The crucial importance of brand personality in B2B

Why define your brand personality in B2B if your targets are businesses or corporations? Short answer: to build trust, engagement, and loyalty toward your organization. It’s not enough for prospects to know who you are—you also need to leave a positive impression.

But in practice, what exactly is brand personality, and how can you implement it to take full advantage of its benefits? Let’s dive into a more detailed—and more concrete—answer.

Brand personality: that little something that makes all the difference

Alongside your mission, vision, values, and positioning, personality is one of the five pillars of your brand identity. Even though it may feel abstract, personality is a major differentiator that drives customer acquisition and retention, as well as employee engagement. It humanizes your organization—even in B2B, since humans make the decisions!

Brand identity vs. brand personality: Two marketing terms that are related but distinct. Definitions:

Brand identity: This refers to the visible elements of a brand that, together, set it apart from others in the minds of consumers. These elements can include the name, logo, typography, colors, packaging, and design features of a company. Essentially, a brand’s identity is how it presents itself to the world—how it communicates its ethics, values, and goals. A strong brand identity is consistent and easily recognizable across all marketing channels.

Brand personality: This refers to a set of human characteristics or traits attributed to a brand. It’s a way to personify the brand to make it easier for consumers to understand. For example, a brand might be perceived as innovative, trustworthy, playful, reliable, bold, or sophisticated. Brand personality is part of brand identity, but it goes deeper into the brand’s emotional qualities, helping shape the emotional bond and relationship consumers develop with the brand.

In short, brand identity is more about the visible and tangible aspects, while brand personality deals with the brand’s emotional and intangible attributes. Both are essential for building a complete and effective brand strategy.

How to create a brand personality

In B2B branding, a company’s personality can be summarized in two main dimensions: on one side, competence, and the other, warmth or friendliness (brand competence and brand warmth). The first dimension relates mainly to the products or services (and how they’re presented). The second combines those with the overall way the brand is perceived. Together, they form the foundation of a personality that can then be refined into specific traits (a brand that’s friendly, competitive, innovative, serious, etc.).

A brand’s personality should be unique and recognizable—it’s expressed through the voice and tone the company adopts. It mainly comes through in content and through how the company speaks publicly (in ad campaigns, on social media) or via the people who represent it (such as in email exchanges with staff).

Why is brand personality so important in B2B?

As a powerful differentiator, a company’s personality helps build emotional connections with prospects and clients and supports the creation of value and loyalty. Ideally, it should consistently influence both your corporate and employer brands—how your business is perceived by clients, but also by your teams and the talent you want to attract.

And the possible advantages don’t stop there!

• Differentiate your employer brand and your products or services based on what your prospects are looking for
• Increase the perceived value of what you offer
• Reduce price sensitivity (the dream!)
• Strengthen your corporate culture by rallying your team around a personality they identify with
• Have a positive impact on your employer brand and buyers’ purchase intent

The 2 main channels for communicating your company’s personality

Even though there’s no one-size-fits-all method for expressing a company’s personality, there are two main ways to share it: through the products and services you offer, and through customer interactions. From the design and production of your products to how you present your services (or your employer brand!), through to sales and order fulfillment, you can combine branding and marketing to let your personality shine through.

Think about the potential entry points in your customer or candidate journey, and how you can make your brand’s personality visible. A well-crafted slogan? A product design that reflects your values (like performance or sustainability), and therefore your personality (competitive or eco-conscious)?

How to measure it

Measuring brand personality involves several key components and can be approached using a range of qualitative and quantitative methods. Here are some typical steps in the process:

1. Brand personality scales: The most widely used method is the brand personality scale developed by marketing professor Jennifer Aaker. This scale includes five dimensions: sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness. A set of traits defines each of these. A survey is typically conducted where customers are asked to rate the brand according to these traits using a Likert scale.

2. Social media analysis: With the rise of digital platforms, analyzing a brand’s presence on social media is a valuable way to assess its personality. This involves looking at the tone, language, content, customer interactions, and general online behavior of the brand.

3. Brand associations: These are the attributes that consumers associate with a brand and that help define its personality. They can be measured through techniques such as association mapping, where consumers are asked to list the words or phrases they associate with the brand.

4. Customer interviews and focus groups: These provide in-depth insights into how consumers perceive the brand. Questions should be designed to explore the emotional and psychological connections that customers have with the brand.

5. Employee interviews: Employees often have a unique perspective on the brand’s personality. Their insights can be especially valuable in B2B contexts where they frequently engage directly with clients.

6. Sentiment analysis: Another technique that involves analyzing customer reviews, social media comments, and other user-generated content to gauge how people feel about the brand.

Remember: the goal of measuring brand personality is to understand how consumers perceive the brand, not how the brand sees itself. That insight can then be used to make strategic decisions about marketing and branding efforts, ensuring the brand personality is communicated clearly and resonates with the target audience. Brand personality isn’t disconnected from the strategic and practical aspects that matter to your business: product design, sales, customer service, and more.

And since consistency is a golden rule in branding, why not clearly define your personality (with a brand guide or editorial style guide)? That way, everyone—from your sales teams to the people writing your brochures or ads—will be on the same page.

Let your personality shine: a way to outshine the competition?

By finding the right blend of competence and warmth that best represents your company, you’ll be able to shape those traits into a personality that’s both unique and authentic, and fully aligned with your brand image! To pinpoint what makes your company stand out and rise above the crowd, count on our branding enthusiasts: tell us about you!