← DictionaryBrand Personality
The human characteristics an audience associates with a brand.
What you would be like as a person.
What It Is
You will find Brand Personality in the Brand layer, alongside the rest of Attributes. What it actually refers to is the human characteristics an audience associates with a brand.
It is an idea you reason with rather than a deliverable you hand over, so two teams can both hold it correctly and still apply it differently. Once it is defined that clearly, arguments about it usually stop.
How It's Used
Most of the time Brand Personality is used in positioning conversations, identity decisions and the language a business commits to. It is usually discussed together with Brand Attributes and Tone of Voice. The practical test is whether a decision changes because of it.
Why It Matters
Ignoring Brand Personality rarely fails loudly — it fails slowly. When it is unclear, every later choice about message, design and channel is made on sand. It is worth pinning down before anyone builds on top of it.
It is a way of thinking, not a thing you can hold. What you would be like as a person.
Termshift™
How the meaning shifts depending on who is using it, and where.
Practitioners use Brand Personality as shorthand and expect no explanation — the human characteristics an audience associates with a brand.
Outside the industry, most people would just say: what you would be like as a person.
The Bottom Line
If you only keep one thing about Brand Personality: what you would be like as a person. Everything after that is detail.