The Risks and Rewards of Brand Personification Using Social Media

Social media can increase customer interest in your brand — if used wisely.

In this era of economic uncertainty, buyer apathy and product
obsolescence, businesses need to take a fresh look at how consumers
view the company’s brands and what makes a brand compete better
in the marketplace. For the average company, it is quite hard to
achieve the level of brand differentiation that the recognizable business
icons like Apple and Nike enjoy.

The key problem, according to academic researchers and industry
practitioners, is that many companies have become too disengaged from
their customers by relying on cost-saving, self-service technology
solutions. These tend to dehumanize the customer experience and
distance the firm from its buyers, causing them confusion and
frustration, as happens when a call placed to a company’s toll-free
line is answered by an automated voice offering a relentless sequence
of vague or impersonal options.

Fortunately, technology, often seen as the bane of customer relationship
marketing, may also be its savior. The rapid advent of social media tools
provides a ready mechanism to engage customers, talk to them, soften a
brand’s image, and present a friendly and accessible “face” to the public.

Research shows that when brands are given an emotional identity through
advertising and social media tactics, consumers tend to attribute human
traits to them in a phenomenon known as anthropomorphism. They may
view a given brand rather like a person and describe one as “cool” and
“fun,” another as “kind” and “sensitive,” and yet another as “snobbish”
and “aloof.” Brands that have been anthropomorphized in a positive way
have been empirically found to enjoy more favorable consumer attitudes
and command higher loyalty than those that do not.

Consider the upmarket hospitality chain Kimpton Hotels. To portray a
warm, friendly and empathetic brand image, Kimpton created a social
listening desk, which is a panel of employees whose principal job is
to listen to what customers are saying on social media and find novel
ways of attending to their needs. When customers post queries or
comments on these platforms, the desk promptly responds to them
with careful, considerate actions. Recently, when one guest tweeted
that she was enjoying the Kimpton experience but was feeling under
the weather, the desk routed the tweet immediately to the hotel’s local
team. They in turn delivered a bowl of soup, warm tea and a get-well
card to her room.

Yet when it comes to brand anthropomorphism, some inadvertent and
negative consequences are possible. An organization that conducts its
business in a highly methodical and clinical manner can develop a brand
image of being cold, impersonal or even ruthless. Another brand’s
personality may be stodgy, boring and colorless, as the company may
not have made the necessary investment in its marketing communications
and customer engagement practices. The negative brand connotations
may persist and actually accumulate over time, which then creates a
tactical opportunity for competitors. The company’s management may
be oblivious to these problems until it’s too late.

Firms can improve their brand perceptions and engage customers on
social media by making a personal connection with them through upbeat,
light-hearted posts, direct replies and witty remarks. Taco Bell once
seemed a faceless, even dour brand, but now it is perceived as positively
cool on social media and has garnered a large, youthful following. It
projects a carefree, fun personality by using short, funny tweets and
doesn’t shy away from engaging in friendly banter with followers.
Similarly, Lush, the U.K.-based cosmetics company, uses an informal
tone on all its social media pages, where it’s made clear that each
customer’s feedback is valued and appreciated. That helps foster the
“neighborhood feel” that Lush is known for and creates a strong sense
of community.

The tactic of culture-jacking (also, newsjacking) can be employed to
personify a brand as current, topical and in tune with the times.
If executed seamlessly, as Oreo did during the power outage on the
2013 Super Bowl, a company may connect its brand with the trending
topic of the day, appear clever and witty, and have the message become
viral. But it can also backfire quite easily and bring unwanted negative
attention toward the brand. This is what happened when Gap sought to
drive traffic to its website through an indiscreet tweet during Hurricane
Sandy. Clearly, tactics such as these are potentially risky and need to
be conducted with extreme caution and sensitivity.

How do you avoid the risks and capture the opportunities from brand
personification? Here are three key considerations:

1. Use social media to articulate your brand’s personality and core values
   (its DNA), which are often most effective in influencing prospective
   customers and converting them from casual to loyal buyers.
2. Create attention-grabbing content using visuals, wit and humor
   to engage brand followers, but be careful about treading the boundary
   between what seems clever and funny and what can be deemed as
   controversial and insensitive.
3. Understand that even on social media, less is more. Too much content
   and too-frequent updating can be off-putting and devolve into noise,
   so it is best to strike a balance and develop a positive and engaging
   image for the brand.

SOURCE: MIT Sloan Management Review

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