Abstract
Competing brands of consumer products are known to have distinct personalities manifested in their respective design languages. This helps them to communicate their brand values and differentiate from competitors. However, do consumers perceive the same brand personality that the brand intended to communicate? What factors does this perception depend on? Is there a standard way that product designers can use to decode personalities of competing brands? This study was taken up to seek answers to these questions, thereby analyzing brand personality from a design perspective. Shampoo bottles from leading brands were selected as stimuli. We found perceived brand personality to be in sync with core values, and interestingly, not much influenced by gender, age, familiarity or consumer type. We propose a quick and novel method to identify brand personality, that covers the loopholes of the conventionally-used semantic differential method. Mapping category-specific attributes to selected products, this method provides clear insights, enabling product designers to gauge the competitive landscape of any consumer product category.
Presenters
Shoubhik Dutta RoyAssociate Professor, Product Design, MIT Institute of Design, MIT ADT University, Maharashtra, India Wricha Mishra
Assistant Professor, User Experience Design, MIT Institute of Design
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Design Management and Professional Practice
KEYWORDS
Industrial Design, Design Language, Research Methods, Consumer Perception, Brand Personality
