New Measure of Brand Personality

What it measures

The NMBP is a psychometrically refined alternative to Aaker's (1997) Brand Personality Scale (BPS), developed to address three key limitations of the BPS: (1) the BPS includes non-personality items (e.g., 'feminine', 'masculine', 'small-town', 'western') that reflect product category associations rather than personality traits; (2) the BPS was validated using exploratory but not confirmatory factor analysis, yielding dimensions with poor discriminant validity; and (3) the BPS is overfitted to the US cultural context. Geuens, Weijters, and De Wulf (2009) derived a 12-item scale from a large item pool using CFA, retaining only items that function as valid personality descriptors applicable across brand categories and cultures. The five NMBP dimensions are: Activity (dynamic, active, innovative brands), Responsibility (responsible, caring, well-established brands), Aggressiveness (aggressive, bold brands), Simplicity (ordinary, simple brands), and Emotionality (romantic, sentimental, emotional brands). The NMBP demonstrates superior model fit, cross-cultural stability, and discriminant validity compared to the BPS, and has been validated in Belgian, Dutch, and US consumer samples. The NMBP is recommended as a more parsimonious and psychometrically sound alternative to the BPS for cross-cultural brand personality research.

Representative items

• Active, Dynamic, Innovative (Activity)
• Responsible, Caring, Down-to-earth (Responsibility)
• Aggressive, Bold (Aggressiveness)
• Ordinary, Simple (Simplicity)
• Romantic, Sentimental (Emotionality)

Citation

Geuens, M., Weijters, B., & De Wulf, K. (2009). A new measure of brand personality. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 26(2), 97–107.