What's Your Brand's Personality Quotient? Part 2

When you consider how the best creative advertisers build brand images that appeal to Baby Boomers, some important things come to light. First, many of them personalize their companies by using spokespeople who look and sound credible. Makes sense. After all, it’s a lot easier to buy from a human being than a faceless corporation.

They also try to build relationships using potentially high-touch media like direct mail and telemarketing rather than mass media like TV, radio and print, because the more intimate the contact, the more it will resonate with Boomers. Genuine warmth goes a long way in selling them on products and services, which is why they value companies with high PQs.

Marketers with high PQs resonate with Boomers because they treat them like reasonable people who value their feelings as much as their intellects. Like everyone else, Boomers like to be treated with simple respect, and when a company does that, they reciprocate with increased loyalty as they come to know and trust the company and its brands.

Like dependable people, companies with the highest PQs aren’t fickle, so they don’t change images every year or two. Instead, they build on their existing one. This gives them genuine credibility, so when they claim a long history of satisfying customers, Boomers know they can back up those claims with testimonials, which they often do. This helps their image grow broadly and deeply, laying down roots in the Boomer Buying Center over time.

All this brand building helps them leverage their ad dollars, too, because with each passing year, they’re strengthening facets of their existing PQ rather than spending incremental dollars on an expensive facelift or complete makeover.

Like people with strong personalities, companies with the highest PQs know who they are and what they’re about, so they stand behind their products and services with iron-clad, no-risk, money-back policies. They make a commitment to customer satisfaction and back it with a “no-questions asked” guarantee, because they know that’s how you build trust.

Companies with high PQs also manage to do a better job of image building because they refuse to waste time or money on marketing communications that don’t work. Rather than drowning the market with saturation messaging, they try to consistently reach out to their best prospects with pinpoint communications that go right to the heart of each Boomer’s self-interest.

So, if you want to increase your Personality Quotient with Boomers, build a friendly, believable image—one that will carve out a unique niche in Boomers’ minds. Start today, and in time you’ll find that a high PQ will increase your share of mind, and share of market will follow.