Photo of a woman illustrating a split brand personality

Does your brand have clear personality traits that encourage your customers to connect with it? Humanising your brand makes it more relatable and this will lead to them choosing you over your competition.

You communicate your brand personality with your content, design and marketing. It should be communicated across any and all customer touchpoints. Not sure where to start? Here are five key aspects of developing your brand personality.

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1. Cohesion and continuity

If your design choices say one thing and your content another, it’s going to confuse your customers. A bright, bold and edgy colour scheme needs to be paired with a confident, audacious and fun brand voice. And you need to continue with this same voice and colour scheme until you intentionally change or tweak it.

Think of your brand personality like an actual person. If someone dressed like a rebel but spoke like an accountant, you’d find them hard to read and harder to trust. Your brand is no different. Every element, your visuals, your tone, your imagery, your social posts, should feel like it’s coming from the same character. When all of it lines up, your brand becomes instantly recognisable and far more memorable.

2. Likeability

Your brand personality needs to be likeable. That doesn’t mean you can’t be adventurous, playful or need to try to please everyone. It just means that your ideal target audience has to like you. Think about what kind of personality traits they will best relate to and use those in your branding strategy.

The important word there is “your” audience. Likeable doesn’t mean bland or universally inoffensive, in fact, trying to be liked by everyone is the fastest way to be loved by no one. A brand with a strong, specific personality will naturally attract the right people and repel the wrong ones, and that’s a good thing. Focus on being magnetic to your ideal customer, not palatable to the masses.

3. Be different

If you’re not unique, especially when compared to your immediate competitors, you’re forgettable. And forgettable brands get forgotten. Choose ways to communicate your brand personality that are unique to you. Not sure what sets you apart? Consider leading with your ‘why’.

Have a look at your competitors’ branding all lined up together. If you swapped the logos, could you tell them apart? In most industries the answer is no, everyone sounds the same, looks the same and says the same safe things. That sea of sameness is your opportunity. The braver and more distinctive your personality, the more you stand out, and standing out is the whole point of having a brand in the first place.

4. Be authentic

People can smell a fake. Plus, you’re going to feel a lot more comfortable maintaining a persona that feels true to you. Being authentic doesn’t mean you can’t be polished or professional. It doesn’t mean you show warts and all (remember point 2 is likeability, after all). It simply means that you need to stay true to the essence of who you are and what you stand for in business.

Authenticity is also far easier to sustain. A made-up personality takes constant effort to keep up and tends to crack under pressure, whereas one built on who you really are runs on autopilot. The most magnetic brands aren’t performing a character, they’re amplifying a real one. So start with the truth of your business and your values, then turn the volume up, rather than inventing something from scratch.

5. Have a consistent brand personality voice

If your logo didn’t appear with your content, could your audience identify the content as coming from your brand? You want to be identifiable and seen and heard as an authoritative source within your area of expertise. You can’t always rely on visuals. Brand voice is a vital part of the personality pie and it needs to be consistent across the board. Train any of the team who will be working with your brand (or customers) to maintain language and correspondence that is consistent with your brand personality.

This is where a lot of brands come undone. The website sounds slick, but the email replies sound robotic and the social captions sound like a different company entirely. Consistency only works if everyone who touches the brand knows how it’s meant to sound. The simplest fix is to document your voice, a few do’s and don’ts, some example phrases, the words you use and the ones you avoid, so anyone on the team can write as the brand, not as themselves.

The 5 aspects at a glance

The whole article in one quick reference:

The aspect Why it matters How to do it
Cohesion and continuity Mixed signals between design and words confuse customers. Match your visuals and voice, and keep them consistent until you intentionally change them.
Likeability Your ideal audience has to like you (not everyone). Build traits your target customer relates to, and be magnetic rather than bland.
Be different Forgettable brands get forgotten. Communicate your personality in ways unique to you. Lead with your why.
Be authentic People can smell a fake, and a real personality is easier to sustain. Stay true to who you are and what you stand for, then turn the volume up.
Consistent voice You can’t always rely on visuals to be recognised. Keep your voice consistent everywhere and train your team to write as the brand.

A strong brand personality is one of the clearest signs of a brand that’s been thought through properly. If you’d like an outside read on how yours is landing, a free brand audit is a good place to start, or explore our brand strategy work.

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FAQs

What is brand personality?

Brand personality is the set of human traits and characteristics your brand takes on, the way it would come across if it were a person. Is it bold or understated? Playful or serious? Warm or authoritative? You express it through your content, design, voice and marketing, across every customer touchpoint. A clear brand personality humanises your business, which makes it more relatable and helps customers connect with and remember you.

Why does brand personality matter?

Because people connect with personalities, not faceless companies. A clear, consistent personality makes your brand more relatable, more memorable and easier to choose over competitors who all blend together. It also builds trust, we instinctively trust brands that feel coherent and human. In a crowded market, a strong personality is often what tips a potential customer from “this is fine” to “this feels like my kind of brand”.

What is brand voice?

Brand voice is the verbal expression of your brand personality, the consistent tone, language and style you use in everything you write. It’s a vital part of the personality pie, because you can’t always rely on visuals to be recognised. A good test: if your logo were removed, could your audience still tell the content was yours from the words alone? If the answer is yes, your voice is doing its job.

How do I define my brand personality?

Start with who you really are as a business and what you stand for, then think about the traits your ideal customer relates to most. Look for the overlap between the two. From there, make deliberate choices about your design, colour, tone and language so they all express the same character, and make sure they’re different enough from competitors to stand out. The goal is a personality that’s authentic to you and magnetic to the right people.

Does my brand personality need to appeal to everyone?

No, and trying to is a mistake. A personality designed to please everyone ends up being bland and forgettable. The aim is to be likeable to your ideal audience specifically, which means a strong, distinctive personality will naturally attract the right people and gently repel the wrong ones. That’s exactly what you want. Being magnetic to your people beats being palatable to the masses every time.

How do I keep my brand personality consistent?

Consistency comes down to clarity and documentation. The reason brands drift is that different people write in different places, the website, the emails, the socials, without a shared sense of how the brand should sound. The fix is to document your voice: a few do’s and don’ts, example phrases, words you use and words you avoid. Then train everyone who works with your brand or customers to write as the brand, not as themselves.