Who are you, really? Making your brand's true self shine

It’s often a helpful exercise when defining a brand to define its persona. When you say “rebellious,” do you mean Greta Thunberg or James Dean? When you say “fun,” is that Weird Al or Dolly Parton?

The best brands behave like people — full of complexities and contradictions. To meaningfully engage with culture, brands have to live within it.

Too often, though, “brand personality” is treated as a strategic checkbox next to purpose and values — a list of generic adjectives that could apply to anyone: fun, authentic, in-the-know.

Even Jung’s classic archetypes can mislead. If a “magician” can be either Disney or Dyson, or a “hero” can be Nike or FedEx, how useful are they really?

These strategic personalities might loosely guide tone of voice — but personality is far more than just TOV. Like a person, you sense it through how a brand looks, sounds, smells, and behaves. When that personality is weakly defined, you show up in the world as a weak brand.

At Sister Mary, we’re considering and building brand personality in everything we do. Here’s how to make yours shine.

Defining Your Personality

A list of adjectives won’t cut it. A “we are / we aren’t” framework helps, but only if it digs deeper than opposites. Too often it looks like this:

We are Fun / We aren’t Boring
We are Authentic / We aren’t Fake
We are Warm / We aren’t Cold
We are Uplifting / We aren’t Depressing

In these cases, the “aren’t” side doesn’t add much — it’s just the negative form of a positive word no brand would ever claim.

At Sister Mary, we use the same framework but push for nuance. Both sides should build on each other to create tension and texture:

We are Fun-Loving / We aren’t Kooky
We are Authentically Down-to-Earth / We aren’t Straight-Up Blunt
We are Warmly Inviting / We aren’t The Picture-Perfect Host
We are Quietly Uplifting / We aren’t Kumbaya

Sometimes, the “aren’t” traits are someone else’s “are.” Liquid Death owns kooky. Oatly’s bluntness works for them. Martha Stewart has perfected perfection.

This approach rounds out your personality, giving direction to the type of fun you have, how direct you can be, and how warm or polished you appear. It paints a mental picture of how your brand looks, sounds, and even smells.

When defining personality, ask yourself:

• Can you name brands that live on both sides of your spectrum?
• Does each “are / aren’t” pairing steer behavior in a meaningful way?
• Do the traits together form a personality as complex and multifaceted as you?

Activating Your Personality

A well-defined personality is a copywriter’s dream — it’s where tone of voice is born. But personality doesn’t only come through what you say; it’s how you say it — the whole brand experience.

Goodles says “noodles gooder,” but brings the nostalgia visually.
Subway says “eat fresh,” but that suspicious bread smell still pulls you in.
The Economist tackles serious issues but shows up in delightfully unexpected ways.

Like people, brands can hold contradictions. You might dress preppy but listen to death metal. You act differently with family than with friends. You love baking but live Keto. Those tensions make us human — not hypocritical.

So when activating your personality, lean into those tensions. Let them add flavor and unpredictability. Say things in a no-BS way, but add hand-made touches that invite warmth. Let an underdesigned look overdeliver on enjoyment. Know when to stand for serious values, and when to loosen up.

Ask yourself:

• Where can you bring the tension that makes people interesting into every touchpoint?
• If something feels flat, where can you turn up the edge?
• How can you express different facets of your personality through sight, sound, taste, and feel?

Living Your Personality

Nature vs. nurture applies to brands, too. Some traits are inherent; others evolve with experience.

To build a personality that lasts, embrace flexibility. Stay true to your core, but allow evolution with culture. Like visual identity systems, brand personality needs both fixed recognizability and adaptive freedom. That’s how you build not just loyalty — but love.

Ikea brings self-aware humor to its no-frills basics.
Dawn shows softness for animals amid its cleaning power.
Skittles knows when to turn down the rainbow.

To build a living, breathing personality, ask:

• What are our non-negotiable traits — the things we’d never change?
• How can we show fresh sides of ourselves in timely, cultural ways?
• How can we shine in unexpected places without losing our core identity?

In Conclusion

Just like your human personality, your brands’ personality is what defines you…

So put the effort into defining your brand personality as a core foundation for everything you do - not a throwaway activity.  Think about how your personality can support your key benefits and differentiators, even as your brand grows, as we did for Niteswim - creating a brand that gets you and offers moments of calm no matter what stresses you’re facing.

Just like your human personality, your brands’ personality doesn’t just come through what you say, but through every facet of how you show up to the world…

So consider how you can live your personality beyond just TOV - through how you look, taste, act and feel.  As we built Seagrams Escapes Spiked x WWE’s personality, it’s powerhouse spectacle of escaping the weak comes through every facet of its experience - from the edgy typography, bold colors, blinged out belts and boosted flavor & ABV experience.

And, just like your human personality, your brands’ personality isn’t static - it adapts and evolves as you and the world around you do in every moment & context.

So, build flexibility into how you express your personality, without losing sight of who you are at your very core, as we did for The Signal - always cueing the rebellious spirit of underground publishing, while shifting the look and feel to show up as credible experts, no matter what topic.

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