The rise (and fall) of brand personalities

By Molly Flatt

Unless you’ve been blissfully disconnected on holiday, chances are you’ll have noticed a rise in social media campaigns using ‘personalities’ to generate buzz.

Yes, we all love the Old Spice Guy (seriously, those abs make me happy however many times I see them).

For those not blissfully disconnected on holiday, here’s something for your imaginations

And Levi’s have just announced that they’ve had so much success with their Levi’s Guy, who interacts directly with consumers via his Twitter and YouTube channel, that they’re launching a Levi’s Girl to work similar magic for us birds.

But creating and maintaining a brand personality can be a tricky business. The abject failure of Cisco’s ‘Ted From Accounting’ highlights just how much work went into the concept and execution of OSG. Copying the latest social media success is generally a sure route to #epicfail – this is a space that rewards novelty.

And some recent stats from wavemetrix question just how effective these avatars are in generating real advocacy for the brand or product behind them, rather than the personality themselves. They’ve calculated that most discussion around Levi’s Guy is about the Guy – ‘he’s really cute’, ‘Levi’s Guy is having my baby’ – rather than the clothes he’s trying to promote.

Of course, there’s value in increasing general brand visibility and getting some kind of emotional connection with consumers whatever they’re talking about, but in many cases brands need to think about how they can make word of mouth work harder to actually generate sales and loyal advocacy.

Metrics we’re always proud of in our campaigns are the volume of specific brand and product mentions, opinions and recommendations, achieved. This stuff is what drives quality ROI.

But there’s a fine line between genius and gimmick – and many of these expensive-to-maintain figures have short shelf lives. Alongside investing in agency copywriters, make sure you focus on promoting the voice of consumers too – after all, your biggest fans are your real ‘brand personalities’.

Like this?

Brought into the world on Thursday, August 5th, 2010 and filed under 1000thoughts, Case Studies.

  • http://www.domesticsluttery.com Siany

    It can work. I think it did with the Diet Coke man, for example. But Coke didn't actually give the guy in the ads a personality, and he didn't detract from the brand itself. I think that was the problem with the Old Spice guy – people weren't talking about the product, they were talking about him. Brand awareness is one thing, but if no one cares about your product, and you're not investing in changing that, then it does become gimmicky.

  • Tim

    who's been reading NMA this morning

  • http://scottgould.me/ Scott Gould

    Molly – only you could write this post. Brand anthropomorphism… :-)

    Also only you guys – 1000heads – could write this on word of mouth. The insight that most of the discussion about the Levi's Guy was about HIM rather than the product.

    I'm keen to know how you guys at 1000heads make sure that the WOM that you create moves product, rather than just being about the person?

    Scott

  • http://www.mollyflatt.com Molly Flatt

    Amen.

  • http://www.mollyflatt.com Molly Flatt

    Thanks Scott :)

    We design all our experiences so that the product is absolutely at the heart of them – from our Aussie Haircare salon evenings, to our Sainsbury's freefrom dinner party where food allergy and intolerance sufferers were cooking their favourite dishes alongside the Sainsbury's Try Team, to the Tour de Velo for SKINS where an amateur UK cyclist trialled their latest product range riding the Tour de France three days before the professionals.

    I think it's a depressing sign if you have to resort to getting people excited about something other than what it is you're actually there to offer them. Your product/service/experience should have conversation built into IT, rather than using WOM as an add-on to try and vaguely associate some buzz through something else.

    You've always got to look at the VALUE of the WOM you're inspiring rather than just filling the world with white noise – what afterlife will it have, how will it influence others and drive real brand passion and sales?

    That's pretty difficult to do if you're not focusing on the thing itself :)

  • http://scottgould.me/ Scott Gould

    Hey Molly

    That's good advice. I think I'll blog that!!!

    Scott

  • http://scottgould.me/old-spice-put-all-the-kids-in-the-show-and/ Old Spice: Put All The Kids In The Show, and… – scottgould.me

    [...] on the real time nature of the campaign, John Cass wrote on its transparent inauthenticity, and Molly Flatt on the power of brand anthropomorphism. They all agree however that this isn’t something [...]