Image is everything Personality and image of financial banks during times of adversity Tim Smits KULeuven & Northwestern University Natalie Van Hemelen KULeuven

Personality Personality - Image

Image Personality - Image

Personality vs. Image Well debated issue if it concerns humans Particularly focal during adolescence Personality characteristics Situational characteristics Personality - Image

Corporations? They too have both a personality and an image (Konecnik & Go, 2008): – Identity – Personality = sender side – Image = receiver side ~ Brand as a speech flowing from a sender to a receiver (Kapferer, 2008) Often tension between both (e.g., Keller 2008; Plummer 2000) Interest in both constructs has a long history, but often conceptual confusion between them when it comes to empirical research Personality - Image

Conceptual confusion In Psychology: Personality is self-perceived, self-assessed Image is social perception by others In Marketing and Market Research: Brand personality is social perception by others; still intrinsically linked with sender identity but questionnaires focus on perceived personality Brand personality assessment used as a market research tool; feedback loop to management to reposition Personality - Image

Personality - Image IMAGE (other-perceived) PERSONALITY (self-perceived) DESIRED PERSONALITY (self-perceived) EXPLICIT Brand Behavior IMPLICIT Brand Behavior

Personality Big Five (Costa & McCrae, 1992): – Five personality traits (underlying facets) fully describing one’s personality – (Almost) universal (McCrae et al. 2005) – Assessment: questionnaires (NEO-PI-R 240 items … Shortest Big Five questionnaire 10 or even 5 items) 1.Openness to Experience 2.Extraversion 3.Conscientiousness 4.Neuroticism 5.Agreeableness Personality - Image

Brand personality Definition: “the set of human personality traits that are both applicable and relevant for brands” (Azoulay & Kapferer, 2003) Measures: – Aaker (JMR, 1997): 44 item for five dimension 1.Sincerity 2.Excitement 3.Competence 4.Sophistication 5.Ruggedness Personality - Image

– Aaker’s scale and other attempts recently criticized – Geuens, Weijters & Dewulf (IJRM, 2009, p.103) Personality - Image

Personality - Image IMAGE (other-perceived) PERSONALITY (self-perceived) DESIRED PERSONALITY (self-perceived) EXPLICIT Brand Behavior IMPLICIT Brand Behavior

Research questions RQ1: Match between sender’s & receiver’s perceptions of personality? CASE: Belgian financial banks – Using Geuens et al measures among key informants – Using the same measure to asses perceptions by others Personality - Image

RQ2: Shouldn’t there be a 6th dimension/trait: regional versus international scope? – Adding to both instruments questions about this scope – Might be a decisive personality factor in specific market circumstances: saturated markets; adverse markets; … RQ3: How do the personality measures and the tension between both relate to brand attitudes and expected brand attitudes? – Is personality predictive of overall value of brand? Which dimension? – Do key informants have an accurate expectation of attitudes in the target audience? Personality - Image

Personality - Image

Measures 10 Belgian banks, ranging in size and sales volume; split into two subsets (each participant rated only 5 banks) Personality: 15-item questionnaire; How much does [adjective] apply to X; 7 point Likert scale Attitude: 4-item questionnaire bipolar semantic differential; 7 points Personality - Image

Results Personality - Image Factor analyses on brand image questionnaires – Differences between banks; factor structure not fully robust, despite claims in Geuens et al. (2009) – Overall factor structure: 1.Responsibility 2.Activity 3.Emotionality, including the Aggression dimension 4.Simplicity – No contribution of regional character (RQ2)

Results (RQ1) ResponsibilityActivityEmotionalitySimplicity PersImagePersImagePersImagePersImage Argenta 6,004,583,673,702,502,804,504,81 Deutsche Bank 5,674,706,004,113,52,911,004,16 ING 6,334,695,674,692,753,254,504,08 KBC 5,334,935,005,073,002,972,504,00 Landbouw- krediet 7,004,496,003,463,502,784,504,89 Bank v Breda 6,674,505,673,872,252,984,503,98 BNP 6,334,086,004,562,503,022,003,75 Citibank 5,004,256,334,104,752,933,004,33 Dexia 3,674,786,004,733,752,714,004,15 Keytrade 5,334,367,003,854,003,444,003,97 Personality - Image

Results Predicting respondents attitudes for banks (RQ3; regression analyses) – Best predictor, for all banks = responsibility image (seems rather obvious nowadays – adverse times) – Possibly banks do know the importance of this dimension: Empirical relation between expected attitudes and self-assessed responsibility; r =.64; However, reverse relation between self-assessed responsibility and actual attitudes; r = -.45! Personality - Image

Personality - Image IMAGE (other-perceived) PERSONALITY (self-perceived) DESIRED PERSONALITY (self-perceived) EXPLICIT Brand Behavior IMPLICIT Brand Behavior

Results Attitudes: sender vs receiver – Note: r = -.43 ! Personality - Image Expected attitudeAttitude Argenta5,754,14 Deutsche Bank5,004,24 ING6,004,73 KBC4,755,19 Landbouwkrediet6,003,70 Bank van Breda4,754,15 BNP Paribas Fortis 4,754,21 Citibank5,003,92 Dexia4,504,86 Keytrade5,503,96

TAKE HOME MESSAGE It seems as if banks knew what the key personality dimension was in adverse times However, they did not manage to self-perceive their personality adequately Procedure in this study is a tool to aid this introspective activity Personality - Image

Further project plans Apply more rigorously amongst different type of stakeholders: – Management – Actual customers – Potential customers – Non-customers Apply for different brands on the product – service continuum Apply in a B2B brand setting Personality - Image

Questions and suggestions? and Thanks! for your attention Personality - Image

Answering research questions RQ1: Match between self- & other-perception – Low match – Too positive self-view on key dimension RQ2: Sixth dimension ~ regional focus? – No data supporting the necessity of this dimension RQ3: Personality predictive of attitudes? – Credibility was most predictive of attitudes – Seems as if key informants did have an idea about this – Too positive attitude expectations Personality - Image