After reading Connor’s blog about the association between Guinness as a product and what it represents to the consumer, I started to think about how a consumer’s interpretation of a product could allow brand managers to morph the product’s brand around consumer opinions. Based on the advertisement Connor linked and his write-up, I started thinking about how a brand could be personified through successful marketing. In this Guinness advertisement, resilience, resolution, and friendship shone through, and thus consumers will associate these qualities with Guinness and its product. Characteristics that are appealing to consumers, as well as characteristics they will want to associate themselves with, have the potential to increase consumer interest and knowledge in the product, making it more attractive to markets.

My reply to Connor’s post is an example of another brand that has successfully personified their brand: Air New Zealand has created a series of safety videos that feature “special guests” ranging from Hobbits, to Betty White, to the New Zealand All Blacks Rugby Team and Gene Simmons. These advertisements have allowed Air New Zealand to take on multiple “personalities,” allowing it to make its brand more appealing to a variety of consumer segmentations: rugby fans, work out gurus, and the J.R.R. Tolkien cult, for example. Air New Zealand can associate itself with traits linked to those brands, boosting its brand reputation and building expectations for the service. This fun advertising campaign makes Air New Zealand more recognizable as a brand, and generates interest in consumers as they imagine themselves as being “fit to fly.”

Air New Zealand is “crazy about rugby,” as is demonstrated in their safety video featuring the All Blacks Rugby Team.