Communication of brand personality by some top business schools online

Abstract: Organizations perceive their brands to possess a personality that consumers either use as an avenue for self-expression or to experience the anticipated emotional benefits that differentiate one brand from another. These perceived brand personalities emerge through the different ways organizations present themselves. However, research on brand personality and the symbolic use of brands largely has been restricted to how consumers express themselves by choosing brands and has ignored how organizations themselves perceive their brand personalities. Moreover, brand personality often has been discussed with clear reference to products, corporate brands, or countries but not how this is communicated via web sites. In a fresh contextual environment, we explore whether business schools communicate clear and distinctive brand personalities in cyberspace. Our study involved multistage methodology focused on 30 full-time global MBA programmes, using a combination of computerized content and correspondence analyses. Thecontent analysis was structured using Aaker's five-dimensional framework whilst the positioning maps were produced by examining the data using correspondence analysis. Results indicate that some schools have clear brand personalities while others fail to communicate their brand personalities distinctly. This study also illustrates a powerful, but simple and relatively inexpensive way for organizations and brand researchers to study communicated brand personalities.