While there is still no general agreement on a unified scale (Rojas-Méndez & Hine, 2017), researchers have proposed several scales and measurements to evaluate brand personality (Aaker, 1997; Eisend & Stokburger-Sauer, 2013; Geuens, Weijters, & De Wulf, 2009; Pan, Zhang, Gursoy, & Lu, 2017; Rojas-Méndez, Murphy, & Papadopoulos, 2013; Tsiotsou, 2012).
From the anthropomorphic metaphor perspective, where human beings use human characteristics to describe non-human beings, researchers have designed measures to understand the symbolism associated with brands. Moreover, most of the frameworks proposed for the brand personality construct arise from the five-factor human personality scale, the Big Five.
However, the study of brand personality has a longer history. Before any scale was developed, many researchers had already approached the study of different brands’ personality, for example in the tourism field (Gómez Aguilar, Yagüe Guillén, & Villaseñor Roman, 2016). For instance, Singapore was described as “cosmopolitan, youthful and vibrant, modern Asia, reliability and comfort” (Henderson, 2000, p.39); Portugal as “contemporary, modern, sophisticated, ever changing…” (Santos, 2004, p.128); and Crockett and Wood (2004, p.194) described Western Australia as “fresh, natural, free and spirited.” These early studies focused for the first time on the symbolic dimension of destination brands. Unfortunately, the differences in their methodological approached and in the names they used to refer to the personality traits made it challenging to compare their results and to establish links between them in further research (Gómez Aguilar et al., 2016).
Thus, as mentioned earlier, Aaker (1997) was the first to explicitly connect the concept of brand personality to the anthropomorphism theory and to import a methodology from human psychology (Avis et al., 2012). Furthermore, the framework that she proposed, the Brand Personality Scale, became the most used scale in contemporary research (Eisend &
Stokburger-Sauer, 2013; Geuens et al., 2009), establishing a methodological trend to measure personality based on scales.
The Brand Personality Scale is grounded in the Big Five human personality scale. Starting with a list of 114 traits of personality, Aaker’s study concludes with a five-dimensional model for brand personality. It consists of the dimensions of sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness, the first three being directly related to the Big Five human
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personality dimensions (Aaker, 1997; Geuens et al., 2009). In total, the scale comprises 42 items/characteristics aggregated to 15 different facets simultaneously related to the different personality dimensions.
Aaker’s work inspired a huge amount of diverse research. The scale has been tested on different product categories. In this regard, it is interesting to highlight the amount of attention that brand personality in general and Aaker’s framework in particular have garnered in the tourism field (Kumar & Nayak, 2014). Furthermore, different studies have also checked the model using different types of samples. Several investigations have used the scale to assess single brands’ personalities (Farmaki, 2012; Gómez Aguilar et al., 2016; Kim & Lehto, 2012), as a measure to determine symbolic competitive position (Opoku, 2009; Rojas-Méndez
& Hine, 2017), or even as the basis to develop new scales customized to adjust to different cultures (Pan et al., 2017),and fit specific product categories or non-commercial organizations, such as non-profits or football teams (Michaelidou et al., 2015; Tsiotsou, 2012).
In the tourism field, Hosany, Ekinci, and Uysal (2006) were the first to text the Brand Personality Scale with destination brands. In their study, they evaluated the personality of three different UK cities. Although only three of the dimensions of the Brand Personality Scale were found to be descriptive of these cities, the findings of the study support the validity of Aaker’s approach for places (Hosany et al., 2006). As Caprara et al. (2001) argue, brands may not always be described by all personality dimensions, but just by some of them. The three salient dimensions identified in Hosany et al.'s (2006) study were sincerity, excitement, and conviviality, and this was enough to confirm the scale’s applicability.
The Brand Personality Scale has also served as the fundamental framework to assess the brand personality construct using different methodological approaches and for different types of brands. However, as most of the fundamental theory that is still developing, Aaker’s scale has some limitations and is criticized at different levels (Eisend & Stokburger-Sauer, 2013; Geuens et al., 2009).
In the first instance, the cross-cultural validity of the scale is questioned (Ekinci & Hosany, 2006). A study focused on Spanish and Japanese markets, led by Aaker, reached different conclusions. Only four of the five personality dimensions concurred with the ones in the first study (Aaker, Benet-Martínez, & Garolera, 2001), indicating difficulties in replicating the study cross-culturally.
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Secondly, the scope of the definition of brand personality is another point of discussion. Some authors have criticized Aaker’s definition for being too wide and not keeping to the psychological conceptualization of the construct. The Brand Personality Scale includes characteristics that go beyond strict personality traits, such as social class or gender, which are specifically excluded in the Big Five (Azoulay & Kapferer, 2003). However, Grohmann (2009) strongly supports the role of gender in the brand personality formation. A strict definition of any personality construct should keep to a “generalized and focalized neuropsychic system”
(Azoulay & Kapferer 2003, p.147), or in other words, consider only traits of personality and exclude other human characteristics (Azoulay & Kapferer, 2003; Geuens et al., 2009).
Some authors question the generalizability of the model at a singular brand level; in other words, a lack of within-brand variance. As Austin, Siguaw, and Mattila (2003) point out, Aaker’s framework is more suitable for investigations focused on aggregated data from different categories than for measuring individual brands or specific categories. Furthermore, critiques also have doubts about the basis of the construct. Many authors have examined the viability of the anthropomorphic metaphor between human and brand personalities, demonstrating some concerns about it (Avis et al., 2012).
However, Eisend and Stokburger-Sauer's (2013) meta-analysis of 74 empirical studies using the Brand Personality Scale yields interesting results supporting the transferability of the five-factor personality model to brands. Firstly, the authors identify the instability of the methods utilized in investigations using the scale. Their research suggests that differences in methodological approach could explain divergence among the results of different investigations: thus, the true origin of some problems that have been attributed to the scale.
In this regard, the investigation specifically highlights only minor variation across cultures (Hofstede, 2001; Eisend & Stokburger-Sauer 2013). As the authors point out, some culture variations might be explained by the different methodologies and the alternating use of traits or facets of personality in the analysis.
Furthermore, the study’s results also prove the non-dependency of the scale on data aggregation across brands; in other words, “the BP scale does not vary due to data aggregation across brands or respondents” (Eisend & Stokburger-Sauer, 2013, p.957). This finding refutes the critique about the generalizability of the model for individual brands or specific categories (Austin et al., 2003).
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Finally, the Brand Personality Scale is also questioned for its broad conception of the personality construct. As mentioned earlier, some authors criticize the scale for including other symbolic characteristics than those strictly related to the psychological construct (Azoulay &
Kapferer, 2003). This is related to the dual foundation of the personality construct. As Avis et al. (2012) point out, there are two ways to understand brand personality: humanlike and metaphoric foundations. The former explains brand personality as if “consumers ordinarily go about their daily lives thinking of brands as humanlike entities that have personalities like humans” (p.314). In this case, the need for a strict personality scale following the psychological basis seems reasonable.
However, the present study is rooted in the second foundation: “it is not that consumers have real perceptions of brands as humanlike entities but that theorists are using metaphors of personalities and relationships to help them (the researchers) understand the way that consumers perceive the world” (Avis et al., 2012, p.315). It is crucial to clarify the perspective taken in this thesis, since from this perspective “researchers would need to identify the consumer’s use of metaphorical discourse” (Avis et al., 2012, p.316). Therefore, a personality scale to examine the symbolic attributions that are homologous to personality should go beyond the strict psychological construct. Hence, a more flexible scale is not considered to be an issue in this study.
To conclude, while there is still work to do in the marketing psychology field to develop a globally accepted brand personality measure, the Brand Personality Scale remains a reliable and suitable measure for a comparative brand personality study (Eisend & Stokburger-Sauer, 2013; Ekinci & Hosany, 2006; Kim & Lehto, 2012). Therefore, conscious of the scale’s limitations and of the non-existence of a stable and generally accepted brand personality measurement, this study uses the Brand Personality Scale as the framework to analyze destinations' personality.