Jennifer Aaker identified 5 core dimensions of brand personality: Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness. She developed a framework to measure brand personality using 114 traits rated by 631 subjects across 37 brands. The framework provides valid and reliable measurements of how brands are perceived along these 5 dimensions by consumers on a human level beyond just product attributes. An analysis of 3 cola brands, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Thums Up found that while all scored similarly on Excitement, Coca-Cola was seen as most sincere and competent with Thums Up seen as most rugged.

1. 5 Dimensions of Brand
Personality
given by JENNIFER AAKER

2. Jennifer Aaker
• General Atlantic professor of marketing at the
Graduate School of Business,
• Ph.D. in Marketing, Ph.D. Minor in Psychology, 1995
(Stanford University)
• Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, 1989 (University of
California, Berkeley)
RESEARCH INTERESTS
• Time, Money & Happiness
• Culture
• Emotions
• Psychology of Brand Relationship

3. • She also works on
(a) giving - getting people to give
(b) culture - i.e., how individuals across distinct
cultural contexts feel, think and experience
events in different (and sometimes very similar)
ways, and
(c) the psychology of consumer-brand relationships.

4. Hi
It seems that this NANO above is talking to
the consumer in this ad.
(Don’t you almost want to say “Hi” back?)

5. Brand Personality
Brand personality refers to the set of human
characteristics associated with a brand (Aaker 1997).
Brand Personality provides an emotional identity for
a brand and encourages consumers to respond with
feeling and emotions towards the brand.
E.g. limca representing freshness, Nike as the
athlete in all of us,Maggi-2min noodles.

6. Basically Brand personality reflects how people
feel about a brand, rather than what they think
the brand is or does.
Consumers perceive the brand on dimensions
that typically capture a person’s
personality, and extend that to the domain of
brands. The dimensions of brand personality
are defined by extending the dimensions of
human personality to the domain of brands.

7. Measuring Brand Personality
Jennifer Aaker’s paper, “Dimensions of Brand
Personality”(1997),contributes a way to measure the
much talked- about and interesting notion of brand
personality.
The objective of her study is to identify brand
personality dimensions as perceived in the consumers’
mind.
Her study of 631 subjects rated 37 brands on 114
personality traits. She presents a valid and reliable
framework, which measures brand personality from.
The construct exists via five core dimensions, each
divided into a set of facets.

8. Brand Personality Framework

9. According to Jennifer Aaker (1997), the pattern
suggests these brand personality dimensions might
operate in different ways or influence consumer
preference for different reasons.
Whereas Sincerity, Excitement, and Competence
represent an innate part of human personality,
Sophistication and Ruggedness tap dimensions that
individuals desire but do not necessarily have.

10. 5 Dimensions
TRAITS DESCRIPTION
SINCERITY Service is perceived as honest, genuine,
cheerful, domestic
EXCITEMENT Customer perceived service as daring
and spirited
COMPETENCE Service is perceived as responsible,
reliable, efficient and dependable
SOPHISTICATION Customer perceived service as
charming, glamorous and romantic
RUGGEDNESS Service is perceived as strong and tough

11. Measuring the Validity of
5 Dimensions

12. COLGATE
Today, Colgate is a household name in India.
Colgate brand was selected for the study as it is
the No.1 brand in India (Economic
Times, 2004).Consistently superior
quality, continuing innovation, and value-for-
money products emerging out of the advanced
technology employed, have enabled Colgate to
be voted as ‘The Most Trusted Brand’ in
India across all brands.

13. Validity of Dimensions
 Sincerity Dimension
The items—realistic, sentimental, and down to earth
under the Sincerity dimension are more relevant for
colgate.
But sincere and wholesome are not applicable for
colgate.

14.  Exciting Dimension
The items—cool, contemporary and
imaginative—are not applicable to Colgate brand
 Competence Dimension
The item—successful—under Competence
dimension is not applicable to Colgate brand.

15.  Sophistication dimension
The items – charming, smooth and glamorous
under sophisticated dimension are morerelevant
for colgate.
Also the items- upper class , good looking and
feminine are not applicable to this brand.

16. Ruggedness dimension
The item—masculine—under the
Ruggedness dimension is not applicable to
this brand.

17. The Soft Drinks
Brand Recall: The highest recall was of the brand Thums Up
with 32.84% followed by Pepsi with 31.86% and Coca-Cola
had a recall of 28.92%. Brands like 7up, Mountain
Dew, Sprite etc. had a recall of 6.38% altogether.
Top of the mind: For Coca Cola, color red, refreshing and
‘thanda’ were the terms topping the charts.
For Pepsi, the keyword ‘Youngistan’ from its tagline was
most recalled. ‘Sweet’ and ‘blue’ were other terms
associated with the brand. ‘
Strong’, ‘Akshay Kumar’ and ‘thrill’ were on top of the mind
recall of the respondents for the brand Thums Up.

18. Measuring the Dimensions
Down to Earth: Pepsi was considered to be
the least on ‘down to earth’ vis-à-vis other
cola brands. Coca Cola scored neutral whereas
the response for Thums up was quite evenly
spread out across all the parameters.
Honest: Coca-cola was considered to be most
‘Honest’ brand followed by Thums Up and
Pepsi was rated least on this brand attribute.

19. Wholesome: Thums Up is the brand that is
considered most wholesome followed by
Pepsi. Neutral responses were given to Coca-
cola.
Cheerful: Pepsi is considered the most
cheerful brand closely followed by Thums up
and Coca-cola, but on the whole all the three
brands were considered to be ‘cheerful’.

20. Daring: Of all the three cola brands Thums
Up was the only brand that was highly
associated to being ‘daring’.
Spirited: All the three brands were regarded
as ‘spirited’ in nature. Thums Up was the least
amongst the three.
Imaginative: Coca-cola was rated as the
‘imaginative’ brand.

21. Up-to-date: All the three brands are
considered up- to- date.
Reliable: Coca-cola and Thums Up were rated
as highly reliable. Neutral responses arose for
Pepsi.
Intelligent: Coca-cola scored the maximum in
this parameter.
Successful: Coca-cola and Thums Up were
rated to be highly successful.

22. Upper Class: All the three brands were
regarded ‘Upper class’ as their brand
personality attribute.
Charming: Thums Up was not regarded as
‘charming’. Amongst the three, Coca Cola
scored the maximum in this parameter whereas
Pepsi scored neutral.
Outdoorsy: Thums Up is an ‘outdoorsy’ brand
while Coca-cola and Pepsi are rated neutral on
this attribute.

23. Tough: Thums Up is considered a ‘tough’
brand, Coca Cola the least ‘tough’ and Pepsi
neutral on this attribute.

24. Over all Brand Personality: All the three brands
have shown distinguished brand personalities.
Coca-cola scored most on the broad attribute
‘Sincerity’. The rest two colas maintain a
average rating on sincerity scale. All the three
brands score similar score in ‘Excitement’
attribute. Coca-cola and Thums Up are high on
Competence than Pepsi. Coca Cola and Pepsi are
considered ‘Sophisticated’ while Thums Up the
least sophisticated brand. Thums Up is rated high
on ‘Ruggedness’ scale relative to other Colas.