Brand Personality

Key Takeaways

Brand personality is no longer static – consumers expect it to evolve with culture, audiences and platforms, reflecting growth rather than staying fixed.
Connection matters more than performance – audiences want authenticity, responsiveness and shared values over clever slogans or forced humour.
Future-proof brands co-create – successful personalities will balance consistency in core values with adaptability, personalisation, and community involvement.

Introduction: The Winds of Change

Getting your brand’s personality right has always been a cornerstone of marketing. A distinctive voice, a recognisable tone, a way of speaking that feels authentic — these elements make a brand memorable and human.

But the role of brand personality is not what it once was. Where once a witty, conversational social media presence could set a brand apart, today the digital landscape is too saturated, too fast-moving, and too fragmented for a static personality to cut through.

In a world where consumer feeds are overwhelmed by countless brands each vying for attention, the expectations have shifted. Consumers don’t want clever slogans alone. They want connection, honesty, adaptability, and growth.

So how exactly is brand personality evolving — and what can advertisers do to keep theirs relevant?

What Is Brand Personality?

At its simplest, brand personality is the human voice of a brand. It is the style, tone, and character a brand adopts when communicating with its audience.

For decades, marketers have worked to craft timeless brand personalities: think Nike’s motivational tone, Innocent’s playful voice, or Apple’s clean sophistication. These identities help audiences understand not just what a brand sells, but who it is.

But the traditional approach assumes stability. In the past, it was about crafting a personality that could endure for decades, unchanged. In today’s cultural and digital environment, that no longer works.

Why Brand Personality Is Changing

1. The Pace of Culture

Short videos dominate social media. Trends that once lasted months now peak and fade in days. A meme today can be irrelevant by next week.

Brands that build their personality around chasing internet humour or tapping into online subcultures face a problem: they can’t keep up with the sheer speed of cultural churn. Worse, joining a trend too late risks appearing forced and inauthentic.

2. Consumer Scepticism

Modern consumers are hyper-aware of marketing tactics. They can sense when a brand is trying too hard, and it often has the opposite effect. A personality that feels like it’s performing for attention can alienate rather than attract.

3. Evolving Audiences

Consumer tastes evolve. What an audience values in a brand today may bore them tomorrow. A brand voice that feels relevant one season can feel tired or even irritating six months later.

4. Connection Over Performance

For years, personality was about being distinctive and memorable. Today, it’s also about building genuine connection. Consumers want brands that feel relatable and human, but also responsive and adaptable.

From Static to Dynamic: Personality as a Journey

The old model: create a fixed personality that lasts for decades.

The new model: build a flexible, evolving personality that reflects growth, change and responsiveness.

Consumers no longer expect brands to be static. In fact, they prefer brands that grow with them. When a brand’s personality evolves in tandem with its audience, it feels authentic — as if both are part of the same journey.

This doesn’t mean abandoning consistency altogether. Certain core values (trust, quality, mission) should remain steady. But the outward expression — tone, style, focus — should be adaptive.

How Advertisers Can Adapt Their Brand Personality

1. Focus on Connection, Not Just Engagement

Creating content that entertains is no longer enough. Audiences want to feel seen and understood. Connection happens when a brand’s personality resonates with people’s real experiences, not when it simply jumps on the latest joke.

Questions advertisers should ask:

Does this tone feel authentic to our audience?
Does it reflect their world, not just ours?
Does it invite participation and dialogue, not just passive consumption?

2. Understand Your Audience Through Research

Research remains the foundation of personality development. But today, it needs to go beyond demographics. Brands must understand cultural context, micro-communities, and online behaviours.

Tools include:

Social listening to identify conversations and language consumers use.
Surveys and focus groups exploring how consumers perceive brand tone.
Analysing engagement patterns across different content formats.

3. Ask the Right Questions

Beyond research, there’s huge value in directly involving audiences. Instead of broadcasting, ask:

What kind of content do you want from us?
How do you describe us to friends?
What values or causes do you want us to champion?

Inviting consumers into the conversation signals respect and builds deeper loyalty. Online challenges, interactive polls, and community-led campaigns can generate insights while strengthening connection.

4. Show Growth and Responsiveness

A strong brand personality today demonstrates learning and adaptation. For example:

A food brand evolving from playful humour into wellness-driven storytelling as its core audience matures.
A fashion brand shifting from exclusivity-driven messaging into inclusivity and sustainability narratives as consumer expectations change.

Audiences want to see that a brand, like a person, can grow, adapt and improve.

5. Balance Authenticity and Relevance

There’s a fine line between being relevant and trying too hard. Authenticity must always come first. If a trend or meme doesn’t fit your brand values, it’s better to ignore it than to participate awkwardly.

Brands should ask:

Does this align with who we are?
Will our audience feel this is true to us?
Or does it risk coming across as opportunistic?

Case Studies: Personality in Flux

Innocent Drinks

Once defined almost entirely by quirky humour, Innocent has gradually shifted tone to highlight sustainability, health and responsibility. The humour remains, but the personality has matured — in line with its audience’s changing concerns.

Ryanair

The airline’s Twitter and TikTok accounts have leaned into chaotic humour and irony, aligning with internet meme culture. While risky, it has resonated with younger audiences by showing personality in unexpected ways.

Patagonia

Patagonia demonstrates how brand personality can remain consistent in values (environmental activism) while still evolving in tone — from early niche environmentalism to mainstream climate urgency.

Personality in the Age of AI and Automation

Another reason brand personality is shifting is the rise of automation. With AI increasingly involved in customer service, content generation, and even creative campaigns, brands risk becoming faceless.

This makes personality more important than ever. Every automated touchpoint must still feel consistent with brand character. Human oversight is crucial to ensure that AI-powered interactions don’t dilute authenticity.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Brand Personality

In the years ahead, we can expect several shifts:

Personalisation at Scale
Brand voice will increasingly adapt not just by trend, but by individual. Dynamic creative and AI will allow brands to tailor tone for specific audiences while keeping core values intact.
Community-Led Personality
Instead of brands dictating their personality top-down, more will invite audiences to co-create — shaping tone, language, and campaigns through participation.
Cause-Led Voices
Consumers want brands to stand for something. Personality will increasingly reflect advocacy and values, not just entertainment.
Omnichannel Consistency
As audiences move seamlessly across platforms, brands must ensure their personality feels unified across social, OOH, experiential, and customer service.

Final Word

The role of brand personality is changing — from a fixed asset to a living, evolving journey.

Consumers no longer want brands that simply perform or chase trends. They want personalities that grow with them, connect authentically, and respond to cultural shifts with honesty and consistency.

For advertisers, the challenge is not just to define a brand personality, but to design one that can adapt, evolve, and remain relevant in an unpredictable world.

In other words: don’t think of your brand’s personality as a finished portrait. Think of it as an ongoing story — one your consumers want to be part of.