Appetizer – a Piece of Cake

Elsa Mayonnaise, a representative of a famous Event Organizer called DuweGawe Inc,

was sitting in her office chair. A month ago, she was asked to arrange an event for birthday

party, by the most popular celebrity in Indonesia, Kikko Fatmala. The party would be held in one

of 5 stars hotels, with the most sophisticated decoration had been ever made. Elsa knew it

would be a great party, and she was under pressured preparing each details needed.

Kikko wanted a casual – glamorous theme for her party, because she couldn’t choose

one of them. To answering her need, Elsa came up with her own concept, which was the

combination of those ideas. When she offered this idea to Kikko, she couldn’t understand and

imagine how the party would be.

So here was the idea that Elsa offered; there will be dress code for the guests. For man,

they should wear t-shirt covered by coat. The t-shirt represented the casual side, while the coat

represented the formal/glamorous side. For women, they should wear a knee cut of dress. The

decoration would consist of some spot centers. Elsa and her team would provide one spot of bar

decoration including bartender available for guests who loves to drink ‘alcoholized’ beverages.

Another spot was arranged into café decoration for them who loves a calmer atmosphere. The

last spot was karaoke spot for them who like singing. Kikko loved this idea and she was

encouraged to implement it. She thought that this kind of arrangement would give conformity

to her guests because they could choose spot respectively to their interest. However, she felt

that it’s not enough. She wanted more.

Elsa had another suggestion to complement her basic idea. She would provide some

interesting games that involved the guests, and there would be gifts for the winners. Again, it

was good idea for Kikko. However, the problem was that they would need host to guide all of

these games stuff. Elsa had some options to be given to Kikko to choose,

who the host would be.

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Indra Bekti; he is one of the successful presenter in Indonesia. Usually he hosts the energetic and

cheerful events because of his style in presenting. He often makes a joke, and does foolish thing

to make the audiences laugh at him.

Choky Sitohang; he has a quite different presenting style with Indra Bekti’s.

Choky Sitohang emphasizes on the calmer character by showing politeness

and smartness. The diction he picks is organized.

Now, Kikko had to choose between Indra Bekti and Choky Sitohang

to be the host in her birthday party especially in delivering the games session. Kikko believed

that Indra Bekti will be the suitable character for delivering the game, since he is more active.

But in other hand, Kikko had to consider who the guests in her party were. There will be other

celebrities and executives so that appropriate manner in delivering games was also needed.

Elsa shut down her laptop still confusing what to suggest to Kikko. She had to make decision

quickly because Kikko tended to give the authority to her to decide. She also had to consider the

Indra’s and Choky’s tight schedule so that she could book one of them on time.

Introduction

The slight story above is part of the introduction to start this discussion. We will talk

about personality branding. The story indirectly showed what personality branding is meant.

The differences of presenting styles exhibited by both Indra Bekti and Choky Sitohang are one

of the examples of personality branding. They have same product which is as presenter. “Indra

Bekti” and “Choky Sitohang” are the brands. These brands are showing differences in character

of their presenting style. Indra Bekti is famous with his jokes and being active on the stage. At

the mean while, Choky Sitohang is famous with the calmer presenting with his organized words.

By emphasizing on differences characters, they created their own market segmentation.

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Basic Theory

So, brand has its own personality. Brand personality exhibits an interesting point of view

which emphasized on the relationship between brand and person. This relationship is

transformed into the association between brand and human characteristic that shows the core

values reflecting the brand itself. In other word, brand personality indirectly explains how brand

behaves. It is easy to pinpoint the brand personality in the “personalized branding person” just

like in the example before. But when we face with a real product, sometimes it is confusing to

define the brand personality / characteristic.

When we consider the personality branding, we need to focus on how customer

perceive or behave toward the brand itself. In other hand, brand personality has to reflect

characters which can stimulate those responses from customers. Determining the brand

personality is equal to determining the impression that we want to build and own from our

target market. That is why giving certain personality in brand is useful to differentiate among

existing brands available, which is now mostly showing similar functions among them.

We should take a note, that personality branding correlates with having an emotional

character toward our brand. Nonetheless, this emotional character should be realistic and goal

oriented since it bases customers an emotional reason why they want to buy certain brands.

Later, the ‘personalized brand’ will be delivered by adding some features, packaging and

advertising by marketers. The shorter distance of closeness between consumer personality and

brand, the higher possibility that the customer will have purchase intention and brand loyalty.

In order to give clearer illustration of what personality branding

is, we will see the five dimension of personality branding based on

Jennifer Aaker – General Atlantic Professor of Marketing, Stanford

University. They are:

1. Sincerity

Sincerity mostly reflects character that is down-to-earth, family

oriented, genuine, old-fashioned, honest, wholesome, and cheerful.

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The example is Coca Cola coke, which stresses the gatherings with family or friends, or

even sharing sadness and happiness in each its advertisement.

2. Excitement

It shows a spirited, young, up-to-date, outgoing character, caring, and imaginative. One of

the example belong this groups is Pepsi cola, or other soft drink cluster like Fanta, or

Sprite.

3. Competence

Character to be accomplished, reliable, influential, and competent is showed in this

third dimension. The example of competence brand personality is owned by CNN or

Wall Street Journal.

4. Sophistication

Sophistication exhibits a character being pretentious, upper class, charming, or wealthy.

BMW, Lexus, or Mercedes become our examples for this fourth dimension

5. Ruggedness

Athletic, tough and outdoorsy characters are represented in the ruggedness. Nike and

Adidas are the examples.

There are three models to built brand personality. They are Self-Expression Model, The

Relationship Basis Model, and The Functional Benefit Representation Model.

1. Self-Expression Model

Brand is used as a media for customer to express their identity, or the identity they wish

to have.

2. The Relationship Basis Model

It provides quite different point of view on how the relationship between customer and

brand is. Customer uses brand to be ‘feeling correlated’ with the brand identity exhibits.

3. Functional Benefit Representation Model

Customer uses brand as a media to represent functional benefit or brand attribute by

focusing on the use of visual image that has been established in the customer’s mind

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David Oglivy (1911–1999), a British

advertising executive stated “You

now have to decide what ‘image’

you want for your brand. Image

means personality. Products, like

people, have personalities, and

they can make or break them in

the market place.”

There are two main processes required to develop the image we use in our brand personality

strategy. The processes are:

1. Identifying the basic aim of organization which includes goals and strategic plans.

The entire organization member has to have clear understanding about what actually

the purpose of the organization and in what core strength the company wants to focus.

This strength will cover area where a company may have a competitive advantage.

2. Identifying the needs and wants of customer

By identifying these basic things, later it will determine the position of our brand will be

based on customer point of view.

Why do we need personality branding? There are some purposes why we need personality

branding;

Personality branding enriches understanding

Brand personality provides more understanding how customer perceives and behaves

toward the brand

It contributes a differentiation

Brand personality is useful to differentiate among existing brands available, which is

now mostly showing similar functions

It becomes guideline to communication

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Brand personality as a communication way delivering the brand characteristic with more

texture and richness

Personality branding helps in creating brand equity

It helps creating long lasting brand equity so that the brand will be differentiated the

brand and distinct compared to other brands.

AirAsia - Breakaway Brand – Brand personality

In this section, we will discuss about one of the flight service called Air Asia, and its

breakthrough by making its own brand personality and later became breakaway brand.

Overview company history

1993 : AirAsia was established

18 Nov 1996 : AirAsia started operations

2002 : it was launching new routes from its

hub in Kuala Lumpur International

Airport at breakneck speed with

promotional fares as low as RM1 (US

$0.27)

2003 : opened a second hub at Senai

International Airport in Johor Bahru near Singapore, launched its first

international flight to Bangkok and started a Thai subsidiary, added

Singapore itself to the destination list, and commenced flights to Indonesia.

June 2004 : Flights to Macau started

2005 : Flights to Mainland China (Xiamen), Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines

(Manila) were started

2006 : Flights to Brunei and Myanmar were started, took over Malaysia Airlines'

Rural Air Service routes in Sabah and Sarawak and operating under the

FlyAsianXpress brand, and AirAsia's CEO Tony Fernandes unveiled a five-year

plan to further enhance its presence in Asia.

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2007 : The routes were transferred back to new Malaysia Airlines subsidiaries

Firefly and MASwings, AirAsia's Kuala Lumpur hub is fully operated with

A320s, and Thai AirAsia received its first Airbus A320

2008 : Indonesia AirAsia received its first Airbus and AirAsia has on its list 106 new

routes to be added to its current list, the airline had flown 55 million

cumulative passengers.

To sum up, AirAsia is a Malaysian airline which has registered office in Petaling Jaya,

Selangor and Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Selangor as its head office. AirAsia

operates with low cost, and served both domestic and international flights with low fare. It was

the first airline which implemented allocated seating

across all AirAsia flights. Because of its low fare, the

slogan of AirAsia is “Everyone Can Fly”.

Breakaway Brand – Branding personality

Breakaway brand; how the brand stands out from all other brands. Becoming a

breakaway brand ensures the success of a brand. We face many brands which are focusing in

the same functions. It is not easy to be ‘standing out’ defining our one and only characteristic

that the other brands don’t have. Usually, our differentiating in branding will be followed by

another brand in the short range of time. Therefore, marketer should more focus to giving

effort on how the differentiating could save our brand from the others.

Being different is not only by modifying the product attributes such as features, or even

conducting certain promotion in order to attract customer. It is not enough. Breakaway brand

will be formed from the combination of breakaway product, breakaway campaign, and

breakaway value, that can be applied into two several types of branding; the existing branding

or a newly launched brand.

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AirAsia become the one of flight brand that fulfilled the second type of breakaway

brand: new fully launched brand. Since the first time it launched the flight from its hub in Kuala

Lumpur International Airport at breakneck speed, it was already undercutting former monopoly

operator Malaysia Airlines with promotional fares as low as RM1 (US $0.27).

The emergence of AirAsia hit the market. It took for about three years to bring AirAsia

gained profitability after launching its first route. Why can AirAsia become sucsessfull?

In my opinion, the emergence of AirAsia was strongly supported by one of the personality

branding. Personality branding in AirAsia is shown in its “Everyone Can Fly” slogan. This slogan

compels to millions of people, generating emotional ties toward this brand.

So what does actually brand personality dimension that reflect the AirAsia? Is it

Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication, Ruggedness? Of course Sophistication and

Ruggedness are not the answers since AirAsia doesn’t reflect these types of characteristic. I

think that Sincerity mostly reflects the character of AirAsia ;

It is down-to-earth by providing a low fare in travelling by air plane.

It is genuine by giving a bigger chance to everybody to fly

It is old fashioned by giving the standard ‘guideline’ service during the flight

Wholesome is expressed by providing benefit to customer; flying with low cost.

By setting this personality, AirAsia is successful in ‘crashing’ the market. It broke the

myth that travelling by using plane is expensive. Customer with moderate income can still have

the service and benefit provided by flight industry, because AirAsia made it affordable, not only

for high class customers.

In other hand, by exhibiting this all personality things, AirAsia gains a competitive

advantage because it’s already built its own target market. Especially in Indonesia, the

customers of AirAsia are mostly from Tenaga Kerja Indonesia (Indonesian Labor) that flights

from South East Asia nation to Indonesia and vice versa. AirAsia set low budget to fly, but the

passengers are millions. It is enough to give AirAsia return to gain profit.

The strong brand personality of AirAsia gives another advantage for this flight industry.

AirAsia doesn’t need to spend too much in the marketing strategy especially for advertising. If

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we still remember, the commercial of AirAsia appeared some years ago, however nowadays it is

hard for us to find any AirAsia commercial in our tv channel.

When it first launched its advertising (especially in the Indonesia’s channels), AirAsia

emphasized a lowest fare to route from Jakarta – Bali in the holiday season which most of air

flight industries set the higher fare than normal season. The next advertising was varied in some

different routes available. AirAsia also emphasized on low fare in “Idul Fitri” season to attract

customer. Although the advertisement seems being stopped nowadays, but we can recall from

our mind, that AirAsia is the lowest flight industry.

Conclusion

Personality brand is one of methods to build brand equity. It helps creating long lasting brand

equity so that the brand will be differentiated and distinct compared to other brands. Later on,

it will build a sustainable point of differentiation (brand attributes that can’t be found in other

competitive brands) and avoid the transformation from point of difference to point of parity (a

brand attribute that is somehow shared together among brands because of ‘imitating’ effect).

The good news is that sustainable point of difference is almost always achieved by creating

brand personality because of the basic rule that it is very difficult to copy one’s personality.

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REFERENCES

AirAsia ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirAsia#History

Brand Personality - Aaker ; http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_aaker_brand_personality_framework.html

Brand Personality ; http://www.kuldeeponline.com/brandpersonalility.asp

Brand Personality - The Relationship Basis Model ; http://groups.haas.berkeley.edu/marketing/papers/aaker/books/building/brand_personality.html

David Ogilvy (businessman) ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ogilvy_(businessman)

Jennifer L. Aaker ; http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/aaker/

Kotler, Phillip, and Kevin Lane Keller. Marketing Management. 2009. Prentice Hall, Pearson International Edition, 13th Edition

Role of Advertising in Creating Brand Personality ; http://www.indianmba.com/Faculty_Column/FC306/fc306.html

The Breakaway Brand – How Great Brands Stand Out ; http://www.thebreakawaybrand.com/book.cfm

Upaya Lux Menjadi Sebuah Breakaway Brand ; http://squirrelconsulting.wordpress.com/tag/breakaway-brand/

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