Step 1: Brand Characteristics – Brainstorm and select five words that best describe your company’s personality. Below are 25 words that many companies use when developing their brand persona.
This list is not exhaustive, but it serves as a starting point. Again, you may feel the need to choose more than five characteristics, but choosing more than five would be missing the point of this exercise. Choosing just five attributes helps your company prioritize and simplify its message. Do the hard work and eliminate the attributes that are not a priority. You may start with 20 to 30 characteristics, but by the time you’re done, you should have only five.
Once you’ve selected your five attributes, distill them down to one word that you’d like to singapore mobile hone number List represent your brand. This will then be the word that guides your business while the other four are there to support it.
Step 2: Brand Color: Select 3 colors that you believe express the key characteristic you chose in the exercise above. Colors are essential for conveying mood and feeling. Colors are either warm or cool depending on where they fall on the spectrum, and all colors are associated with specific attributes. Blue, for example, is associated with trust and stability. Many big brands choose blue for this reason. Red is associated with passion and energy. Green is associated with health, vitality, and often prosperity. Below is a summary of the colors and the qualities they are commonly associated with.
Step 3: Brand Mascot/People Role Models: Select three animals that you think most closely represent the best qualities you chose in the first exercise. Yes, I know. This all sounds weird and unscientific, and guess what? It’s true. But trust me. This can be a boring or sometimes embarrassing exercise to do, but it can help you zoom in on the image you want your company to convey. Do you own a car company or make running shoes? Why not choose a fast, agile animal like a jaguar or a panther? Do you own a construction company? Why not choose a beaver, which is known for being a builder? Do you own a school or university? Why not choose an elephant known for its wisdom and memory? Do you own a toy company? Why not choose a playful otter or a red panda?
Alternative exercise: Choose three celebrities ; movie star, musician, sports star, etc., who also most closely match your brand's personality. Does your company sell clothes or is it a fashion company? Why not choose Audrey Hepburn or Nicole Kidman, who are both sophisticated and known for being fashion icons. Is your company a non-profit or does it sell music? Why not choose James Dean or other celebrities known for being rebellious and cool? Your company is a technology company, which needs to convey speed and efficiency, why not choose Daniel Craig or other 007 actors. Do you get the idea?
Step 4: Brand Tone: Select three sounds for your company’s soundtrack. When your company speaks, what tone should it strike? As your company grows, you’ll have events where you’ll need to choose a song. But we don’t have to take this exercise literally. We just need to imagine that every touchpoint in your company conveys a tone, whether it’s your company’s phone card, email, or billboard. Great brands have mastered the art of tone, and they use it to their advantage. Would your company’s tone be dark and sincere? Upbeat? Or bold and whimsical? What song would you choose as your brand’s soundtrack?
Step 5: Brand Voice: Now, try writing down on paper how your brand speaks. For example, how would your brand say “Hello?”? Would it be “Hello,” “Hi,” “Hey?”, “What’s up?”, “How are you?” or “Good morning!” How formal or informal would your brand speak? How intimate would it be? How enthusiastic or casual would it be? Would it use exclamation points or question marks? Is it flippant or serious? A brand personality’s voice has a huge impact on how the brand is perceived. It also determines whether the audience will engage with the brand and develop an affinity for it.
Once you’ve completed the worksheet, you might want to consider which of the 12 personality archetypes or 12 universal mythical character archetypes your brand persona fits into. The more your brand is seen as a variation of a mythical character, the closer you’ll be to giving your brand a persona or face.
