The new Brand Personality Scale: An application for the smartphone market in the United Kingdom, Survey is now online!

Dear Reader,

I am pleased to inform you that the survey is now available online via this link.
If you would like to learn more about the theoretical as well as empirical backgrounds, please read the previous post.
Please invite your friends and family members to participate in this survey.
Findings and results will be published in this weblog.

Thank you for your cooperation

How developing a clear and distinct Brand Personality can help companies to overcome the challenge of differentiation in the Smartphone industry

Smart phone industry and the challenge of differentiation

Smart phone industry sub-sector is one of the most competitive markets and has one of the fastest growing rates in the global IT sector. Now a day, the market has shifted from devices and hardware towards ecosystems, a combination of hardware, software and also online services. The major ecosystems according to the latest research by Gartner are: Android, powered by Google with 52.5% market share, Symbian by Nokia (Transferred to Accenture from April 2011) with 16.9% market share, iOS by Apple with 15% market share and Windows Phone by Microsoft by 1.5% market share. As Nokia has stated that is phasing out Symbian and has chosen Windows phone as its main platform for its smart phones, the main rivalry is taking place between three main ecosystems in the smart phone industry, Android, iOS and Windows Phone. Apart from iOs which has just one vendor, Apple, two other major ecosystems, Android and Windows phone have been used by several manufacturers across the world such as Nokia, Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and LG. The main challenge for these manufacturers is to convince consumers that their product is more sophisticated and can provide more benefits than others. However, many analysts believe that it is getting harder for consumers to distinguish a smart phone brand from another within a given ecosystem due to the similarity in the operating system, software, available applications and the relevant benefits. So finding another source of differentiation apart from hardware design and product outline or any other functional factors seems important and even vital within the smart phone industry. 

Brand Personality

The brand personality is a construct which is related to the emotional content of a brand and concentrates on what the brand says about the consumers and how they feel being associated with it. Through brand personality consumers will be able to recognise the value its stands for. It also acts as purchase motivator since consumers prefer brands whose values reflects those they respect. It can help provide needed differentiation by making the brand interesting and memorable, stimulating consideration of constructs such as energy and youthfulness, and enforcing brand-consumer relationship.

Dr Jennifer Aaker defined brand personality as: “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand”. 

She proposed the Brand Personality Scale consisted of five dimensions and 42 items:

Sincerity (down to earth, honest, wholesome, and cheerful)

•           Excitement (daring, spiritual, imaginative, and up to date)

•           Competence (reliable, intelligent, and successful)

•           Sophistication (upper class and charming)

•           Ruggedness (outdoorsy and though)

Although Aaker's brand personality scale has been used by many scholars and has been the most popular scale to measure brand personality so far, it failed to fulfil some of the most important applications. First and foremost, several cross-cultural researches, including two researches by Aaker herself, proved that some of the dimensions cannot by generalised in different cultures. Also as Azoulay and Kapferer (2003) argued,  Aaker’s brand personality scale may not measure really brand personality, but other unrelated concepts. They suggested that lack of strict definition of brand personality has caused confusion among researchers and proposed their own definition as “brand personality is the set of human personality traits that are both applicable to and relevant for brands”

Geuens, Weijters, and De Wulf (2009)  by considering critisims against Aaker’s brand personality scale developed a new scale with compatibility with the Big Five human personality dimensions. By focusing on the new definition of brand personality which was suggested by Azoulay and Kapferer (2003) they tried to exclude all none-personality items such as age and gender from the new dimensions and suggested new Brand Personality Scale consisted of five dimensions and 12 items:

• Responsibility (down-to-earth, stable, responsible)
• Activity (active, dynamic, innovative)
• Aggressiveness (aggressive, bold)
• Simplicity (ordinary, simple)
• Emotionality (romantic, sentimental)

They examined their new scale in the US and 10 European countries and argued that: “the scale can be used for studies on an aggregate level across multiple brands of different product categories, for studies across different competitors within a specific product category, for studies on an individual brand level, and for cross-cultural studies” 

However, this new brand personality scale has not been used that much so far.

How to develop brand personality?

Brand’s personality can be created and shaped by any direct and indirect brand contact that the consumer experiences with the brand. Both product-related factors such as product category, packaging, price, and the physical attributes and also other factors which are not related to the product such as consumer’s past experience, user imagery, symbols, marketing communication, word of mouth, CEO image, celebrity endorsers, and culture can form brand personality. This is in align with branding process in the relationship marketing concept which is highlighting the role of different relations on forming brand image on the mind of consumers including C2C relation such as word of mouth. Susan Fournier reframed brand personality in relationship terms. She views brand personality not as a set of interpersonal attributes but as the relationship role enacted by the brand in its partnership with the consumer. She emphasis if we assume a brand as a person so we can assume marketing mix as the person’s behaviour as a result she argued that every day execution of marketing mix decision constitute a set of behaviours enacted on the part of the brand. She suggested a typology of 15 relationship types characterising consumers’ engagement with brands.

 Although any aspect of marketing may affect brand personality, advertising may be especially influential because of the inferences consumers make about the underlying user or usage situation depicted. Advertisers may imbue a brand with personality traits through anthropomorphization and product animation techniques, personification through the use of brand characters, the creation of user imagery and so on. More generally advertising may affect brand personality by the manner in which it depicts the brand – for example the actors, the tone or style of the creative strategy and the emotions or feelings evoked. Once brand develop a personality it can be difficult for consumers to accept information that they see as inconsistent with that personality. Furthermore,  Although user imagery, especially in advertising, is a prime source of brand personality, user imagery and brand personality may not always be in agreement. In product categories were performance-related attributes are more central in consumer decisions, brand personality and user imagery maybe much less related . 

 New way of differentiation

Based on the above discussions,  it can be said that brand personality as an important emotional content of a brand can have an important role to create differentiation for smart phone manufacturers within a given ecosystem. So a research has been developed to provide empirical evidence regarding the extent to which smart phone brands have established clear and distinct brand personalities in the mind of consumers in United Kingdom, which is one of the most sophisticated smartphone markets in the world, and measure the brand personalities of the market leaders by using the new brand personality scale proposed by Geuens, Weijters, and De Wulf (2009). Findings of the research will be posted in this weblog.

Techno Yoda insight: What should Sony do after acquisition of Sony Ericsson

It took too long to write the second part of "Why Sony should acquire Sony Ericsson" and today they just did it!
Now what is next and what should they do?
1- First and foremost, they should get rid of Sony Ericsson brand ASAP! Why? it is obvious ! No one is going to buy a discontinued brand! I think they have done this and that is why they just remodelled Xperia arc to Xperia arc S instead of  introducing Nozomi or any other dual core and more powerful phone for now. So we can wait for the Nozomi under Sony brand.
2- Sony needs more market share. During the years SE's market share has vanished. So Sony needs to think big. You might be too young to remember that long time ago HTC was flirting with Sony Ericsson to be bought by them! But now things are changed and HTC has overtaken SE . However, Sony should think about it seriously. Having HTC capacity in the side will bring more market share for them immediately. But it needs too much money as well. Will you lend some money to them?
3- Integrating, Integrating and MORE INTEGRATING. Sony needs to integrate its highly fragmented but rich territories. I think they are on the right path.They just need to make it more quickly. If they can bring Sony's entertainment capabilities such as music, movie, game, ebook, as a sub-ecosystem on the Android almighty platform,  It will equip them with a capable weapon to fight against Apple (iOS) and Microsoft (Windows Phone)  and also it may help them to differentiate themselves from other Android manufacturers as well.
If Sony could complete at least 2 tasks from the above, you should expect a bigger than Apple outcome!

Heroes never die!

Techno Yoda comments on forming of "Sony Entertainment Network": The endless path to integration with speed of a snail!

Among the most important IT news in September, introducing of the "Integrated User Experience" by Sony is the most interesting from the Techno Yoda perspective! So if you want to know why, please read this:

The "Integrated User Experience” named "Sony Entertainment Network" by Sony  which is going to combine two hacked services: "Qriocity" and "Playstation Network". In the other word, this can be perceived as the first phase of getting rid of those hacked brand by re-branding and integrating them into the new brand. By this integration Sony  gets rid of Qriocity completely by re-branding its services from  “Video On Demand powered by Qriocity” and  “Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity” to  “Video Unlimited” and “Music Unlimited" and also transforming the "Playstation Network" a.k.a PSN as a sub-brand of "Sony Entertainment Network". Also, this integration allows Playstation users to use the services provided under these brands (Qriocity and PSN) by one account as Kaz Hirai, probably the next Sony CEO, described it as: "The next evolution towards the goal of realising a single, global comprehensive network platform of all network services which will be accessible from one convenient account." which can be translated as integrating music and video on demand and also Playstation games together. But the question is what “all network services” means for Sony and is integrating music and video on demand with Playstation games enough for the company?

More than six years ago at the time of the historical appointment of Sir Howard Stringer, the Welsh-born US citizen and the first foreign CEO in the Sony’s history,   he vowed to integrate Sony's entertainment arms with the electronics to make synergy. Sony's entertainment industry can be seen as its core competence. However, the company has failed to use this core competence to fight its competitors such as Samsung so far.

Sony is providing several online services which can be seen as parallel lines which intersect each other in infinity!

Here are some samples:

•        Myplay by Myplay.com which provides video, music, photo and mobile download related to the Sony Music’s artists such as Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Usher, Justin Timberlake, etc.
•         Online services provided by Sony Pictures such as trailers and mobile games download.
•        Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), which provides online games and entertainment.
•        Playnow by Sony Ericsson which covers downloading mobile contents for Sony Ericsson mobile phones such as applications, games, ringtones, music , videos and wallpapers.
•        Reader Store which provides ebooks for Sony eReaders.

These are just some examples. Sony has several other network based services for its regional websites as well. It took six years for the company to integrate its music and video on demand and Playstation games together. So the estimation for integrating the other services is not possible easily!

Another interesting fact regarding the Sony Entertainment Network is its availability for Android devices. All Android users can download the app from Android Market and start using Video and Music Unlimited. So it seems Sony has not made up its mind about its network based devices strategy. While video and music on demand services are available for competitors’ devices as well, the new Reader app will be just available for Sony and probably Sony Ericsson branded devices. 
Techno Yoda believe that it is vital for Sony to integrate all of the online services together ASAP. Otherwise the  path to integration with speed of a snail would be a never ending voyage!

Techno Yoda special review: Why Sony should acquire Sony Ericsson. (Part One)

Background

On 17 March 2000, a ten minutes fire in a fabrication line of the Royal Philips Electronics radio frequency chip manufacturing plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, caused supply chain disruption for many companies. Among them Nokia and Ericsson were two companies which faced severe component shortage. 40% of the capacity of the burnt factory was dedicated to Nokia and Ericsson.

Although Philips estimated that restoring the factory would take a week and assured top managers of both companies that their orders were in priority for Philips but they could not manage to start the normal operation in the facility months after that. Nokia found some alternative suppliers and could manage the crisis but the story of Ericsson was completely different.

Ericsson did not react immediately to the crisis. Top managers trusted Philips vows, neglected the situation and faced sever component shortage consequently. They could not develop new models or even produce their current models.

Six months after that the struggling mobile phone division caused $167 million loss for the whole company.  In July 2000 Ericsson started negotiation with Sony to merge their mobile phone business. The estimation was that Sony which was one of the leading companies in the consumer electronics sector can provide the joint venture’s components demand and also its innovation and experience in consumer electronics market can improve the position of both brands in the mobile phone market.   At the same time Ericsson started to downsize the mobile phone business and sold its several factories in Brazil, Malaysia, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S to Flextronics. Finally Ericsson and Sony signed the memorandum of understanding in April 2001 and Sony Ericsson Company a 50-50 joint venture between Sony and Ericsson started in October 2001.

 A decade with Sony Ericsson, Collaborations and Rivalries between parents

Sony Ericsson demonstrated mixed performance during near a decade. The company did not achieve any profit for nearly three years from start and the parents invested another $500 million to the company during the period. However, the profitability was continued until the fifth birthday of the company when Miles Flint, Sony Ericsson former president, who was successful to convince Sony to allow using of two popular brands, Walkman and Cybershot, on Sony Ericsson mobile phones, announced their goal to become the third largest mobile phone maker in the world within five years, the position that Ericsson had before the joint venture. The company gained the third position on the third quarter of 2008 but failed to achieve profit.

Although there is not any public information regarding the financial transactions and/or terms and conditions of the agreement between two parent companies regarding using Sony Brands on Sony Ericsson products, since the W800i, the first Sony Ericsson Walkman phone, introduced in February 2005 at 3GSM congress in Cannes, it seems the allowance of using Walkman brand on Sony Ericsson phones granted by Sony before beginning of 2005, couple of months before appointment of the new CEO at Sony.

In June 2005 Sir Howard Stringer appointed as the first foreign CEO in the Sony’s history. His attitude towards the company’s joint ventures especially Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Sony NEC Optiarc in 2008 which ended up to acquisition of both companies by Sony, raised some rumours about the same action against lose making Sony Ericsson especially after Stringer’s interview with Die Welt in August 2008 which He mentioned that: “Buying out the a partner is never an easy thing.”  That showed his intention or maybe failed attempts to acquire the whole company.

About one month after this interview Sony Ericsson introduced its first digital photo frame, IDP-100, as rival to Sony’s range of digital photo frames. At the same time several photos from Sony Ericsson “PSP phone” published in the internet.

During the first years of his management, some symptoms of conflicts between two parents appeared. Although, Sony granted using Cybershot brand on Sony Ericsson phones on February 2006, couple of months after Stringer appointment, which can be considered as previous agreed plan between former CEO of Sony and Sony Ericsson, but until 2011 Sony did not allowed Sony Ericsson to use any other Sony brand. 

The weak performance of Hideki Komiyama, the first Sony Ericsson president which was appointed by Stringer to lead Sony Ericsson in September 2007 and was one of his closest co-workers of Stringer in  Sony USA, ended up to an exceptional swap in managerial roles between Sony and Ericsson in October 2009. Before formation of Sony Ericsson, both parents agreed that the president of the company would be appointed by Sony while chairman of the board came from Ericsson. This agreement remained unchanged until October 2009 when Sony Ericsson introduced the first CEO and not president from Ericsson, Bert Nordberg, and the First chairman from Sony, Sir Howard Stringer. That could be perceived as distrust of Ericsson to execution management of managers which was appointed by Sony, especially Komiyama. The company adopted Sony new revealed brand message “Make.Believe” instead and vowed the aligned collaboration with Sony.

 Android Focus

Sony Ericsson has focused on producing Android based smartphones, according to Bert Nordberg, The CEO and president of Sony Ericsson. But it seems Sony has big plans for Android as well. Sony has invested on Android based devices heavily. The company was the first TV maker which introduced Google TV equipped televisions based on the Google Android on May 2010. Also, Sony and not Sony Ericsson introduced two tablets based on Android which will be available from fall 2011. The company has developed an application for its e-book store for Android devices and more than that it is working on its dedicated platform named PlayStation Suite, to bring PlayStation games on PlayStation certified Android devices, which has three known members until now: Sony Ericsson XPERIA PLAY and two recently introduced Sony Tablets, Code names: S1 and S2. The recent update of Sony internet TVs allows users to control their TV via their Android base devices.  All of those actions clearly show Sony’s intentions to use Google Android as the main platform of its consumer electronics and entertainment products. In some cases Sony officials see Sony Ericsson as a rival. For example last year on December 2010, Sony’s head of TV division, Hiroshi Yoshioka, in an interview with New York Times, described the collaboration between Sony and Google on TVs “More” than “Sony Ericsson and Google on smartphones”.  So it seems Sony is really serious about Android.

Sony gets ready to acquire Sony Ericsson.

On 10 May 2010 Sony announced restructuring its business under two main cores: Professional devices and solution group and consumer product and service group. They also introduced the new division names VAIO & Mobile business group. The first products of the new group which can be considered as mobile devices were S1 and S2 Android based tablets.

TechnoYoda sees change in the air for mobile 3D displays!

For nearly a decade glasses-free 3D mobile phones have failed to entice consumers with just thirteen launched models. However, analysing the latest 3D adoptions by smartphone manufacturers, the 3D ecosystem and the market environment shows change is in the air.

1-      Nine out of thirteen 3D enabled mobile phones have been launched within the last two years. Also, there are several rumours regarding 3D enabled smartphones such as iPhone 5 and HTC Ryder. In addition, recent investments on the mobile 3D industry such as Samsung’s $15 Million investment in the California based Masterimage, show that the manufacturers look at the 3D smartphones as the next big thing.

2-      While adoption of 3D technology was quite successful on the large screens, it could not meet the expectations on 3D TVs due to the high price, lack of contents and need to wear 3D glasses. Smartphone manufacturers have tried to overcome these barriers in their industry. Firstly they tried to maintain the price at a reasonable level (For example: Around €500 for an unlocked LG Optimus 3D). Second by incorporating parallax barrier technology users do not need to wear glasses. Finally by adding stereoscopic camera, they have engaged users to enjoy the self-generated contents such as 3D photos and videos. Two different surveys suggested that taking photos ranked the third most popular smartphone usage behind making phone calls and sending SMS. So people might be interested in taking and viewing their 3D photos on their smartphones. Furthermore, the manufacturers have tried to provide 3D contents and cooperate with other companies and developers in this regards. It is obvious that providing some 3D contents such as games and applications is far easier in the smartphone industry than TV industry, based on their different ecosystem life cycle stages.

3-      Apple can be the game changer. If the biggest smartphone maker in the world uses 3D display on its highly-anticipated iPhone 5, the whole industry may shake consequently. By leveraging its innovative brand image as a core competence, Apple will be able to attract new consumers alongside with the traditional iPhone fans who want to replace their older iPhones with a 3D enabled one. In this case other rivals such as Samsung are more likely to retaliate aggressively and the whole scenario will create an enormous demand for the glasses-free 3D smartphones and the relative components and the whole 3D ecosystem.

To conclude and with consideration of the market’s shifting away from feature phones toward smartphones globally, it can be said that the glasses-free 3D smartphone market will grow especially in the developed countries, where people are paying more to buy smartphones, more 3D contents are available and the whole 3D ecosystem is developing faster.