Steering a Corporate Brand in the Automobile Industry to Differentiation: The Brand Personality Wheel

Sammanfattning: Title: Steering a Corporate Brand in the Automobile Industry to Differentiation: The Brand Personality Wheel Date of the Seminar: 02 June 2015 Course: BUSN 39. Degree project in global marketing Authors: Anna-Lena Georg and Fanny Wolte Advisor: Christian Koch Keywords: Brand personality scale, corporate brands, brand personality, automobile industry, differentiation. Thesis purpose: The thesis purpose of the research study at hand was twofold. First, it was our intention to explore what expressions consumers used when talking about a corporate brand in the automobile industry when there were no boundaries for answers and no references towards the concept of brand personality. Based on the information gained, our second objective was to develop a brand personality scale specific to corporate brands in the automobile industry. Methodology: The methodology we chose was of qualitative and mostly inductive nature. We decided in favor of semi-structured interviews as the data collection method and a form of grounded theory as the method for our data analysis. Furthermore, it is important to emphasize that we started our data collection directly at the consumer by asking him/her about corporate brands in the automobile industry for which our developed brand personality scale was intended. Theoretical perspective: The main theories used in the study at hand provide definitions of brands in general and corporate brands in particular, the concept of brand personality, as well as relevant brand personality scales developed through previous research efforts in this field and their accompanying criticism. Furthermore, the literature review provides insight into the ways in which the automobile industry uses brands. Empirical data: In-depth interviews in semi-structured form. Conclusion: The findings of our study showed that respondents linguistically used a wide variety of words when they were free in choosing their descriptions of brands. Furthermore, ii respondents took three different paths to accomplish the difficult task of describing the abstract concept of a corporate brand. Based on respondents’ expressions, we, in a next step, developed a scale called the Brand Personality Wheel. Our findings contributed to existing theory focused on brand personality through the different approach we took. Additionally, the Brand Personality Wheel represents the first scale of its kind, which was specifically designed for corporate brands in the automobile industry. Furthermore, our scale serves as a new reference point for brand managers in the automobile industry for the measurement, comparison, adaptation and communication of their brands’ personalities, which constitutes the most significant practical contribution of our study.