Abstract:

Brand personality better defined by Aaker (1997) as “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand” has been a subject of interest for researchers all over the world for more than two decades. It has been observed that brand personality is instrumental in developing brand preference (Mulyanegara, Tsarenko and Anderson, 2009), increasing brand liking (Malar et al., 2011), generating brand interest (Rageh and Spinelli, 2012), building brand loyalty (Molinillo et al., 2017) and above all influencing consumer choices (Sung and Kim, 2010). There has been ample research on brand personality measurement, the pioneer study being that of Aaker (1997), which established five main brand personality dimensions namely Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication and Ruggedness. However, when the same scale was tested by Aaker (2000) in Japan the brand personality dimensions that emerged were Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Peacefulness and Sophistication. Aaker, Benet-Martinez and Garolera (2001) studied brand personality in Japan and Spain; they observed that brand personality dimensions relevant for Japanese consumers were Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Peacefulness and Sophistication while Spanish consumers see brand personality as a composition Sincerity, Excitement, Peacefulness, Passion and Sophistication. The above discussion suggests that brand personality scale cannot be generalized and brand personality dimensions are influenced by cultural dimensions. Brand personality dimensions vary across different countries and cultures. On this presumption, this study aims to identify the brand personality dimensions of customers in Saudi Arabia.