For marketing perspective - Nov. 4

Brand personality is key element in selling expensive cars

Agus W. Soehadi Contributor Jakarta

Though not exactly crowding the streets of Jakarta or several other major cities in Indonesia, a number of luxury cars, such as Jaguar, Rolls Royce, Bentley and Ferrari, are often found to be cruising the city.

This indicates that a demand for these extremely expensive cars exists. Although the country's economic situation is yet to recover, the sales number of luxury items, including cars, has grown over the past few years.

The buyers of these enviable items are but a fraction of the population, the super-rich and the VVIPs. With little thought to the opinions of those who cannot afford such expensive items, they make the purchases with the notion that they have every right to do so. Plus, all the expensive cars, some costing as much as Rp 7 billion (about US$823,500) , suit their requirement to "expose" or emanate their image and lifestyle.

At first impression, based on the premium prices, the luxury car segment may seem attractive. However, to enter this segment and survive there is far more difficult in comparison with lesser priced cars. Among the difficulties encountered by marketers is to communicate the right brand personality of their product and make it stick in the consumers' minds.

Brand personality is undoubtedly one of the key elements in marketing luxurious cars successfully. Here, it is a combination of both the personality of the product as well as the targeted customer. In fact it is a kind of a positive symbiotic relationship. Hence, the endorsers -- celebrities, like artists, sportsmen and so forth -- used for advertisements have to exude the appropriate brand personality to further strengthen it in the minds of the customers. Ferrari cars, for example, uses the world famous racer Michael Schumacher. Obviously, his numerous victories contribute immensely to the car's image.

Creating a product's personality, or brand personality, is very much akin to developing a relationship with someone very close, your friend, wife, children and so on. The emotional links produced by a brand through its tangible features and intangible or abstract image is similar to ones that occur in the above intimate relationships. This way the consumer has great empathy for the brand and thus remains loyal for a long time.

The first step in deciding upon the right personality of a brand is for the marketer to hit on the brand's appropriate character. This process is similar to categorizing the brand within qualities that sound like positive human qualities: dependability, trustworthiness, friendliness, caring, fun-loving, helpful, sexy, rebellious, easy-going and so on. The process includes focusing on the target segment, identifying their needs and desires and finally matching the brand personality with the target profile.

Step number two is building the right brand positioning for the targeted segment. For example, when a marketer decides that their product is masculine, powerful and fast, then they should realize that they have narrowed down their potential customers. Of course, while their decision will make their product appealing to "machos" or "racers", they have knowingly not targeted those who prefer to "play it safe" or to be more precise, drive at safer speeds.

The third step, which is no less important, is constant post assessment or evaluation of brand performance. Take for example the results of a survey on two major banks in the country. The question in the survey went something like this: "If the bank was a person, how will you describe their character?" The answers from the respondents boiled down to a very conclusive image of each bank. Bank A was thought to be sophisticated, arrogant, efficient, self-centered, distant and disinterested. Bank B, meanwhile, was seen as being easy-going, modest, helpful, caring, approachable and interested. To the question: "Which person (meaning bank) will you choose to be your friend?" came the expected answer. More than 90 percent of the respondents preferred Bank B.

A valuable lesson from all this, especially the continuous evaluation of a brand's personality, is that this special combination of the concrete and intangible aspects of a brand must completely fulfill the requirements of targeted customers.

From the chosen and well-maintained brand personality all sorts of communications paraphernalia are then born in one positive synergy, such as the endorser and message theme, including logo, slogan, jingle and so on. Indeed, it also includes the careful selection of the fitting advertising agency who can translate the marketer's vision for communications.

The correct implementation of brand personality is even more crucial for extremely expensive items, like luxury cars. -- The writer is chairman of the marketing faculty at Prasetiya Mulya Business School