IDENTIFICATION OF FACTORS WITH SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE IN PERCEPTION OF BRAND, LOGO AND PRODUCT PERSONALITIES

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1 Research report Received August 5, 2013; Accepted June 27, 2014 IDENTIFICATION OF FACTORS WITH SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE IN PERCEPTION OF BRAND, LOGO AND PRODUCT PERSONALITIES Application of Brand Personality Scale in Case Studies of Electronic Companies (II) Algirdas PASKEVICIUS*, Makoto WATANABE **, Kenta ONO** * Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University, Yayoi-cho 1-33, Inage-ku, Chiba , Japan * * Chiba University, Yayoi-cho 1-33, Inage-ku, Chiba , Japan Abstract: This paper presents the second phase of research on how respondents perceived brand, old logo, new logo and product personalities. In the beginning, the literature review about the development and applications of Brand Personality Scale (BPS) was presented. The interest was to show how BPS was applied in different cultures and situations. The purpose of research was to find out which personality factors from BPS have the most significant difference in perception of brand, old logo, new logo and product personalities in case studies of seven electronic companies. The paired samples t-tests were conducted between every company s own brand, old logo, new logo and product to determine whether two means were different from each other. Furthermore, the three cross-case analyses were performed to compare different personality pairs of the same company with each other to find out where both samples are significantly different. Finally, four personality factors from BPS with the highest score were selected for the final conclusion. Keywords: Brand Personality Scale, Brand Personality, Logo Personality, Product Personality 1. Introduction This article is the latter one of two articles, which altogether are generally entitled Application of Brand Personality Scale in Case Studies of Electronic Companies. The first article presented the results of research about how respondents perceive brand, old logo, new logo and product personalities of seven well-known Japanese companies: NTT Docomo, Fujifilm, Kenwood, NEC, Pioneer, Sanyo, Wacom. The results were based on the mean values of all respondents answers for each of the 15 factors of Brand Personality Scale (BPS) [1]. It was found that respondents perceive brand, old logo, new logo and product personalities of the same company differently. The revision of all respondents answers inspired to research further and find out which personality factors from BPS had the most significant difference in the perception of brand, old logo, new logo and product personalities. The next chapter will present literature review about the development of BPS, applications of BPS in different cultures and critics about BPS. 2. Brand Personality Scale 2.1. Development of BPS Aaker (1997) developed a theoretical framework of the brand personality dimensions and a reliable, valid and generalizable scale to measure these dimensions. The BPS is used to measure and structure brand personality, and this scale consist of five key dimensions: Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication and Ruggedness. These five dimensions were divided into fifteen factors with corresponding 42 adjectives [1]. Copyright 2012 日本デザイン学会 All Rights Reserved. THE SCIENCE OF DESIGN B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No

2 Aaker was the first researcher who attempted to develop a brand personality measurement scale that was based on a representative sample of 631 subjects, a comprehensive list of 114 personality traits, and a systematically chosen subset of 37 brands across product categories [1]. The results of an exploratory principal components factor analysis revealed that respondents perceived that brands have five key personality dimensions: Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication and Ruggedness. The robustness of five key dimensions were established by conducting the test-retest correlation and reliability was measured by Cronbach s alpha. In addition, the results of series of factor analyses run on subsets of subjects confirmed the validity of the brand personality dimensions. Furthermore, the additional support for the stability of five key dimensions was confirmed through the results of a confirmatory factor analysis relying on 180 subjects, 20 brands in ten product categories, and 42 personality traits. In summary, the results of analyses demonstrated that BPS based on 42 traits is reliable, valid and generalizable [1] BPS in different cultures Aaker et al. (2001) conducted four studies to examine how the symbolic and expressive attributes associated with commercial brands are structured, and how this structure varies across three cultures: the United States, Japan and Spain [2]. Authors from studies identified that four brand personality dimensions: Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, and Sophistication share similar meaning in Japan and the United States, as well as relatively culture-specific Japanese (Peacefulness) and American (Ruggedness) dimensions. Results from these studies also revealed brand personality dimensions that shared similar meanings in Spain and in the United States (Sincerity, Excitement, and Sophistication), plus non-shared Spanish (Passion) and American (Competence and Ruggedness) dimensions. Peacefulness dimension emerged in Japanese and Spanish version of BPS. Japanese and Spanish cultures are more harmony-oriented and therefore members from these cultures tend to cooperate compared to members from the United States [2] Application of BPS in different cultures Thomas and Sekar s (2008) study focused on measuring the brand personality of Colgate brand and exploring the model validity of Aaker s BPS (1997) in the Indian situation [3]. Research revealed that Ruggedness, Competence, and Excitement are the main dimensions of Colgate brand personality. A validity check of the scale was carried out which indicated that the number of dimensions of Brand Personality is 13 and that about 10 items of BPS were not applicable in the Indian culture. The applicability of the scale was not checked because it required an exploratory research to identify the dimensions of BPS in the Indian culture [3]. Supphellen and Grønhaug (2003) presented their study based on a survey of Western brands in Russia [4]. The Aaker s BPS (1997) was tested in a Russian context and important similarities and differences between Western and Russian brand personality perceptions were identified. The research findings revealed that brand personality adjectives might shift from one dimension to another depending on the culture and it means the brand personality scale is probably less cross-culturally robust than human personality measures [4]. Sung et al (2005) investigates the generalizability of Aaker s (1997) theoretical framework of the dimensions of brand personality (the five factors of Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication and Ruggedness) across American and Korean cultures [5]. A set of 13 global brands were rated by using 80 brand personality traits in the United States and Korea and it was found six common dimensions of brand personality and two factors unique to each culture were observed. The results of American version of study revealed that observed factors and facet structure is largely consistent with Aaker s framework, with the exception of a separate Tradition dimension. The results of study with Korean consumers revealed eight brand personality dimensions. Two new culture-specific brand personality dimensions emerged in Korea: Peacefulness and Dominance [5]. Rojas-Méndez et al has studied the Ford brand personality in Chile. The task of study was to empirically measure the Ford Brand Personality, using the five-dimension BPS developed by Aaker (1997) [6]. The scale was applied in one Latin American country for the clearly defined brand product: Ford automobiles in Chile. Research revealed that Ruggedness dimension proposed by Aaker (1997) was not reliable, nor was it valid and therefore it was not considered for the main analyses. The other four dimensions of the original scale were refined until reliability and validity was achieved. A comparison between the results of Aaker et al. (2001) from their studies in Japan, Spain and the USA and the results from the study conducted in Chile using the original five-dimension BPS, revealed that the three dimensions Sincerity, Excitement and Sophistication are always present in BPS studies [6]. 22 B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No THE SCIENCE OF DESIGN

3 Jie et al (2009) compared two brand personality scales, American BPS and Japanese BPS, to measure the brand personality of Crest toothpaste, Adidas shoes and Shisheido cosmetics in the Chinese context [7]. Authors used BPS to measure both the brand personality and respondents own personality (human personality). The assumption was that the Japanese BPS would be better than the American scale in the Chinese context. But it was found that the American BPS provided a better fit than the Japanese BPS in both the measurement of brand personality and the measurement of human personality. Authors stated that the reason might be that the globalization has blurred the typical cultural dimensions in the mind of Chinese people, especially young Chinese students. In Ranjbar research (2010), empirically measured the Samand car brand personality in Iran, by using the five-dimension BPS developed by Aaker (1997) as a framework [8]. The confirmatory factor analysis of the measurement model revealed that Ruggedness dimension was not reliable, therefore, the other four dimensions had to be refined by confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling and the 24 items were remained. The results showed that Aaker s five-dimension BPS was not totally applicable and the brand personality concept had a stronger cultural component and that the 24 item BPS worked better in case study of Iranian car manufacturer [8]. The research conducted by Buresti and Rosenberger III (2006) explored the application of Aaker s (1997) brand-personality construct in the Australian action-sports youth branded clothing market [9]. Research investigated the potential for detecting differences in the brand personality profiles of three action-sports clothing brands. Results showed that Aaker s (1997) brand personality construct was effective in profiling the three action-sports brands consistent with the nature of the action-sports subculture and its image. Further, Aaker s brand personality construct was able to determine significant brand personality profile differences amongst the three action-sports clothing brands, as well as identifying brand personality profile differences between action-sports branded clothing and mainstream branded clothing. The results suggested that Excitement and Ruggedness as being the more descriptive of the constitution of action-sports branded clothing [9]. The research of Wallenklint s (1998) thesis focused on how the brand owner could use brand personality as a way to build and maintain Swedish brands [10]. Three Swedish companies were investigated. The results from these case studies showed that there were no official brand managers or any clear brand personality program. The purpose of the thesis conducted by Borgenstål and Wehlén (2002) was to gain a better understanding of how two companies proceed when selecting a corporate logo [11]. Authors conducted the case studies on two Swedish companies. They have attempted to describe the different objectives that the companies have with their logo, the selection process of a logo and also the benefits of a corporate logo. Researchers decided to investigate one of the benefits further - the logo s ability to communicate corporate identity. Furthermore, identity is closely connected to personality. For the investigation they decided to use Aaker s (1997) brand personality framework. The reason for that choice was that Aaker is one of the first researchers that developed a theoretical framework for the brand personality dimensions plus a reliable and valid scale to measure these dimensions. In that research, interviews were used with the respondents from two Swedish companies: Telia and Lulebo. In order to see if the Telia or Lulebo logo personality corresponds to the brand personality, the mean values of logo and brand personality dimensions were compared. If the personalities correspond, it can be a benefit for the company [11] Critics about BPS Since 1997, the Brand Personality Scale proposed by Aaker has become widespread in use and unchallenged on its validity. Most of the research papers on brand personality are now based on Aaker s scale [12]. After the replication studies and evaluation of validity of the scale in different countries, the BPS received some critics in the literature [12]. Azoulay and Kapferer (2003) argue that BPS does not in fact measure brand personality, but it merges a number of dimensions of brand identity - personality being only one of them. Brand identity has more facets than the personality facet alone. They consider that the present so-called brand personality scale merges all the human characteristics applicable to brands under one blanket word - personality, therefore losing the distinctiveness of the facets of brand identity. Authors stated that a stricter definition of brand personality is needed. Aaker (1997) defines brand personality as the set of human characteristics associated to a brand. But, Azoulay and Kapferer (2003) suggest defining the brand personality as the unique set of human personality traits that are both applicable to and relevant to brands [12]. Copyright 2015 日本デザイン学会 All Rights Reserved. THE SCIENCE OF DESIGN B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No

4 Batra et al criticized Aaker s (1997) BPS for its uniform approach towards a wide variety of products and categories [13]. The current methods of measuring a brand s personality ignore the portion of brand personality perceptions that are shared by all brands in a particular product category, because they are essential to the category itself. It has also been pointed out that some brand personality scale items (those of Aaker 1997, but also others) appear, depending on the category, to pick up functional product category characteristics rather than brand personality ones. For example: Coffee is seen as stronger and more masculine, tea as weaker and more feminine. Therefore the coffee brand will be seen more masculine compared to the tea brand. Authors proposed a factor model that separates brand's unique personality traits from those traits that are common to all brands in the product category by using category-level and brand-level random effects. The model was illustrated with data sets about brand personalities in three categories. Three categories were Cars, Jeans and Magazines, with ten brands in each category [13]. Ekinci and Hosany (2006) adopted Aaker s (1997) BPS to identify whether tourists attribute personality traits to destinations [14]. The findings of this study reveal that the BPS can be applied to tourism destinations. But the five dimentional BPS suggested by Aaker (1997) were not fully replicated. Instead, the five-dimensional BPS needs adaptation when applied to tourism destinations. The study results revealed that tourists as expected use the personality attributes in their evaluation of tourism destinations and that the destination personality structure consisted of three dimensions: Sincerity, Excitement and Conviviality. The Conviviality dimension was new and particular to the tourism destinations [14]. Caprara et al (2001) examined 12 mass-market brands to determine if the Big Five Model of human personality can be used as a metaphor to describe brands. Authors found that when applied to products and brands, the Big Five Model needs revision and adaptation and that the five-factor structure is not replicated when describing brands. The Big Five Model was replicated only when respondents described their own personality. The five-factor solution was not replicated in the case of brands [15]. Austin et al (2003) re-examined the Aaker s (1997) brand personality framework and findings from their research suggest that despite the fact that Aaker (1997) proposed applications that would require measuring and analyzing personality at the individual brand level, the personality measurement framework does not generalize to individual brands within one product category to which it was intended to generalize or situations in which consumers, rather than product categories, represent a facet of differentiation [16]. The presented literature review provides an overview and understanding about the research fields where the BPS evaluation method was applied. The following chapters will present the purpose, method, results and conclusions of the research. 3. Purpose The purpose of second phase of research is to find out which personality factors from BPS have the most significant difference in perception of brand, old logo, new logo and product personalities of seven well-known Japanese companies: NTT Docomo, Fujifilm, Kenwood, NEC, Pioneer, Sanyo and Wacom. 4. Method The second phase of research was based on all data collected during the first phase of research. Totally 37 respondents (male and female students from 18 to 24 years from Chiba University) participated in survey. Each respondent answered 28 questionnaires (4 questionnaires for each company) based on 15 Brand Personality factors Paired samples t-test The paired samples t-test was used to determine whether two means were different from each other when these two means were taken from answers of the same respondents. Five paired samples t-tests were conducted between every company s own brand, old logo, new logo and product personalities (Figure 1). Figure 1. Five pairs of different personalities 4.2. Summary of paired samples results Tables 1-5 present the summarized results of paired samples t-test analyses. The columns give the two-tailed p-value associated with the test. The values that are lower or equal to α level 0.05 are in the main focus of this research and shown in bold numbers. 24 B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No THE SCIENCE OF DESIGN

5 Table 1. Summary of two-tailed p-values of brand & new logo personalities 1. Down-to-earth Honest Wholesome Cheerful Daring Spirited Imaginative Up-to-date Reliable Intelligent Successful Upper-class Charming Outdoorsy Tough Table 2. Summary of two-tailed p-values of brand & old logo personalities 1. Down-to-earth Honest Wholesome Cheerful Daring Spirited Imaginative Up-to-date Reliable Intelligent Successful Upper-class Charming Outdoorsy Tough Table 3. Summary of two-tailed p-values of product & brand personalities 1. Down-to-earth Honest Wholesome Cheerful Daring Spirited Imaginative Up-to-date Reliable Intelligent Successful Upper-class Charming Outdoorsy Tough Copyright 2015 日本デザイン学会 All Rights Reserved. THE SCIENCE OF DESIGN B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No

6 Table 4. Summary of two-tailed p-values of product & new logo personalities 1. Down-to-earth Honest Wholesome Cheerful Daring Spirited Imaginative Up-to-date Reliable Intelligent Successful Upper-class Charming Outdoorsy Tough Table 5. Summary of two-tailed p-values of product & old logo personality 1. Down-to-earth Honest Wholesome Cheerful Daring Spirited Imaginative Up-to-date Reliable Intelligent Successful Upper-class Charming Outdoorsy Tough Cross-case analyses of paired samples Based on the p-values received from the t-test, the three types of cross-case analyses between different personality pairs were conducted (Figure 2). Figure 2. Three types of cross-case analyses Three cross-case analyses were performed to compare two p-values of different personality pairs of the same company. The logic behind the three cross-case analyses between different personality pairs was that every product has logo and every company has brand and logo. Three types of cross-case analyses were performed for NTT Docomo, Fujifilm, Kenwood, NEC, Pioneer, Sanyo, Wacom companies separately, therefore 21 cross-case analyses were performed. For the explanation of cross-case analysis method, the comparison sample between NTT Docomo brand & new logo and NTT Docomo brand & old logo is presented in Figure B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No THE SCIENCE OF DESIGN

7 Figure 3. Sample of cross-case analysis In this sample, the p-values from the t-test of the paired samples of NTT Docomo brand & new logo was compared to the p-value of the paired sample of NTT Docomo brand & old logo. The results of the comparison were divided into appropriate columns. The main interest was to find out which factors of the two compared p-values were significantly different. compare brand to logo was based on the statement about the logo s ability to communicate corporate identity. The research gave some insights into how products, old and new logos corresponded to the brand image. In addition, the method of evaluation of the current status of brand, old logo and new logo and product personalities was examined in case studies of seven companies. The purpose of the second phase of research was to find out which personality factors of BPS were perceived more differently in case studies of seven companies. Four personality factors (bold numbers in Table 6) with the highest score were selected for the final conclusion. The conclusions from the findings implied that companies before developing and maintaining the brand image should pay more attention to the following factors, which are Cheerful, Up-to-date, Reliable and Intelligent (Figure 4). 5. Results Table 6 presents the results of 21 cross-case analyses. These results are collected from the two compared p-values of two different personality pairs where both p-values were significantly different. Table 6. Summary of cross-case analyses Figure 4. Selected factors of cross-case analyses Cheerful is a factor from the Sincerity brand personality dimension. Cheerful = cheerful, sentimental, friendly. Up-to-date belongs to the Excitement dimension. Up to date = up to date, independent, contemporary. Reliable and Intelligent factors belong to the Competence brand personality dimension. Reliable = reliable, hard working, secure. Intelligent = intelligent, technical, corporate. It is important to mention that there were no factors selected from the Sophistication and Ruggedness dimensions. It suggested that these dimensions were perceived similarly and there was no significant difference in the perception of factors in these dimensions. 6. Conclusions In the phases I & II of research Application of Brand Personality Scale in Case Studies of Electronic Companies, the respondents perceptions about brand, old logo, new logo and product personalities were analyzed. The idea to 7. Future Research This Research Report was written based on research done with a limited number of respondents and by using one representative product of each company. Wider demographic groups, increased numbers of respondents and introductions of full range of products from the same company could lead research to more accurate results. Therefore the future research could include real tangible products, explanations of company brands, philosophies, traditions and presentations of company logo histories. Copyright 2015 日本デザイン学会 All Rights Reserved. THE SCIENCE OF DESIGN B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No

8 References 1. Aaker JL. Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research 1997; 34(3): Aaker JL, Benet-Martinez V. Garolera J. Consumption Symbols as Carriers of Culture: A Study of Japanese and Spanish Brand Personality Constructs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2001; 81(3): Thomas BJ, Sekar PC. (2008), Measurement and Validity of Jennifer Aaker s Brand Personality Scale for Colgate Brand. Vikalpa 2008; 33(3): Supphellen M, Grønhaug K. Building foreign brand personalities in Russia: the moderating effect of consumer ethnocentrism. International Journal of Advertising 2003; 22 (2): Sung Y, Tinkham SF. Brand personality structures in the United States and Korea: common and culture-specific factors. Journal of Consumer Psychology 2005; 15(4): Rojas-Méndez JI, Erenchun-Podlech I, Silva-Olave E. The Ford Brand Personality in Chile. Corporate Reputation Review 2004; 7(3): Yun Jie, Ting-Jui Chou, Fang-fang Li. Assessing the fit of two brand personality scales in a Chinese context and revisiting the predictive validity of two methods of measuring self-congruity. ANZMAC Ranjbar S. Application of Brand Personality Scale In Automobile Industry - the Study of SAMAND S Brand Personality Dimensions. Master Thesis. Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences, Luleå University of Technology 2010: ISSN: ISRN: LTU-PB-EX-10/006-SE 9. Buresti F, Rosenberger III PJ. Brand Personality Differentiation in the Australian Action-Sports Clothing Market. Marketing Bulletin 2006; 17, Article Wallenklint JH. Brand Personality: Brand Personality as a way of developing and maintaining Swedish brands. Luleå University of Technology 1998; (1998:092). 11. Borgenstål N, Wehlén M. Corporate Logos: Case studies describing how two companies decide upon corporate logos. Luleå University of Technology 2002; (2002:111), p Azoulay A, Kapferer J-N. Do brand personality scales really measure brand personality? Journal of Brand Management 2003; 11(2): Batra R, Lenk P, Wedel M. Separating Brand from Category Personality. Retrieved from sonality.pdf 14. Ekinci Y, Hosany S. Destination Personality: An Application of Brand Personality to Tourism Destinations. Journal of Travel Research 2006; 45(2): Caprara GV, Barbaranelli C, Guido G. Brand personality: How to make the metaphor fit? Journal of Economic Psychology 2001; 22(3): Austin J, Siguaw J, Mattila, A. A re-examination of the generalizability of the Aaker brand personality measurement framework. Journal of Strategic Marketing 2003; 11(2): B U L L E T I N O F JSSD Vol. 62 No THE SCIENCE OF DESIGN