Recebido em 06.12.2019
Aprovado em 03.02.2020
Avaliado pelo sistema double blind review Editor Científico: Marlusa de Sevilha Gosling
ISSN 2525- 8176
DOI: 10.29149/mtr.v6i1.6284
Brand personality: assessment of a higher education institution’s brand
Glener Alvarenga Mizael, University of Lavras, Brazil gleneradm@ufla.br
Cleber Carvalho de Castro, University of Lavras, Brazil
clebercastro@ufla.br
Paulo Henrique Montagnana Vicente Leme, University of Lavras, Brazil paulo.leme@ufla.br
ABSTRACT
Brand management is an essential element for the competitiveness of organizations, whether public or private. This research evaluates the personality of a higher education institution based on the scale developed by Muniz and Marchetti (2005). With a quantitative approach, by means of statistical analysis using SPSS - Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, it was analyzed factor analysis, cluster and discriminant of clusters. Non - probabilistic sample for convenience, in which 280 questionnaires are applied and 233 are validated for this research. From the results, it is concluded that the factor analysis made it possible to identify only four of the five personalities, not being possible to identify the sensibility personality. The discriminant analysis made it possible to determine that the higher education institution has two groups that think differently in relation to the characteristics of being chic, imaginative, confident, sensible, feminine, glamorous, reliable and fun. Therefore, among the academic community, there is a different perception of the institution's brand regarding it being fun or sophisticated. As a limitation of the research, these research data can be generalized only for the studied sample. The results will enable Universities’ managers to identify the personality of the brand, promoting the integration of the internal environment, reinforcing and / or modifying characteristics or values of the identified personality.
Keywords: brand management, brand personality, higher education institution, statistical analysis
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INTRODUCTION
In the context of organizations, much has been thought from the perspective of competitiveness, of guaranteeing a product or service at low cost and with quality for the citizen. For a long time it was believed that companies were closed organizations which were not affected by the external environment. Such tesis was later challenged by the advent of globalization and the digital age.
From the perspective of the strategic management of companies, the consumer has come to be considered as the main decision-making agent in companies. That is, in order to make decisions about the products and services to be offered, organizations need to be attentive to the needs of customers as a way to guarantee competitiveness and their survival.
Cases such as the Ford model, which at that time only produced black cars, with the slogan that "the consumer could choose the color of the car, as long as it was black", ended up failing the adopted management system. In contrast, the Toyota production model started to produce cars with the perception of consumers, listening to them regarding their needs, not only aiming at the perspective of mass production to obtain gains and economies of scale.
Since then, brand management has been worked on in organizations based on studies carried out by leading researchers, such as Aeker, Keller and Kapferer. Brand management came to be considered an asset of the company, being the responsibility of the marketing area due to the awareness of not only targeting the customer, but also adding value to the shareholder. In this sense, several studies such as brand equity, which seeks to assess the value of the brand, as well as its personality, have been carried out in organizations in order to add value to the brand, combining the
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perspective of the consumer approach and the economic perspective. In this context, one can consider that there was accountability in the marketing area when adopting brand equity.
Brand management, or branding, creates the identity of organizations in the market, so that customers / consumers remember and recognize a successful brand. This recognition is linked to verbal attributes and concrete symbols, such as the name, logo, slogan and visual identity that represent the essence of that organization. Branding can be defined as the act of managing an organization's brand (Rauschnabel, Krey, Babin & Ivens, 2016).
It is noted that branding can be considered a strategic, conceptual and planning activity. Its essence is more than purely a marketing strategy in companies. Brand derives from the old Nordic brandr, which means to burn, since brands were literally burned on the surface that distinguished it (Keler and Machado, 2006).
The term branding can still be defined as a “set of activities that aims to optimize the management of an organization's brands as a competitive differential” (Keller and Machado, 2006, p. 17). It involves activities such as design, product naming, legal protection, market research, financial assessment, positioning and communication. Implementing branding involv es a set of integrated activities.
Thus, many studies show how branding is implemented in private companies and in which aspects it is necessary to improve to manage a company's brand. As an example, we have the case of large companies’ brands, such as Coca-Cola, Nike, Nokia, Sony, Mercedes, among others. However, it can be considered easier to work with brand management when you have a tangible product, making it possible to evaluate its attributes, unlike organizations that provide services, such as higher education universities whose products are part of the teaching-learning processes.
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Higher education universities face the challenge of promoting the development of teaching, research and extension. The emphasis on each of these pillars is what makes them different in the market. The promotion of these three pillars is closely linked to the way in which educational services are provided. In addition to these pillars, another one is emerging and being widely demanded by society and the government: administrative sustainability. The responsibility of managers in the face of the challenge of managing resources for an education that benefits society is well known. For this, planning, technology, innovation and sustainability of actions are the requirements that will guarantee HEIs to survive in the market and be recognized.
In order to promote this challenge, universities need to develop several plans such as: institutional development plan, budget plans; people management plan; academic plans; national university extension plan, waste management plans, institutional evaluation through the evaluation commission Comissão Própria de Avaliação - CPA, among others.
In addition, brand management in the 21st century is essential to ensure the survival and competitiveness of universities in terms of identity construction and attracting students, skills, funding and student support (Melewar & Akel, 2005). In this scenario, the competition between HEIs marked in the media by the disclosure of rankings is intensified. Recently, the government has created several programs for universities to reinvent themselves and become autonomous from an administrative and financial point of view.
In this sense, the present research intends to evaluate the brand personality of a Higher Education Institution (HEI) from the scale developed by Muniz and Marchetti (2005). Those authors developed a brand personality scale aimed at the Brazilian context. They developed the scale based on Aeker's studies. The personality scale of Muniz and Marchetti (2005) considers that a brand’s personality can assume five dimensions: credibility; fun ; audacity; sophistication and sensibility .
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The relevance of working with brand management in organizations is not just to generate an immediate return through sales, revenues and profits, nor to guarantee the cash flow of tomorrow. Its contribution is aimed at the process of valuing the organization's internal environment, such as: strengthening teamwork; learning and developing a shared vision and language (Louro, 2000). This research seeks to contribute with understanding the way the community evaluates the institution's brand and enabling managers to value the internal environment, reinforcing mechanisms of brand identity construction, evaluating the characteristics that represent it.
This research is structured as follows. The theoretical framework will discuss the brand concept and brand management in organizations. Then, the brand personality and its different scales adopted in organizations will be presented. In the third topic, the personality scale of the brand will be addressed according to studies by Muniz and Mancheti (2005), presenting the way it is developed and applied in the Brazilian context. Then the methodological aspects will be presented, using the SPSS - Statistical Package for the Social Sciences in the analysis. Then, the results and final considerations of the research.
BRAND MANAGEMENT
Branding or brand management refers to:
the management of a company’s brand, such as: name, images or ideas associated with it, including slogans, symbols, logos and other
elements of visual identity that represent it or its products and services. Branding can also refer to the work itself or to the set of practices and techniques for building and consolidating a brand in the market. The
construction of a brand is closely linked to the relationship with the target audience, who comes to realize the quality of the brand. Thus, the brand is worth more than the product being offered in the market. (Branding, 2020, p. 1)
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Scussel and Demo (2016) present the scientific contribution through a bibliographic review, providing an overview of scientific research on the theme of brand management, specifically the personality of the brand in the Brazilian context from 2001 to 2015. The authors identify that the studies related to the theme are incipient. Thus, the authors point to the need for local studies, which covers local aspects and characteristics, including cultural factors that impact on the brand personality.
The brand is not characterized simply by its logo, name, visual identity or slogan, but by the set and actions that involve it, and especially by the deep knowledge of the public's language and behavior, which guarantees more sales, reputation and results .
In this context, the brand can be considered as:
a name, term, design, symbol or any other characteristic that identifies a seller's goods and services, differentiating them from other sellers. [...] A brand can identify an item, a family of items, or all the items of that
seller (American Marketing Association, 2012, p. 1).
For Aeker (1998), the brand is an essential factor for a company since it positions the company and differentiates it in the customers' perspective. Consequently, it promotes competitive advantage for the organization and adds value.
The evolution of the brand concept in the legal field and in marketing can be represented in table 1. In the legal perspective, the brand is perceived in the scope of the company's visual communication as logo, corporate name, among others. In the approach of marketing in the classical view according to Kotler (1991) it consists of the set of name, symbol, design, with the objective of identifying the goods and services and differentiating them from the competition. In a holistic view, Kapferer (1992) considers that the brand is not a product. It’s its essence, meaning and direction that positions it in time.
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Table 1 - Evolution of the brand concept Brand - Classic Concept
Brand - Holistic Notion
Legal Definition
"Sign or set of normative, figurative or emblematic signs that when applied, in any way, to a product or its wrapping distinguish it from others that are identical or similar."(Chantérac, 1989, p.
46)
Marketing definition
"Name, term, sign, symbol, design or combination thereof, designed to identify the goods and services of a seller or group of sellers, as well as to differentiate them from those of the competition." (Kotler, 1991, p. 442)
“A brand is not a product. It is the essence of the product, its meaning and its direction, that defines its identity in time and space ”.
Source: Louro (2000, p. 27)
According to Klein (2009), consumers do not buy products, but brands. In this sense, it is observed that the perspective of marketing goes beyond the evaluation of the tangible criteria of a product. In addition, the essence of the brand is increasingly linked to meanings and the customer's perception of their values, culture and personality. (Kotler, 2000).
In the context of higher education institutions, brand management has been approached in different ways and from different perspectives. Organizations can use various resources and instruments to create or reinforce the institution's brand. Ribeiro and Bastos (2015) reinforce in their study that the image of an institution is built over time and that the brand is an essential element.
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Unlike evaluating the quality of products, services have a peculiarity. Generally, services cannot be tried out in advance, which makes the service delivery process more complex. In this sense, the brand plays a major role in making customers' decisions, since the guarantee that the service will be provided with quality is implicitly embedded. Thus, the brand represents the image, reputation and history of the service organization.
Brand Management in Higher Education
There are several studies that seek to identify and explore brand management in universities. Several methods (qualitative and quantitative) and approaches aim to explore and understand a little of this reality.
Balaji, Roy and Sadequel (2016) in their work propose to examine the background of university identification and to investigate the role of university identification in supporting students with positive behaviors towards the university. Through his research, he found that individuals who strongly identify with the brand or organization are more willing to engage in association and belonging behaviors. In the case of HEIs, through their research, students with strong university identification are more likely to behave in defense of the university. In addition, they are more willing to provide suggestions for its improvement.
Another example is the studies by Wilson and Elliot (2016) who, through a qualitative approach, adopted metaphors to represent the brand personality in higher education institutions. Internal audiences (directors and manage rs) and external audiences (students) were surveyed. From the results, it is proved that both audiences have different perceptions regarding the brand personality. However, it is observed that they are not negative, but complementary. In addition, the data revealed that the brand perception is consistent with the institutional mission and that in the case study carried out
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(higher education institution) the brand positioning strategies are aligned with the found metaphors.
Among the metaphors that are identified and pointed out by the managers and the university (internal public) are: transformation, resources, connection, journey (trajectory). Transformation is seen as synonymous with creativity, exploration, opportunities, experience, determination and success. Resources are seen as a means that represents the ability to achieve goals. That is, the hard work and sacrifices that are made by students during their journey. Connection can be understood as the way people relate to each other, reflecting on the behaviors of collaboration, synergy, interconnectivity and personal relationship. (Wilson & Elliot, 2016).
These same metaphors are seen differently, but complementary, by the external public. Transformation is associated with knowledge, skills and competences. Journey is perceived as the opportunities that the institution provides. And finally, connection was understood in the same perception of the internal public: the relationship between students with students, students with teachers and with the community in general.
As it is not the objective of this work to explore the different ways of evaluating the brand management of HEIs, it is important to consider that in the literature there are different ways to evaluate the brand personality. The models tend to have a convergence towards subjective or objective optics, focused on qualitative or quantitative methodologies. Thus, it lacks studies that use a multimethod approach, exploring the ontological dimensions in a complementary and non-exclusive way. It is noteworthy that the challenge is not to develop the best model for brand evaluation, but rather the one that best meets the organization's objectives and what is the requirement to be assessed in the management of the brand.
BRAND PERSONALITY
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The understanding of the brand personality concept is considered relatively recent in the academic literature (Saavedra; San Martín & Torres, 2004). This theme gained prominence from the studies of Aaker (1997), who renewed the concept and developed a scale to measure brand personality.
The studies of the brand personality derive from studies of human personality, in the area of Psychology, which has been researched for a long time (Ferrandi, Merunka, Valette-Florence & Barnier, 2002).
When analyzing the brand approach, different factors determine the attributes, benefits, price and image from the customer's perspective. When assessing the personality of the brand, we should not consider its literal meaning, but the metaphorical one (Aaker & Fournier, 1995). Thus, in the conception of Keller and Machado (2006), personality is a reflection of the feeling of customers in relation to the brand, with regard to what it is or does, its characteristics, its promotion, among others.
Park (1986) points out that relationships and perceptions have a great influence on brand personality, which is not simply something received and accepted by them. Still, these relationships will depend on a series of elements linked to the individual such as: beliefs, culture, behavior, personality and even for demographic reasons, that is, the environment in which they live.
Thus, the best definition of the brand's personality according to Aeker (1997, p. 347) is considered as “a set of human characteristics associated with a brand”. In this sense, identity is one of the essential elements for understanding the brand, since its formation is composed of associations that form the heart and spirit of a brand.
Muniz (2005) understands the importance of personality for the organization's brand management. Likewise, the brand's personality is fundamental for educational institutions when attracting students and
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professionals. Keller (1993) also reinforces that personality is an essential attribute to determine the value of a brand.
Gordiano (2012) conducted a study with undergraduate students from public and private institutions and found that the brand personality of a medium-sized private college is the same in the perception of its students from different areas. On the other hand, brand personality in a public institution is seen differently by students from different areas. Such a finding could lead to an inquiry as to what’s the reason for such differentiation between public and private institutions. Is it the pluralism of knowledge at the public university, the different areas of knowledge and research that permeate this space?
Therefore, when working with brand personality, organizations can protect themselves from competitors, reinforcing the attributes and characteristics of the personality they want to highlight or minimize (Chernatony, 2005).
Brand Personality Scales
In 1997, Jennifer Aaker published a study that aims to validate a scale with generalizable measures to assess American consumers' perception of brand personality. His research is based on psychology studies that group the traits of human personality into 5 great dimensions, widely spread as Big Five.
When doing the factorial analysis of the data, Aaker (1997) obtained five factors that explained 92% of the brand personality’s variance, which were: sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness.
Figure 1 - Jennifer Aeker brand personality scale
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Source: Muniz and Marchetti (2005, p. 5)
In Brazil, this model was adapted by Muniz and Marchetti (2005). In the brazilian context, the 5 dimensions of brand personality identified by Muniz and Marchetti (2005) are: credibility, fun, audacity, sophistication and sensibility (Figure 2):
Figure 2 - Brand personality scale in the Brazilian context
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Source: Muniz and Marchetti (2005, p. 12)
The scale developed by Muniz (2005) makes it possible to identify 5 personalities, as shown in Table 2 below:
Table 2 - Description of personality characteristics
Personality Characteristics
Credibility reflection of brands that demonstrate
confidence, success, stability and
determination, positioning themselves as excellent partners in the relationship with consumers.
Fun
reflection of brands that show joy, energy and empathy, being liked and having the sympathy of consumers through a more informal and relaxed relationship, generating self- identification.
Audacity
reflection of brands that show boldness and modernity through restless and innovative actions, in addition to continuous evolution in the relationship with the consumer. Leads through innovation and creativity, by contesting competitors or by being aggressive in their behavior and communication.
Sophistication
reflection of brands that demonstrate elitism and style through high standards and refinement, offering an aspirational image to consumers who desire such characteristics, but often do not have them.
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Sensibility
reflection of brands that show sensibility and emotion through actions of concern for the consumer, going beyond utilitarian reasons and providing and cultivating an emotional bond with their customers
Source: Muniz (2005, p. 126 and 127).
Rauschnabel et al. (2016) developed a scale that represents a university's brand personality. Such a model, known as the University Brand Personality Scale (UBPS), consists of six dimensions. This study was carried out at American and German universities. The author's proposal is that this model can be adopted in different cultures from different countries. The UBPS represents a mental association of people about a specific university.
The brand personality, according to the author, captures a set of human characteristics associated with the brand. In other words, the attributes given to the organization in general are interpreted as if they were "people", in order to allow the association of human personality characteristics. Studies by Aeker (1997) point to the influence of the brand personality on consumer preference, behavior and experience. However, the traditional brand personality scales of companies fail to represent the reality of universities, as those institutions commonly associate brand attributes with institutional marketing strategy.
Authors such as Duesterhaus and Duesterhaus (2014) state that the indicators or ranking of universities do not always have the sam e representation for students regarding the quality of services. For them, the quality criteria can have different meanings. The brand personality does not simply correspond to institutional marketing strategies. Perception goes beyond institutional limits, associated with reason and organizational mission. The brand is perceived by the attitudes and actions that permeate the
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organizational environment and captured by the stakeholders (Kapferer, 1998).
From studies by Eisend and Stokburger-Sauer (2013), are proven the consequences of brand personality on results, mainly related to attitudes, brand strengthening and brand influence or value. If the brand management is not carried out effectively, the organization risks compromising its activities, losing the credibility of its products and services.
In the development of the studies, Raushnable et al. (2016) performed several steps to arrive at the creation of UBPS. The first stage consisted of the description of the universities' identity by their websites. Thus, it was possible to know the marketing strategy of these universities. In the second moment, the adjectives used by the students to describe the institutions were identified, in a total of 95 adjectives. Then, statistical analysis studies were carried out, enabling the conclusion of six dimensions of brand personality in American and German universities.
Among the identified dimensions are: prestige, sincerity, appeal, lively, conscientiousness and cosmopolitan. Prestige was associated with acceptance, reputation, success and consideration. Sincerity was linked to humanity issues, friendship, loyalty and justice. Appeal was marked by attractiveness, productive and special. Lively corresponds to a dynamic, creative and athletic organization. Conscientiousness comprised the adjectives of organized, competent, structured and effective. And finally, cosmopolitan, associated with internationalization and relationship networks.
In addition to these dimensions, other studies carried out by researchers such as Kumar and Christodoulopoulou (2013) present the integration of the sustainability dimension and the organization’s brand. Strategic sustainability actions promote the sustainability of the organizational structure, involving operations, marketing and the brand. As a result, these actions promote organizational performance in the dimension of sustainability that are perceived by customers, employees and other stakeholders.
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METHOD
For this research, a quantitative approach is used, which, according to Malhotra (2006), aims to quantify the data and analyze them from a statistical point of view. The target audience consists of the academic community (teachers, students, administrative technicians and outsourced employees) of a higher education institution in the south of Minas Gerais, aiming to identify the personality of the institution's brand from the scale developed by Muniz and Marchetti (2005) . To collect the data, we use a questionnaire to be answered in writing by the respondent (Gil, 2007). Survey participants are selected using the convenience method, that is, availability and acceptability to participate in the survey. As a strategy for data collection, the questionnaire is prepared on Google Forms, generating a form that is forwarded to the academic community’s emails. The questionnaire with the variables is available at the end of this research.
The questionnaire is structured according to the brand personality scale of Muniz and Marchetti (2005), a scale that was adapted and validated for the Brazilian context based on the model originally developed by Jennifer Aaker (1997) in the North American context. The scale consists of 38 personality characteristics that are grouped into 5 factors. According to a study carried out by Gordiano (2012), it is also decided to put the characteristics in alphabetical order so that the participants would not perceive the grouping of the characteristics by factor. The questionnaire is formatted in such a way that each respondent marks the number that corresponds to how much the indicated characteristic describes the institution's brand. For this, it uses a scale of agreement of 10 (ten) points, in which 1 represents “does not describe anything” and 10 represents “describes completely”. In addition to the 38 characteristics of the model, a space is available for members of the academic community, if so they desire, to list other not mentioned characteristics.
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For data analysis, we use descriptive statistics as a way to characterize the research participants and to better understand the respondents. Descriptive statistics is an important tool to demonstrate the distribution, differentiation, location and dispersion of data (Cooper & Schingler, 2003).
To analyze the data, the statistical software SPSS is adopted, in which exploratory factor analysis will be used. Factor analysis aims to group the model’s characteristics into factors that correspond to the brand personalities developed by the authors Muniz and Marchetti. As pointed out by Agresti and Finlay (2012, p.586) when carrying out factor analysis, there are some applications, such as:
1. Reveal patterns of interrelationship between variables.
2. Detect clusters of variables, each containing variables that are strongly interrelated and are thus redundant.
3. Reduce a large number of variables to a small number of statistically unrelated variables, the factors in the analysis.
In addition to factor analysis, cluster analysis is used to group cases. Then we use discriminant analysis, in order to discriminate which characteristics differ between the analyzed clusters.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
280 questionnaires are collected, and only 233 are validated, as questions are asked throughout the questionnaire to verify the reliability of the respondents' responses, avoiding insincere behavior when answering the questionnaire and eliminating outliers.
Respondents answer regarding the IFE brand as if it is a person (the objective is to describe the characteristics of the institution's brand).
From the descriptive analysis, it is found that the percentage of men and women remains almost equal, with 48.6% and 51.4%. Most respondents (33%)
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are between 26 and 33 years old. Of these, 76.9% have postgraduate degrees, that is, master's and doctoral degrees. Approximately 26.2% have an income above R $ 12,000 (twelve thousand reais), being related to professors from the academic community, given that they are predominant in the participation of the research (38.4%).
When performing the factor analysis, it is observed a KMO close to 1. That is, above 0.6, being highly significant, as shown in Table 3:
Figure 3 - Factor analysis KMO
Source: research data.
In addition to KMO, the cronbach's alpha is analyzed as a way to estimate the reliability of the questionnaire applied in the research. Likewise, it is observed that the factor's cronbach's alpha is above 0.9, therefore, the variables of the factors that make up the questionnaire are reliable, as shown in Table 4:
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Figure 4 - Chronbach's alpha of the factors
Source: research data.
When checking the validity of Muniz and Marchetti’s (2005) scale it is observed that, when performing the factor analysis, it is possible to verify only four types of personality, namely: fun, credibility, audacity and sophistication.
Sensibility personality, composed of the delicate, feminine, sensible, romantic and emotional variables, is diluted in the other personalities. That said, it is observed that Muniz and Marchetti’s (2005) scale makes it possible to identify four personality types, except for sensibility. Table 5 presents the four personality types and how the characteristics of the personality sensibility are distributed among the fun and sophisticated personalities.
Figure 5 - Personalities identified in the research
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Source: research data.
When performing the discriminant between the variables of the analyzed clusters, the two main clusters (53% and 43%) have the main characteristics that discriminate the two groups, being:
Figure 6 - Discriminant analysis of clusters
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Source: Research data
From the discriminant analysis it can be inferred that, in the institution of higher education, there are two groups that think differently in relation to the characteristics of being chic, imaginative, confident, sensitive, feminine, glamorous, reliable and fun. That is, between the two groups, there is a divergence regarding fun and sophisticated personalities. Therefore, among the academic community there is a perception of the institution's brand of being fun or sophisticated. This finding is in line with the research carried out by Gordiano (2012), who found in his research a divergence of opinion regarding the brand personality in a public HEI.
From the indicated results, it is possible to understand the divergence regarding the institution's personality, not from a negative point of view. As Wilson and Elliot (2016) pointed out in their studies. In other words, the understanding of the brand personality by these two audiences must be see n in a complementary way.
Still, in addition to complementarity, aspects such as belonging to the organization through individuals who identify with and defend the brand can be explored from the perspective of these two groups, according to studies by Balaji, Roy and Sadequel (2016).
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FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
From the research results, it can be concluded that from the scale developed by Muniz and Marchetti (2005), only four personality types are identified. The sensitivity personality could not be identified through factor analysis.
As a research limitation, it must be considered that the data cannot be generalized to the population that represents the academic community of the HEI object of this study.
The fun personality ends up contemplating the delicate, emotional, feminine, romantic and sensitive characteristics. From the surveyed sample, it can be seen that the brand personality of the federal educational institution differs between two identified groups. In other words, among the groups identified through cluster analysis, it is observed that the institution's brand personality oscillates between fun and sophisticated.
Between being fun and sophisticated, there are different points of view and visions about the Institution's brand. Fun corresponds to a relaxed, young, updated, witty, contemporary behavior. In contrast, sophistication is related to elitist, charming and stunning behavior.
From a managerial point of view, in order to improve brand management, it is up to higher education institutions through the analysis of brand personality to work on values and aspects in order to improve the perception of the brand by members of the academic community. In this regard, it is up to the institutions to decide whether these are th e characteristics that they consider most important to have in their brands and to focus their efforts to strengthen or modify them. Furthermore, it is up to the managers, through the identification of the brand personality, to reinforce the values and characteristics of the brand and to combine them with institutional planning instruments.
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The identification of the brand personality will also enable HEI managers to define some parameters for better performance of the brand personality, according to some notes made by Keller and Lehmann (2006):
1. How does brand personality affect the consumer when making a decision? Under what circumstances?
2. Is the brand’s personality more strategic or tactical (for example, in terms of the "looks and looks" of ad executions) important?
3. What is the value of different personality dimensions? Are certain dimensions more valuable in driving preference or loyalty than others? Does the value vary by product / service category or other factors?
4. How stable are these various dimensions of personality and what drives them to evolve or change?
From the academic point of view, the contribution of this research is important when replicating the model of Muniz and Marchetti (2005), adapted from Aaker (1997), in Educational Institutions, also identifying the existence of differences in the perception of members of the academic community within the same HEI. The different perception of the brand is not negative, given that an educational environment is marked by the pluralism of ideas and people tend to associate and identify with the brand based on their own characteristics.
The empirical study shows that the Muniz and Marchetti scale, even if adapted from the Aeker model for the Brazilian context, does not include the five proposed dimensions, which strengthens the evidence that the initial model developed by Aeker is not generalizable, but rather adaptable to the context, especially to local contexts.
For future research, new studies are recommended to assess the managers' perception regarding the brand management of their HEIs. In addition, how institutional plans converge or not to promote the values and characteristics of the brand perceived by the academic community.
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Questionnaire - HEI brand personality
HEI BRAND PERSONALIT Y
Imagine the brand of the Institution you study and/or work as if it were a person. Using the scale below, select the characteristic that describes the Institution's brand. The grade is from 1 to 10, being 1 for NOT DESCRIBING ANYTHING and 10 for FULLY DESCRIBI NG
1. Cheerful *
2. High class *
3. Updated *
4. Pleasant *
5. Successful *
6. Chic *
7. Confident * 8. Trustworthy * 9. Consistent *
10. Fearless *
For control purposes, check option (1). *
11. Correct *
12. Creative *
13. Delicate *
14. Fun *
15. Elegant * 16. Emotional * 17. Steady * 18. Witty *
19. Extroverted * 20. Feminine * 21. Festive *
For control purposes, check option 10 *
22. Solid *
23. Glamorous *
24. Imaginative *
25. Informal * 26. Young * 27. Loyal * 28. Cool * 29. Modern *
30. Bold *
31. Respectable * 32. Responsible * 33. Romantic * 34. Safe *
35. Sensible *
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36. Serious *
37. Likeable *
38. Sophisticated *
Do you consider other feature(s) not shown above? Which one(s)? 1. Sex *
2. Age *
Service time at HEI
3. Education: *
4. Marital Status: *
5. Income *
6. Your role at the HEI is: *
Student data
Exact and Earth Sciences (Ex .: Mathematics; Computing; Physics; Chemistry; etc.)
Biological Sciences (Ex .: Biology; Biochemistry; etc .)
Engineering (Ex .: Civil; Mechanical; Electrical; Production; etc .)
Health Sciences (Ex .: Medicine; Nutrition; Physical Education; etc.) Agricultural Sciences (Ex .: Agronomy; Animal Science; Veterinary Medicine;
Food Engineering; etc.)
Applied Social Sciences (Ex .: Law; Administration; Economics; etc.) Human Sciences (Ex .: Philosophy; History; Geography; etc.) Linguistics, Letters and Arts (Ex .: Letters and Arts.)
How long have you worked at the institution? *
What is the area of knowledge of your course? * classification according to Capes *
Did you study in public schools? *
What types of student aid do you have? *
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