Interactive new media offer new opportunities to interact with consumers. Considering the importance of these interactions, communications taking place within this new digital space can have an important effect on the perceived brand personality. Research I am currently conducting as part of my MBA program focuses on defining important elements within interactive, social media that can contribute to the formation of brand personality and investigating those relationships.

Please help in the completion of the research by completing the survey: tinyurl.com/crossmediambathesis.

Transformation of engagement
When Howard Schultz returned to the CEO position at Starbucks in 2008, he stated rebuilding trust with the customers was the main priority for the company. At the basis of his approach: social media. “It has become paramount that brands understand that trust isn’t something you build through traditional marketing,” Schultz said. “You do that through integrating social and digital media. It is a science – as well as an art – to understand how to do this in a way that is authentic and genuine, and not just marketing. Because if it’s just marketing, (consumers) will see right through it.”

In recent years, social media has gone past the hype and became mainstream. In the U.S. for example, social networks and blogs now reach close to 80% of active internet users and represent nearly a quarter of total time spend online. Other countries follow closely, with users joining either local heroes and/or the global giants. But social media not only connects people with each other, but also with places they go, media they watch and items they like and buy. This phenomenon has great implications for business. As everybody and everything is connected and exchanges information real-time, organizations get flattened and leadership becomes more transparent. But arguably the biggest impact is that it has changed the old way of doing business forever.

The changes marketers face in the digital era are not incremental but fundamental. Social media brings a transformation to how consumers engage with brands, due to reach, speed and interactivity of digital touch points. In his book Building strong brands, Aaker (1996) asks the hypothetical question What if the Brand Spoke to You?. As people start connecting with brands and vice versa, and brand communities are formed, the brand is viewed as a contributing relationship partner with regard to the consumer. Here, the brand is considered an active member of the relationship through the activities of the manager that administrates it, rather than as a passive object. By being an active participant, the brand’s personality traits emerge, which should be in line with the intended brand personality the brand owner seeks to portray through all communications.

Research on Social Media and Brand Personality
Although the social media movement is a dominating subject nowadays on renowned websites and blogs as Harvard Business Review and BusinessWeek, the volume of academic research and articles is much more limited. Therefore, I started my MBA thesis research (in conjunction with VU University Amsterdam and Lemniscaat School of Management) investigating “the relation between contact with brands on social network sites (SNS) and the effect on perceived brand personality and on behavioral changes”. This can be summarized as in below conceptual model:

The end result will be a model which gives a clearer view on the effect of brand owners’ actions on social network sites, the perceived brand personality and ultimately consumer behavioral changes. An important part in the completion of this research is the survey contained several questions about your personal experiences with brands on social media. If you can find 6 minutes of your time, please complete the survey: tinyurl.com/crossmediambathesis. After completion, I will share and discuss the key findings and tested model in a new blog post.