrogance (brand)

personality trait is perceived as more negative than careless.

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3. Due to the strong negative effect of Pitfall on attitude towards the brand, a well-

known and successful brand cannot be a Pitfall brand, because if it were, Pitfall’s

relative negative strength would put an end to its very existence and fame.

4. In general, Challenge seems to have a positive effect on attitude towards the brand.

However, it seems that this positive effect of the Challenge diminishes in the presence

of Pitfall.

5. Communication of Core Quality and Challenge together does not lead to any

significant increase in attitude towards the brand; in fact, contrary to expectations, it

may even marginally decrease attitude towards the brand since these two traits are

apparently seen as somewhat mutually exclusive personality traits, as the mention of

Challenge seems to diminish the perceptions of Core Quality.

6. In general, the addition of Challenge independently leads to a decrease in the

perception of Pitfall, but only as long as no explicit mention is made of the Pitfall. As

soon as the Pitfall is mentioned, not only is this damping effect of Challenge lost, it

may even marginally decrease attitude towards the brand, contrary to expectations.

7. Communicating Challenge together with the Core Quality only seems to slightly

decrease perceptions of Pitfall - only for the confident brand personality, and that too

only in case when the Pitfall is mentioned explicitly. In all other cases,

communication of Challenge together with the Core Quality does not seem to have

any beneficial effect to reduce the perception of Pitfall.

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7 General discussion and implications

The research was organized in the form of two studies. Study 1 aimed to answer the first half

of the research question by seeking to test whether a personal and organizational

development model such as that of Ofman (2001) along with insights from brand positioning

literature (Keller, 2013; Keller et al., 2002) could collectively be applicable to brand

personality literature. Results of the first study indicated that what Ofman would describe as a

“true” Pitfall trait was not perceived in the real brands’ personalities by the respondents. This

led to the conclusion that either there might have been a conceptual limitation, possibly

implying that principles such as that of Ofman might be incompatible with brand personality

literature, or a methodological limitation due to the stimuli selection that was done for the

Pitfall brands in the first study.

Study 2 aimed to provide an answer to these two apparent explanations for the less-than-ideal

results obtained from the first study. This was done by selecting fictitious brands in order to

control for all prior associations that the respondents might have had with the brands and

therefore their personalities. Unlike results of the first study, results of the second study

indicated that the respondents were clearly able to perceive Pitfall traits in brands, implying

no conceptual limitation of Ofman’s framework with its applicability on brands and their

personalities. Furthermore, Pitfall traits were found to be perceived as negative, as suggested

by decrease in attitude towards the brand. This finding also implies no methodological

limitation in selection of stimuli for the first study, since the brands that were picked to

represent the archetypes of the Pitfall brands in the first study were all real and successful

brands that the respondents were widely familiar with, and had a moderately high to highly

positive attitude towards (as observed in the additional analysis of the first study). Therefore,

based on the findings of the second study, if respondents in the first study were to have

perceived the brands as Pitfall brands, then these brands would have fared poorly in terms of

their attitude ratings. This was however, not the case.

Study 2 also aimed to answer the second half of the research question by seeking to

demonstrate how consumers’ attitudes towards the brands could be influenced depending on

the manner in which the brands communicate their personality traits. Expected results were

found for Core Quality traits which led to positive attitudes towards the brand, providing

further support for the “Brand personality effect” (Freling & Forbes, 2005). However, the

results also demonstrated that the Core Quality traits led to implied perceptions about the

brands’ respective Pitfall traits as well. This apparently is problematic for brands, since

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perceptions of Pitfall traits were found to be perceived as negative, as suggested by decrease

in attitude towards the brand.

Insights from personal and organizational development literature as well as brand positioning

literature would suggest that in order to prevent the so-called “innuendo effect” of Core

Quality (or a brand’s PoD) from turning into a Pitfall (or Correlational PoP), a brand would

need to master its Challenge (or PoP) (Keller, 2013; Keller et al., 2002; Kervyn et al., 2012;

Ofman, 2001). However, even though the Challenge did independently seem to increase the

respondents’ attitude towards the brand, a few interesting observations and contrary results

were obtained. Firstly, Challenge also seemed to marginally decrease the perception of a

brand’s Core Quality. Perhaps due to this reason, combined communication of the Challenge

and Core Quality did not lead to any synergistic effects, as was expected. Secondly, even

though it appeared that addition of Challenge independently led to a decrease in the

perception of Pitfall, this happened only as long as no explicit mention was made of the

Pitfall. As soon as the Pitfall was mentioned, this damping effect of Challenge was lost.

Third, and perhaps most important was therefore to observe the impact of communicating

Challenge together with the Core Quality on Pitfall perceptions. This combination only

seems to slightly decrease perceptions of Pitfall - only for the confident brand personality,

and that too only in case when the Pitfall is mentioned explicitly. In all other cases,

communication of Challenge together with the Core Quality does not seem to have any

beneficial effects to reduce the perception of Pitfall.

Therefore, based on these results, it can be concluded that mastering the Challenge is perhaps

not as big of a necessity, nor a big priority for brands as theory would suggest. In fact what

would appear to be a necessity and a key takeaway from the second study would be the need

for brands to control the communication of Core Quality by ensuring its communication in a

slightly subtle way, in order to avoid the possibility of it being exaggerated and perceived as

a Pitfall trait.

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7.1 Theoretical implications

7.1.1 Applicability of new insights to brand personality literature

One of the key objectives of the present research was to advance and broaden the scope of the

existing brand personality research by interweaving and applying principles from domains

that have previously not been considered in brand personality literature, thereby providing

fresh insights to this stream. For this purpose, theories from other domains, namely personal

and organizational development, human personality psychology, impression management, as

well as brand positioning was consulted in order to look for insights which could be

applicable to brand personality literature. From all these insights, and from the results of the

research, a few key implications emerge. First of all, the results of both the studies indicated

the applicability of ideas and principles from the above mentioned domains to the stream of

brand personality. The study found evidence of the “Innuendo effect”, which has been

defined as “the tendency for individuals to draw negative inferences from positive

descriptions” (Kervyn et al., 2012, p. 77) on brand personality. Just like human personality

traits, Pitfall is implicitly conveyed by the Core Quality traits of a brand. Moreover, ideas

from Ofman’s model that are applicable to human personality also seemed to be applicable to

the personality of brands, as results of the second study indicated that the respondents were

clearly able to perceive Pitfall traits in brands, and they were found to be perceived as

negative, as suggested by decrease in attitude towards the brand. Expected results were found

for Core Quality traits which led to positive attitudes towards the brand, providing further

support for the “Brand personality effect” (Freling & Forbes, 2005).

These insights suggest that there appears to be a huge potential for brand personality research

to greatly benefit and broaden its horizons by considering insights and principles from other

interesting literature streams such as those considered in this research, especially those

involving human personality as well as general branding literature.

7.1.2 Mastering the Challenge is perhaps not all that important

Insights from personal and organizational development literature as well as brand positioning

literature suggested that in order to prevent the so-called “innuendo effect” of Core Quality

(or a brand’s PoD) from turning into a Pitfall (or Correlational PoP), a brand would need to

master its Challenge (or PoP) (Keller, 2013; Keller et al., 2002; Kervyn et al., 2012; Ofman,

2001) this did not appear to be fully supported for, and applicable to brand personality

literature.

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Even though the Challenge did independently seem to increase the respondents’ attitude

towards the brand, a few interesting observations and contrary results were obtained

Firstly, Challenge also seemed to marginally decrease the perception of a brand’s Core

Quality. Perhaps due to this reason, combined communication of the Challenge and Core

Quality did not lead to any synergistic effects on brand attitude, as was expected. In fact,

combined communication of the Challenge and Core Quality even showed evidence of

marginally negatively affecting respondents’ attitude towards the brand. Even though no

direct alternative explanation exists in human personality literature of this effect, perhaps this

can be explained by the law of diminishing returns in economics, which states that after a

predictable equilibrium of prices and market shares is reached, companies get decreasing

returns for further increases in their investments (Arthur, 1996). Similarly, perhaps after one

positive personality trait (Core Quality) is communicated to the consumers, the additional

communication of another positive trait (Challenge) leads to diminishing returns in terms of

attitude towards the brand.

Secondly, even though it appeared that addition of Challenge independently led to a decrease

in the perception of Pitfall, this happened only as long as no explicit mention was made of the

Pitfall. As soon as the Pitfall was mentioned, this damping effect of Challenge was lost.

Perhaps due to this reason, also no significant effect of Challenge was found on respondents’

attitude towards the brand. According to Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, and Vohs

(2001), in everyday life, the relative influence of negative psychological events is greater

than positive ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes form quicker and are more resistant

than good ones; similarly, negative information has more relative influence on likeability

than positive information, and this occurrence has been shown to be valid across a broad

range of psychological phenomena (Baumeister et al., 2001). Perhaps this could offer a

possible explanation as to why it seems that the strength of the negativity of Pitfall

supersedes the relative strength of the positivity of Challenge.

A key insight that came out regarding the supposed need to balance the Core Quality on

Challenge was that this particular combination only seems to slightly decrease perceptions of

Pitfall - only for the confident brand personality, and that too only in case when the Pitfall is

mentioned explicitly. In all other cases, communication of Challenge together with the Core

Quality does not seem to have any beneficial effects to reduce the perception of Pitfall.

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Therefore, it can be concluded that mastering the Challenge is perhaps not as big of a

necessity, nor a big priority for brands as theory would suggest. Perhaps this could be due to

the idea of Challenge or PoP is somewhat less “contextually relevant” in the domain of brand

personality as Kervyn et al. (2012) would suggest, or perhaps this idea is a bit too

complicated for people to process in the context of forming impressions about a brand’s

personality, since according to the research by Nidorf and Crockett (1965) on human

personality impression formation, individual differences exist in the way in which a person

forms impressions of another person who is described by conflicting information.

An individual with high degree of cognitive complexity will try to rationalize the conflict and

reduce the cognitive dissonance arising from the situation while retaining the initially

conflicting information contained in the personality description, while someone with a low

degree of cognitive complexity is less likely to be able to do so, and will consequently reduce

the dissonance by removing one set of the conflicting informational trait and retaining the

other, holding a one-sided picture of the person being described (Nidorf & Crockett, 1965).

Perhaps the latter is what happens in the context of forming impressions about a brand’s

personality. Perhaps people perceive the Core Quality and Challenge not as complementary,

but as conflicting information, thereby removing either one of those associations, while

retaining the other when forming associations about the brand’s personality.

Therefore, it can be concluded that the need to “master the Challenge” or “strike the right

balance between the PoD and PoP” is not entirely necessary for brands in order for brands to

avoid being perceived by the Pitfall personality trait. Instead, what appears more important is

the need to limit the communication of Core Quality to a somewhat subtle manner and avoid

its exaggeration.

7.1.3 Brand personality as a component of associative network

Keller (1993) described brand personality as an attribute originating from user and usage

imagery attributes, and highlighted its role in consumers’ self-expression. It is also addressed

how brand personality attributes “reflect emotions or feelings evoked by the brand” by means

of the associations that get attributed with the brand (Keller, 1993, p. 4). Therefore, brand

personality is seen as an important component of the associative network of consumers.

Moreover, according to Keller (2001), brand personality is one of the key essential

components of a brand’s customer-based brand equity model, since ultimately, a well-

communicated brand personality to the consumers by the firm can foster personal relevance

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to the consumers, enabling formation of close relationships with the brand, and hence

stimulating Brand Resonance (Keller, 2001). However, the results of this study, especially

the first study demonstrated that while brand personality is an important component of the

overall customer-based brand equity model as well as of the associative network of

consumers, there might be other bigger and perhaps more relevant associations and

components of the consumers associative network that might overrule the impact of the brand

personality in the formation of brand attitudes as well as impressions of the brand’s

personality. For instance, even though the brand Harley Davidson was identified as a Pitfall

brand, due to its communication messages that apparently convey perhaps an exaggerated too

much of its “Ruggedness” (Core Quality), Harley Davidson was still identified primarily by

its Core Quality traits, and was largely able to receive positive brand attitudes. This can

perhaps be explained by the tremendous brand resonance Harley Davidson has been able to

foster over several years of its existence in the form of its community engagement and loyalty

activities such as Harley Owners Group, community forums, etc. which according to Keller,

form a higher level of the brand pyramid than brand personality (Keller, 1993, 2001, 2013;

Muniz Jr & O’guinn, 2001)

Figure 36: Harley Davidson's communication messages showing

perhaps too much "Ruggedness"; image source:

(images.google.com, 2015)

Figure 37: Harley Davidson has been able to foster tremendous brand loyalty and community

engagement over several years; image source: (images.google.com, 2015)

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The findings of the first study can perhaps imply that successful brands that are well known

and generally perform well are far less likely to be perceived as what could be described as

true Pitfall brands largely owing to the huge sets of other associative networks that they have

built up over in consumers’ minds over several years of their existence as well as their

success. Having said that, however, if all those associations are to be controlled for (as was

done in the second study), and if consumers were to judge a brand only by their apparent

personality traits, then brand personality could prove to be crucial factor, perhaps even a

deciding one in the successful positioning of the brand as well as the attitudes the brand will

foster amongst its consumers. The same is likely to hold true if a brand is a relatively new

one, with small association sets, or is trying to build a new associative network in consumers’

minds, as suggested by the results.

7.2 Managerial implications

The findings of the present research could be of key relevance to brand managers and firms

seeking to occupy a favorable position in consumers’ minds through the communication of

their brand personalities. A key objective of this research was to demonstrate how consumers

process, and react to the different ways in which a firm communicates its brand and intended

personality, and the key ways in which firms could use these insights to strategically position

an intended brand personality such that it occupies a favorable position in the consumers’

minds.

The results of the research demonstrate that the Core Quality, which is the personality trait of

a brand that most strongly differentiates its personality from other brands, as well as forms

the essence of who the brand is, can lead to strong and favorable associations about the brand

in consumers’ minds, thereby improving their attitudes towards the brands. Therefore, it is

strongly advisable for firms to communicate their brand’s Core Quality to consumers, as it

can lead to improved attitudes towards the brand.

However, managers must be careful while conveying their Core Quality, since the Core

Quality invariably and implicitly also seems to convey certain other personality traits (Pitfall)

which hold negative connotations and lead to decreased attitudes towards the brand. For

instance, consumers implicitly perceive the traits of “arrogance” in a brand that

communicates itself and its personality as “confident”, or the traits of “carelessness”

implicitly go together with the Core Quality of “excitement”. Therefore, managers are

advised to not exaggerate their Core Quality while communicating their brand personalities.

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For instance, consider the following print ads by two boot brands that produce “Rugged”

boots for outdoor wear. The Core Quality

of both these brands is ruggedness.

However, the brand Dayton seems to

communicate exaggerated claims of

ruggedness in its advertisements, while

the brand Timberland seems to convey

claims of the same personality trait, but in

a more subtle and controlled manner.

As a consequence, both the brand

Dayton’s advertisements as well as its

personality primarily come across as rude

and harsh, instead of rugged, while both

the brand Timberland’s advertisements

and its personality primarily come across

what it is supposed to - Rugged and

Tough.

As mentioned above, the trait

ruggedness by itself may invariably

communicate rudeness to many consumers. However, exaggeration of this trait will almost

certainly be perceived as rudeness by the consumers. Therefore, a key message is that an

intended communication of the brand’s key positive personality traits should be subtle, in a

way that it does not seem as the negative too much of the trait.

Another key implication of this research is that certain Core Quality traits seem to differ in

the relative ease of which they are perceived as Pitfall traits by the consumers. For instance,

the Core Quality trait of confidence seems to be perceived as its Pitfall trait of arrogance

more quickly and easily than other exciting trait’s Pitfall of carelessness. Moreover, it

appears as though consumers’ attitudes towards the brand can be higher or lower depending

on the type of personality trait conveyed by the brand. For instance, confidence fosters lower

brand attitude than exciting, and arrogance fosters more negative attitude than careless.

While in general, managers need to be careful while conveying their Core Quality traits, extra

care needs to be taken with certain Core Quality traits as they seem to be more susceptible to

Figure 38: A comparison of the communication messages of Dayton

and Timberland; image source: (images.google.com, 2015)

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being perceived as their Pitfall traits. Therefore, managers are advised to know their brands

and their brand personalities well before communicating it to the consumers.

Furthermore, it might seem logical to think that if one positive brand personality trait such as

Core Quality can lead to positive attitude towards the brand, then adding a couple more

should incrementally increase this effect, and might even decrease consumers’ (possible)

negative perceptions. However, the research suggests that this is not the case. Additional

communication of other positive brand personality traits such as the Challenge does not seem

to incrementally enhance the positive effect of the Core Quality, nor does it seem to reduce

the effect of the perception of Pitfall. In fact, it seems to slightly diminish the positive impact

of Core Quality on attitude towards the brand, as well as slightly increase the negative

perceptions of Pitfall, especially when implications of Pitfall are already present.

Therefore, in case of crisis when a brand is plagued with perceptions of negative personality

traits, it is not advisable to try to negate the negative perceptions of Pitfall with addition of

other positive traits, as this might further worsen the attitude towards the brand. Nor is it

advisable to try to improve the consumers’ attitude by further stressing the Core Quality. The

key focus of managers in such situations should instead be to stick to the knitting, and

slightly release the throttle of communicating their Core Quality traits to the consumers.

Ensuring to communicate the Core Quality in a subtle and controlled manner is the key to

fostering positive attitude towards the brand, and ensuring that the Core Quality does not turn

into the Pitfall.

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8 Conclusions

8.1 Summary

The results of the first study demonstrated mixed evidence of the applicability of personal

and organizational development tools on brands and their personalities, such as Ofman’s

which states that in order for a human being to avoid negative perceptions (Pitfalls) of their

positive personality traits (Core Quality), they need to possess and demonstrate certain other

positive personality traits (Challenge) (Ofman, 2001). The respondents in the first study

failed to perceive the Pitfall traits in the brands, as all of the supposed Pitfall brands scored

higher on their Core Quality than their Pitfall, thereby contradicting the true conceptual

meaning of what a Pitfall brand should be. This questioned the compatibility of personal

development tools such as Ofman’s with brand personality literature.

The follow-up second study, which employed fictitious brands instead of real brands unlike

the first study however revealed that Ofman’s principles are not conceptually incompatible

with brands and their personality traits, and in fact revealed an alternative explanation to the

results of the first study. It was found that the respondents were clearly able to perceive the

three personality traits (Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge) in a brand’s personality when it

was presented in the brand’s communication message. Furthermore, the effects on

respondents of the communication of these personality traits were also largely in line with

Ofman’s model, as reflected in the change in the respondents’ attitudes towards the brand

depending on the combination of personality traits that were being communicated.

In line with Ofman’s model, results of the second study revealed that the perception of Pitfall

trait in a brand’s personality leads to a significant decrease in attitude towards the brand.

Based on these findings, if respondents in the first study were to have perceived the chosen

brands as Pitfall brands, then they would have fared poorly in terms of their attitude ratings.

However, that was not the case. The alternative explanation to the results of the first study

was therefore that successful brands in reality that are well-known and generally well-

perceived by the consumers cannot be what can be considered as Pitfall brands, as they have

been able to build strong, favorable, and unique associations in consumers’ minds over

several years of their success. Conceptually, being perceived as a Pitfall brand should

therefore put an end to a brand’s existence, due to the flurry of negative attitude that it would

receive due to its perception of Pitfall. Therefore, a true Pitfall brand cannot be successful,

while a successful brand cannot be a Pitfall brand.

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Another motive of the second study was to explore how firms can effectively position their

intended brand personality in consumers’ minds. This would reveal what kinds of brands (and

personalities) do consumers like, and have a favorable attitude towards, and which ones they

don’t, potentially enabling brands manipulate the communication of their personality traits in

such a way in order to observe favorable consumer attitudes towards the brand and its

personality.

Apart from the significant results obtained for Pitfall and its negative effect on attitude

towards the brand as explained above, significant results were also obtained for Core Quality

and its positive effect on attitude towards the brand, implying that communication of Core

Quality leads to increased positive perceptions of the brand, while communication of Pitfall

leads to increased negative perceptions of the brand; these findings were in line with Ofman’s

framework (Ofman, 2001).

A slight positive effect of the additional communication of Challenge was observed, but only

for the scenarios when the Pitfall was not previously communicated to the respondents. In

scenarios when the Pitfall was previously communicated to the respondents, the direct

positive effect of the addition of Challenge was extremely small and almost negligible,

indicating that Challenge loses its positive influence in scenarios when the Pitfall has been

communicated.

The results led to the conclusion that perhaps the need to “master the Challenge” and “strike

the right balance between the Core Quality and Challenge” is perhaps not as relevant for

personalities of brands as it is for human beings (Ofman, 2001, pp. 32, 33). The most

important message for brands in order to avoid being perceived by their Pitfall traits is

instead to ensure the communication of their Core Quality in a slightly subtle manner, such

that it doesn’t appear as an exaggerated claim, as the Core Quality almost always leads to the

perception of Pitfall, but this is especially the case when it is exaggerated.

8.2 Answer to the problem statement

The objective of this research was two-fold. The firstly objective was to fill the existing two

gaps in brand personality literature - regarding the lack of knowledge on how consumers

process, and react to the different ways in which a firm communicates its brand and intended

personality, and regarding the absence of ideas and principles for strategically positioning an

intended brand personality. The second objective was to advance and broaden the scope of

the existing brand personality research by interweaving and applying principles from

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domains that have previously not been considered in brand personality literature, thereby

providing fresh insights to this stream. For this purpose, the following problem statement was

developed:

How can principles from personal & organizational development, and brand

positioning literature guide effective positioning of a firm’s intended brand

personality in its consumers’ minds?

Combined insights from both studies of this research have led to the conclusion that firstly,

principles from other domains - such as personal and organizational development, human

personality psychology, impression management, as well as brand positioning are not only

applicable to the domain of brand personality, but can further broaden the boundaries of the

brand personality literature by providing fresh new insights that have previously not been

considered in this stream.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, a key implication that emerged from this research,

and perhaps the key takeaway was that in order to avoid perceptions of Pitfall, brands must

be careful when presenting their Core Quality to consumers. Even without the explicit

mention of the Pitfall, the Core Quality has the tendency to implicitly communicate Pitfall.

Therefore, exaggerating the Core Quality further will only add fuel to this fire, and possibly

trap the brand in its Pitfall. This is how firms can effectively position their intended brand

personality in their consumers’ minds.

8.3 Limitations, recommendations, and directions for further research

The present research has several limitations. Firstly, due to limitations of time and resources,

the research could not pre-test the formation of Core Quadrants. For instance, the Challenge

and the Pitfall traits were derived from the Core Quality traits based on intuitive reasoning.

Future research could perhaps pre-test for these traits, to see which personality trait is

perceived as a negative opposite (Pitfall) of the Core Quality, and which trait is perceived as

the positive opposite (Challenge) of the Pitfall, in order to ensure more rigorous results.

Secondly, the present research could only employ and test two brand personalities in the

second study and found somewhat different and even slightly conflicting results for those

brand personalities. Future research could perhaps test multiple brand personalities

simultaneously and compare their Core Quality, Pitfall, Challenge, and brand attitude

perceptions to categorize the effect of the type of brand personality on these variables.

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Thirdly, study 2 of this research used communication texts to convey the traits of Core

Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge, along with their various combinations. However, exactly

what levels of Core Quality, Pitfall, and Challenge were added to the base-line personality

traits were not accounted for. Nor was it possible to establish the exact levels at which

addition of each of these variables to the preceding variable led to the change in brand

attitude. It is recommended that future research rectifies this limitation by also controlling the

various levels of the variables that are added to the preceding variable and account for the

effect of this on brand attitude.

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Category 1 - Consumer Electronics/Technology

CQ 1 = Creative

Pitfall (CQ 1) = Chaotic

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Challenge (CQ 1) = Analytical

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Category 2 - Beer

CQ 2 = Enthusiastic

Pitfall (CQ 2) = Unserious

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Challenge (CQ 2) = Inexpressive

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Category 3 - Cars

CQ 3 = Confident

Pitfall (CQ 3) = Arrogant

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Challenge (CQ 3) = Modest

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CQ 1 = Creative

Pitfall (CQ 1) = Chaotic

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Challenge (CQ 1) = Analytical

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CQ 2 = Confident

Pitfall (CQ 2) = Arrogant

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Challenge (CQ 2) = Modest

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CQ 3 = Sympathetic

Pitfall (CQ 3) = Sentimental

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Challenge (CQ 3) = Pragmatic

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Appendix 3 - Quantitative pre-test questionnaire versions 1 - 6

1. Please circle the response that best describes your level of agreement with the statements listed

below:

2. If the following brands were a person, please describe the personality traits (multiple traits

possible) that according to you best describe the brand’s personality:

Red Bull _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Apple _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Philips _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Dove _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________


below:

Statement Strongly disagree

Strongly

agree

Philips has a “Reliable” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Red Bull has an “Undependable” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Dove has a “Sentimental” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Red Bull has an “Exciting” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Apple has an “Unorganized” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7


Strongly

agree

Philips has an “Unpopular” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Dove has a “Sincere” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Apple has an “Imaginative” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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Red Bull has an “Active” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Dove has a “Warm” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Red Bull has a “Careless” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Apple has a “Creative” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Dove has a “Sympathetic” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Apple has a “Chaotic” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Philips has an “Intelligent” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Red Bull has an “Impulsive” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Philips has a “Nerdy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Dove has an “Overprotective” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Philips has a “Competent” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Apple has a “Sloppy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Philips has an “Uncharismatic” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Dove has an “Emotional” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Apple has an “Idea-oriented” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Red Bull has a “Daring” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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below:



Virgin _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Google _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

BBC _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Calvé _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________


below:


Strongly

agree

I am familiar with the brand “Virgin” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “Google” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “BBC” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “Calvé” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7


Strongly

agree

BBC has a “Reliable” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Virgin has an “Undependable” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Calvé has a “Sentimental” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Virgin has an “Exciting” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Google has an “Unorganized” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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Strongly

agree

BBC has an “Unpopular” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Calvé has a “Sincere” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Google has an “Imaginative” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Virgin has an “Active” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Calvé has a “Warm” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Virgin has a “Careless” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Google has a “Creative” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Calvé has a “Sympathetic” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Google has a “Chaotic” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

BBC has an “Intelligent” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Virgin has an “Impulsive” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

BBC has a “Nerdy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Calvé has an “Overprotective” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

BBC has a “Competent” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Google has a “Sloppy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

BBC has an “Uncharismatic” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Calvé has an “Emotional” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Google has an “Idea-oriented” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Virgin has a “Daring” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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below:



Lamborghini _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Facebook _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Microsoft _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Pampers _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________


below:


Strongly

agree

I am familiar with the brand “Lamborghini”

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “Facebook” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “Microsoft” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “Pampers” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7


Strongly

agree

Microsoft has a “Reliable” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Lamborghini has an “Undependable” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Pampers has a “Sentimental” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Lamborghini has an “Exciting” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Facebook has an “Unorganized” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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Strongly

agree

Microsoft has an “Unpopular” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Pampers has a “Sincere” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Facebook has an “Imaginative” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Lamborghini has an “Active” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Pampers has a “Warm” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Lamborghini has a “Careless” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Facebook has a “Creative” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Pampers has a “Sympathetic” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Facebook has a “Chaotic” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Microsoft has an “Intelligent” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Lamborghini has an “Impulsive” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Microsoft has a “Nerdy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Pampers has an “Overprotective” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Microsoft has a “Competent” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Facebook has a “Sloppy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Microsoft has an “Uncharismatic” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Pampers has an “Emotional” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Facebook has an “Idea-oriented” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Lamborghini has a “Daring” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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below:



MTV _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

V&D _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Oracle _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Ben & Jerry’s _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________


below:


Strongly

agree

I am familiar with the brand “MTV” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “V&D” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “Oracle” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “Ben & Jerry’s”

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


Strongly

agree

Oracle has a “Reliable” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

MTV has an “Undependable” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Ben & Jerry’s has a “Sentimental” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

MTV has an “Exciting” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

V&D has an “Unorganized” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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Strongly

agree

Oracle has an “Unpopular” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Ben & Jerry’s has a “Sincere” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

V&D has an “Imaginative” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

MTV has an “Active” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Ben & Jerry’s has a “Warm” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

MTV has a “Careless” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

V&D has a “Creative” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Ben & Jerry’s has a “Sympathetic” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

V&D has a “Chaotic” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Oracle has an “Intelligent” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

MTV has an “Impulsive” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Oracle has a “Nerdy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Ben & Jerry’s has an “Overprotective” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Oracle has a “Competent” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

V&D has a “Sloppy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Oracle has an “Uncharismatic” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Ben & Jerry’s has an “Emotional” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

V&D has an “Idea-oriented” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

MTV has a “Daring” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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below:



Chanel _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Caterpillar _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Ferrari _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Blendtec _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________


below:


Strongly

agree

I am familiar with the brand “Chanel” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “ Caterpillar” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “Ferrari” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “Blendtec” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7


Strongly

agree

Ferrari has an “Elegant” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Chanel has a “Pretentious” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Blendtec has an “Unkind” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Chanel has a “Sophisticated” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Caterpillar has an “Unkind” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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Strongly

agree

Ferrari has a “Cocky” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Blendtec has a “Rugged” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Caterpillar has a “Rugged” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Chanel has a “Classy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Blendtec has a “Tough” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Chanel has a “Stuck-up” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Caterpillar has a “Tough” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Blendtec has an “Outdoorsy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Caterpillar has an “Unsympathetic” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Ferrari has a “Classy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Chanel has a “Cocky” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Ferrari has a “Pretentious” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Blendtec has an “Unsympathetic” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Ferrari has a “Sophisticated” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Caterpillar has an “Uncharitable” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Ferrari has a “Stuck-up” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Blendtec has an “Uncharitable” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Caterpillar has an “Outdoorsy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Chanel has an “Elegant” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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below:



Rolex _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Timberland _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Louis Vuitton _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Harley Davidson _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________


below:


Strongly

agree

I am familiar with the brand “Rolex” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “Timberland” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “Louis Vuitton”

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I am familiar with the brand “Harley Davidson”

1 2 3 4 5 6 7


Strongly

agree

Louis Vuitton has an “Elegant” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Rolex has a “Pretentious” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Harley Davidson has an “Unkind” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Rolex has a “Sophisticated” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Timberland has an “Unkind” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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Strongly

agree

Louis Vuitton has a “Cocky” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Harley Davidson has a “Rugged” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Timberland has a “Rugged” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Rolex has a “Classy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Harley Davidson has a “Tough” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Rolex has a “Stuck-up” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Timberland has a “Tough” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Harley Davidson has an “Outdoorsy” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Timberland has an “Unsympathetic” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Louis Vuitton has a “Classy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Rolex has a “Cocky” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Louis Vuitton has a “Pretentious” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Harley Davidson has an “Unsympathetic” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Louis Vuitton has a “Sophisticated” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Timberland has an “Uncharitable” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Louis Vuitton has a “Stuck-up” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Harley Davidson has an “Uncharitable” personality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Timberland has an “Outdoorsy” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Rolex has an “Elegant” personality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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Version 1 - Core Quality brands

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Version 2 - Pitfall brands

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Version 3 - Challenge brands

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Version 4 - Neutral brands

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Appendix 5 - Correlation matrices (Study 1)

Table 47: Means, Standard deviations, and Correlations (Brand personality Exciting)

Variables M SD 1 2 3

1 Exciting_CQ_Summated 5.04 1.17 (.756)

2 Exciting _PF_Summated 4.20 1.51 .596** (.697)

3 Exciting _CH_Summated 3.91 1.30 -.197* -.518** (.757)

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Table 48: Means, Standard deviations, and Correlations (Brand personality Rugged)


1 Rugged_CQ_Summated 4.38 1.71 (.879)

2 Rugged _PF_Summated 2.99 1.35 .628** (.764)

3 Rugged _CH_Summated 4.34 1.54 -.705** -.734** (.888)


Table 49: Means, Standard deviations, and Correlations (Brand personality Competent)


1 Competent_CQ_Summated 4.87 1.36 (.858)

2 Competent _PF_Summated 3.27 1.33 .393** (.748)

3 Competent _CH_Summated 4.77 1.29 -.144 -.714** (.865)


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Appendix 6 - Study 2 experiment set-up

Confident (Core Quality)

Arrogant (Pitfall)

Humble (Challenge)

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Toothpaste images

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Exciting (Core Quality)

Careless (Pitfall)

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Responsible (Challenge)

Beer images

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Version 1 - Neutral, Core Quality scenarios

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Version 2 - Pitfall, Pitfall + Core Quality scenarios

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Version 3 - Challenge, Challenge + Core Quality scenarios

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Version 4 - Pitfall + Challenge, Pitfall + Challenge + Core Quality scenarios

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Mixed ANOVA - Manipulation check for score on Core Quality

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Mixed ANOVA - Manipulation check for score on Pitfall

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Mixed ANOVA - Manipulation check for score on Challenge

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Hypothesis testing - Process by A. F. Hayes

Exciting brand personality

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Rugged brand personality

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Competent brand personality

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Manipulation check using 3-way ANOVA (DV = Scores on Core Quality, Pitfall,

Challenge)

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Additional analysis using 3-way ANOVA (DV = Brand attitude)

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Manipulation check using 3-way ANOVA for CQ, PF, and CH scenarios

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Hypotheses Testing using 4-way ANOVA (DV = Brand Attitude)

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Additional using 4-way ANOVA (DV = Core Quality scores)

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Additional using 4-way ANOVA (DV = PF scores)

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