Personality change.
In the book ‘HEMP- The Highly Effective Marketing Plan’ the key point made is that if you want to change what someone does then you first need to change how they think and feel. Of course, to do that requires knowing what they currently think and feel, as well as what they currently do.
Most marketing communications are therefore first and foremost about causing a change in what people think and feel, in the hope that this will cause them to change what they do. And perhaps HEMP should be updated to emphasise that changing the feeling is not just equally important, but maybe more so in many cases than changing the thinking, and the most effective way to do that is through personality.
Think about the purchasing decisions you’ve made recently. In many cases it will be how you feel about a product, company, or individual that determined your decision.
Actually, perhaps this point is better made by thinking about the recent decisions not to proceed with purchasing something. It’s highly likely that you were put off by something intangible rather than a product or service specification.
The most effective way to make sure you’re using the power of personality correctly is to firstly define it and then check against this definition with every single communication, be it your homepage or your email signature, your instagram posts or your out of office message – the small stuff is just as important as the big things when it comes to personality.
The reason this relatively simple process is actually hard, is because many companies struggle to define their personality.
Our suggested approach is to identify analogous brands and R&D (ripoff and duplicate) what they do.
For example, start with these three questions:
If our company was a motor car, which one would it be and why?
If we were a food retailer, would we be ASDA, LiDL, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, M&S (or any other you choose), and why?
What about an airline? Would we be Ryan Air, EasyJet, BA, Emirates, United, Virgin, Etihad (or again, any other you choose), and why?
The brands you choose are much less important than the answers to why? But they may help you to get started with your personality definition as they are likely to have invested millions and often publish their values, culture guide and other useful references all of which can get you off to a great start.
This investment will yield a huge dividend – because before people buy what you’re selling, they have to buy you first.
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