The GDBP is a psychometrically validated instrument for measuring the degree to which a brand is perceived as masculine, feminine, or androgynous in its personality. Grohmann (2009) extended Aaker's (1997) Brand Personality Scale to address its inadequate capture of gender-related personality dimensions, arguing that the BPS conflates gender-related traits (e.g., 'feminine' in the Sophistication dimension, 'masculine' in the Ruggedness dimension) without measuring them as a coherent, theoretically grounded gender personality construct. Drawing on social role theory and gender schema theory, Grohmann developed the GDBP by identifying trait adjectives that consumers systematically associate with masculine or feminine brands, validated through expert sorting, consumer ratings, and multi-group confirmatory factor analysis. Masculine Brand Personality (MBP) captures the degree to which a brand is perceived as embodying stereotypically masculine traits — rugged, tough, strong, aggressive, dominant, bold, and active. Feminine Brand Personality (FBP) captures the degree to which a brand is perceived as embodying stereotypically feminine traits — delicate, tender, gentle, refined, elegant, graceful, and sensitive. The two dimensions are partially independent — brands can score high on both (androgynous brands), high on one but not the other (typed brands), or low on both (undifferentiated brands). The GDBP predicts brand preference through self-brand congruence mechanisms for both gender-typed and androgynous consumers. It is particularly useful in research on brand repositioning, gender-neutral product design, gendered packaging, and the effects of feminist advertising appeals. Validated across multiple brand categories and consumer samples in North America.
Grohmann, B. (2009). Gender dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research, 46(1), 105–119.
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