Defining questions of a transparent brand

Does your brand have personality? Brand personality can come from the sassiness of your ad copy or the voice-over style of your radio ads or even from the founder of your company— like Suze Orman, who has become her own brand of financial awareness.

Politically correct does not equal a brand personality. There seems to be a myth that the best way to draw more women into a brand is to make it more universal, but this often results in a more bland, tasteless personality. Instead, the marketplace is rewarding brands with more fully developed (even spicy) personalities. You really see this with Gen Yers who have turned up their noses at many of the industry giants (think of how Levi's has been scrambling these past years) to pursue smaller brands with quirks, sass and attitude. If you want to reach more women, introduce their favorite flavors instead of turning everything to vanilla.

It is also important to note that a brand doesn't necessarily need to have a feminine personality to appeal to women. Some brands are attractive to women because of their more masculine personality. We can think of specific tools, movies, tire stores and liquor brands that have a huge appeal to women which would diminish if they were more feminized. That doesn't mean that those brands shouldn't target women in their media buying and in customizing their service according to her high standards. But they certainly don't need to inject any estrogen into their brand personality to be more appealing to their women customers.

What is your brand's language? The language your brand uses is both an element of brand personality, as discussed above, and also a stand-alone concern. Whether your brand seems to present a more masculine or more a feminine "feel"; whether its design standards employ soft colors and short paragraphs or dark colors and dense text; to whether the copy takes a formal tone or expresses a lot of humor— there will be many elements and nuances to the marketing dialect you've built over time. All these things need to be integrated to reflect a language that can be heard and understood by your women's market.

Does your brand's language include the voice of a company founder, an industry expert or a key customer? For example, Suze Orman delivers her financial advice in a voice that always seems to come directly from her. In a less obvious example, the sports network ESPN has worked to develop multiple personalities that give voice to their wide range of content. Some companies use animated and drawn characters to lend personality to their brands, such as "Snap, Crackle and Pop," who bring Kellogg's Rice Krispies cereal alive.