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« Making Decisions | Blogs: Avoiding the Karmic Weenie »
January 25, 2005
Why Personality?
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks | Filed under: Brand & Identity
Giving your company a personality can allow you to connect with your customers. If you’re not connecting with your customers, what are you doing?
Apple is probably one of the most well known companies for having a clearly defined personality. There’s a certain techno-geek charm, an underdog mentality, but also a sense of fun, high quality, and a bit of cheekiness. Because all the elements of Apple’s marketing strategy—their slogans, their commercials, their philosophy, their product unveilings (as demonstrated this past month), etc.—work together to present this image, it sticks with people and allows them to connect with Apple. Everybody wins.
High school teacher George Masters connected with Apple. He loved his iPod Mini so much he spent five months creating a commercial. The computer-animated spot hyped the iPod Mini and made a huge splash on the Internet. In mere days the spot had been seen more than 50,000 times and Masters was interviewed on CNBC and articles appeared in Wired and the New York Times.
The cool products and personality of a company prompted a customer to make a commercial, essentially giving Apple tons of free advertising. It’s a form of viral marketing that’s happening more and more often.
Compare Apple’s personality with IBM, which has a much more ‘strictly business’ personality. IBM’s marketing evokes a sense of efficiency and getting a job done. It connects with different people in a different way, but both IBM and Apple are playing to their core audience. It’s not likely IBM will suddenly find customers creating commercials for them, but their personality offers a different connection, the kind that pays dividends in board rooms where high-dollar contracts are awarded.
In both cases IBM and Apple have clearly defined who they are and given their customers something to identify with. That connection results in a stronger customer-client relationship, and not only more sales for the company, but a happier customer as well.
That’s what we’re all about. Personality™ may be a new name, but we’ve been in the marketing game since 1998. We can help give your company a personality and help you connect with your customers.
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