Brand personality and purchase
intention
María de la Paz Toldos-Romero
Department of Management and Marketing, Tecnológico de Monterrey,
Campus Guadalajara, Zapopan, Mexico, and
Ma. Margarita Orozco-Gómez
Department of Management Sciences and Systems, Tecnológico de
Monterrey, Campus Guadalajara, Zapopan, Mexico
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of brand personality dimensions on
purchase intention. Furthermore, the brand personality dimensions are compared to study the
differences between users and non-users of 12 brands.
Design/methodology/approach – An estimated 400 undergraduate students participated. They
were given a questionnaire divided into two sessions (six brands of think products in one session and six
brands of feel products in another session). In the end, 313 participants completed the questionnaire on
the six brands of think products, and 320 completed the questionnaire on the six brands of feel products.
Findings – Multiple regression analysis revealed that Hipness/Vivacity, Success, Sincerity and
Sophistication brand personality dimensions are signicant predictors of purchase intention. In
addition, Domesticity/Emotionality and Professionalism also explain purchase intention but with a
negative weight. The results are also broken down into product categories. Compared with non-users of
the brands, the users rate the brands higher in all the brand personality dimensions.
Practical implications – This paper should prove useful to marketing practitioners to understand
how Mexican customers perceive their brands and those of their competitors and, therefore, to
understand what competitors of these brands can do to increase purchase intention.
Originality/value – The results found regarding purchase intention are important, as they can be
used to identify those personality brand dimensions that appear to be most important in explaining
consumer preferences.
Keywords Personality, Purchase intention, Brand, Product categories
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
A brand can be dened as:
[…] a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of these, which is intended to
identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from
their competitors (
Kotler, 1991, p. 442).
Brands provide their customers with emotional and experiential benets (Keller, 1993),
and these benets are essential to building strong brand equity. To build this strong
brand equity in the market, it is fundamental to understand the core dimensions of
brand image, which is brand personality (Lee and Oh, 2006). According to Gordon
(1993), brand image is made up of ve different facets, which are user image, occasion
image, product image, brand personality and salience.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0955-534X.htm
EBR
27,5
462
Received 24 March 2013
Revised 2 October 2013
Accepted 13 January 2014
European Business Review
Vol. 27 No. 5, 2015
pp. 462-476
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0955-534X
DOI
10.1108/EBR-03-2013-0046
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