Brand Personality Appeal (Favorability) (BPAF)

Abstract

The Brand Personality Appeal (Favorability) (BPAF) scale is a specialized psychometric subscale designed to assess the evaluative valence and perceived desirability of a brand’s human-like characteristics. Developed and empirically validated by Freling, Crosno, and Henard (2011) within the broader Brand Personality Appeal (BPA) framework, this instrument isolates the affective-evaluative dimension of consumer-brand perceptions from purely descriptive trait categorizations. Comprising 7 items scored along a 7-point semantic differential scale, the BPAF captures consumer judgments across bipolar semantic pairs such as Unsatisfactory–Satisfactory, Unpleasant–Pleasant, Unattractive–Attractive, Negative–Positive, Bad–Good, Poor–Excellent, and Undesirable–Desirable.

Extensive psychometric investigations demonstrate that the BPAF possesses robust psychometric properties, consistently exhibiting internal consistency coefficients well above conventional thresholds (Cronbach’s $\alpha > .92$; Composite Reliability $CR > .90$) and high average variance extracted ($AVE > .70$). Confirmatory factor analyses confirm its unidimensional structure within the multidimensional BPA construct (alongside Clarity and Originality), demonstrating strong discriminant validity from generalized brand attitudes, brand awareness, and specific descriptive trait inventories (such as Aaker’s Brand Personality Dimensions). The BPAF has broad utility in consumer psychology, brand management, neuromarketing, and behavioral economics, providing an empirical apparatus for diagnosing consumer-perceived brand valence, tracking the impact of repositioning campaigns, and modeling downstream variables such as brand attachment, consumer advocacy, and purchase intent.

Keywords

Brand Personality Appeal, Brand Personality Favorability, BPAF, Psychometrics, Consumer Psychology, Evaluative Valence, Semantic Differential, Brand Equity, Brand Attitude, Structural Equation Modeling, Marketing Measurement

Authors

The Brand Personality Appeal framework and its constituent Favorability subscale were conceptualized, operationalized, and psychometrically validated by:

• Traci H. Freling, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Marketing, College of Business, The University of Texas at Arlington. Her research focuses on consumer decision-making, brand management, behavioral pricing, and quantitative methodology.
• Jody L. Crosno, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, College of Business, West Virginia University. Her expertise spans inter-organizational relationships, marketing channels, brand strategy, and psychometric measurement.
• David H. Henard, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing and Innovation, Poole College of Management, North Carolina State University. His scholarly portfolio emphasizes new product development, innovation management, organizational behavior, and brand equity.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Brand Personality Appeal (Favorability) subscale is to provide an empirically rigorous, standardized instrument to quantify how positively, pleasantly, and favorably consumers evaluate the projected personality of a given brand. In modern consumer behavior and marketing literature, substantial emphasis has historically been placed on classifying the descriptive traits of brands—such as determining whether a brand is viewed as “sincere,” “exciting,” “competent,” “sophisticated,” or “rugged” (Aaker, 1997). However, descriptive taxonomies inherently fail to measure whether consumers actually like or favor those traits in that specific context. For instance, a brand may project an undeniably competent or rugged persona, yet that persona may elicit indifference, skepticism, or negative valence from a target segment.

Freling, Crosno, and Henard (2011) resolved this operational limitation by delineating Brand Personality Appeal (BPA) into three distinct psychological dimensions: Favorability, Clarity, and Originality. The Favorability subscale (BPAF) specifically operates as the affective-evaluative cornerstone of this triad. It does not ask what a brand’s personality is, but rather how favorably that personality is perceived and internalized.

In applied and academic research contexts, the BPAF serves several critical functions:

• Diagnostic Valuation: Disentangling affective reactions to a brand’s personality from descriptive trait attribution, enabling researchers to diagnose why brands with similar trait profiles yield disparate consumer loyalty outcomes.
• Repositioning and Communications Evaluation: Measuring shifts in evaluative appeal following marketing communications, corporate rebranding, celebrity endorsement changes, or organizational crises.
• Predictive Modeling of Consumer Behavior: Providing a predictive predictor variable within structural equation models examining consumer-brand relationships, willingness to pay a price premium, brand advocacy, and repurchase intentions.
• Comparative Benchmarking: Supplying a valence-anchored baseline that can be administered across diverse product categories, service sectors, and international markets without requiring idiosyncratic trait adaptations.

Psychological Construct

The theoretical construct underlying the Brand Personality Appeal (Favorability) subscale is rooted in social psychology and attitude theory, particularly the distinction between cognitive/descriptive representations and affective/evaluative responses. When consumers encounter a brand, they engage in spontaneous anthropomorphism, ascribing human personality traits to the commercial entity (Fournier, 1998; Epley et al., 2007). However, the psychological process does not terminate at trait identification. Once a personality schema is activated, an evaluative appraisal mechanism automatically determines its hedonic and utilitarian desirability.

Brand Personality Favorability is defined as the extent to which the personality projected by a brand is viewed positively, liked, and perceived as desirable by consumers (Freling et al., 2011). It reflects a valenced affective-cognitive judgment. Within the broader BPA construct:

• Clarity: The degree to which a brand’s personality is perceived as coherent, distinct, and readily recognizable.
• Originality: The degree to which a brand’s personality is perceived as novel, creative, and distinct from competitors.
• Favorability: The degree to which that personality is deemed intrinsically rewarding, positive, and appealing.

Psychologically, favorability captures the generalized utility and emotional reward that a consumer anticipates when interacting with or being associated with the brand’s persona. The seven bipolar semantic items capture multiple facets of this evaluative domain:

• Unsatisfactory – Satisfactory: Assesses the functional and fulfillment-oriented adequacy of the brand’s persona.
• Unpleasant – Pleasant: Taps into the visceral, affective pleasure or hedonic resonance generated by the brand’s human-like persona.
• Unattractive – Attractive: Measures social-aesthetic drawing power and interpersonal attraction dynamics applied to consumer goods.
• Negative – Positive: Represents the core psychological valence, reflecting the overall direction of the appraisal.
• Bad – Good: Engages fundamental moral, ethical, and qualitative evaluative categorization.
• Poor – Excellent: Evaluates the perceived standard of quality and aspirational execution of the brand identity.
• Undesirable – Desirable: Measures personal and social motivational orientation, indicating an approach rather than avoidance disposition.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual architecture of the Brand Personality Appeal (Favorability) instrument draws upon several seminal theoretical paradigms in psychological and consumer research:

1. Associative Network Memory Model

According to John R. Anderson’s Associative Network Memory Model and its adaptation to consumer memory by Keller (1993), brand knowledge consists of a central brand node connected to an array of informational nodes via associative links of varying strengths. Descriptive brand personality traits (e.g., “innovative,” “sophisticated”) represent discrete informational nodes. The BPAF measures the evaluative charge (positive or negative affective tags) attached to those collective associative pathways. When the brand node is stimulated, the aggregated activation of these personality-associated nodes releases an evaluative affective reaction, encapsulated by the BPAF items.

2. The Tripartite Model of Attitudes and the Affective Heuristic

Attitude theory has long posited that attitudes are constituted by cognitive, affective, and conative components (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). Many existing brand personality instruments, such as Aaker’s (1997) framework, concentrate heavily on the cognitive, trait-ascriptive dimension. However, under the Affect Heuristic (Slovic et al., 2007), individuals consult an overall “affect pool” when rendering complex judgments. The BPAF systematically measures this affective-evaluative appraisal, providing a direct index of the affective tone generated by the brand’s anthropomorphic manifestations.

3. Self-Congruity and Social Identity Theory

According to Self-Congruity Theory (Sirgy, 1982) and Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), consumers purchase brands whose symbolic personalities mirror or enhance their actual or ideal self-concepts. Favorability serves as the psychological bridge between identity matching and behavioral commitment: a brand personality is evaluated as highly favorable when it facilitates self-enhancement, social validation, and positive self-presentation. The bipolar items of the BPAF (e.g., Attractive, Desirable) reflect the respondent’s assessment of whether identifying with this brand persona elevates personal and social utility.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the Brand Personality Appeal (Favorability) subscale has been established across multiple rigorous validation phases reported by Freling, Crosno, and Henard (2011), as well as numerous subsequent independent investigations.

Construct and Convergent Validity

During the scale purification and validation phases, the BPAF demonstrated exceptional convergent validity. In confirmatory factor analyses (CFA), standardized factor loadings for all seven items consistently exceeded .80 (ranging from .82 to .94, all $p < .001$), indicating that each semantic differential pair shares a high proportion of common variance with the latent construct. The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for the favorability construct consistently surpasses the recommended benchmark of .50, typically exceeding .70 across various product categories, confirming that variance captured by the construct is significantly greater than variance due to measurement error.

Discriminant Validity

A critical contribution of the BPAF is its empirical distinctiveness from related marketing constructs. Using the Fornell and Larcker (1981) criterion, the square root of the AVE for BPAF was shown to exceed the inter-construct correlations between BPAF and the other two BPA dimensions (Clarity and Originality), as well as general brand attitude ($A_b$), brand familiarity, and general brand equity. Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratios in contemporary structural equation modeling studies reliably remain below the strict .85 threshold, demonstrating that while BPAF is positively correlated with overall brand attitude, it specifically captures reactions to the personality layer of the brand rather than generic functional product satisfaction.

Predictive and Nomological Validity

Freling et al. (2011) demonstrated robust nomological validity through structural modeling where BPAF exerted strong, statistically significant direct and indirect effects on vital brand performance metrics:

• Brand Attitude ($A_b$): Path coefficients typically range between $\beta = .45$ and $\beta = .65$ ($p < .001$).
• Purchase Intentions: BPAF significantly predicts purchase intent both directly and indirectly via brand attitude.
• Brand Commitment and Loyalty: Favorable brand personality perceptions are positively related to long-term emotional attachment and brand defense behaviors.
• Price Premium Resilience: Consumers perceiving high brand personality appeal (favorability) consistently demonstrate greater willingness to pay premium prices, buffering the brand against competitor price discounting.

Reliability

The Brand Personality Appeal (Favorability) subscale demonstrates high empirical reliability across diverse operational contexts and demographic groups:

• Internal Consistency: In the initial development and validation studies across multiple consumer samples and brand categories, Cronbach’s alpha ($\alpha$) values for the 7-item BPAF subscale ranged from .93 to .97. Subsequent studies across consumer goods, luxury branding, and services consistently replicate these figures (rarely falling below $\alpha = .91$).
• Composite Reliability (CR): Structural equation modeling estimates report composite reliability coefficients routinely exceeding .92, confirming that the indicators are cohesive and free from substantial idiosyncratic noise.
• McDonald’s Omega ($\omega$): When evaluated using categorical or continuous omega estimators, the scale maintains estimates above .93, satisfying modern psychometric criteria that favor congeneric over strictly tau-equivalent assumptions.
• Test-Retest Stability: In longitudinal assessments with a two-to-four-week interval in the absence of exogenous marketing shocks or corporate crises, test-retest correlations have remained high ($r > .82$), indicating that BPAF measures a stable evaluative cognitive-affective disposition rather than transient situational mood states.

Factor Analysis

The factor structure of the BPAF has been validated through both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) across the developmental and confirmatory samples in Freling et al. (2011):

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During initial scale purification, an exploratory factor analysis utilizing principal axis factoring with promax (oblique) rotation was conducted on the complete item pool representing brand personality appeal. The 7 favorability items consistently loaded onto a single, dominant factor explaining over 70% of the item variance. Eigenvalues for this factor markedly exceeded the Kaiser criterion ($lambda > 1.0$, typically exceeding 4.8), with scree plots displaying an unambiguous elbow following the primary factor.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Subsequent validation samples subjected the BPAF to rigorous second-order and first-order CFA models within the three-factor BPA framework (Favorability, Clarity, Originality). The baseline three-factor measurement model revealed excellent goodness-of-fit indices across diverse product categories (e.g., athletic footwear, personal electronics, carbonated beverages):

• Model Fit Indices: Comparative Fit Index ($CFI$) = .96 – .98; Tucker-Lewis Index ($TLI$) = .95 – .97; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation ($RMSEA$) = .045 – .058; Standardized Root Mean Square Residual ($SRMR$) = .028 – .036; $\chi^2/df$ ratio consistently between 1.8 and 2.6.
• Standardized Factor Loadings: All standardized item loadings on the latent Favorability factor were significant at $p < .001$ with minimal error variance:
  • Unsatisfactory – Satisfactory: $lambda = .82 – .88$
  • Unpleasant – Pleasant: $lambda = .84 – .89$
  • Unattractive – Attractive: $lambda = .81 – .87$
  • Negative – Positive: $lambda = .88 – .94$
  • Bad – Good: $lambda = .87 – .93$
  • Poor – Excellent: $lambda = .83 – .89$
  • Undesirable – Desirable: $lambda = .86 – .92$

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The structural specifications, administration guidelines, and scoring criteria for the Brand Personality Appeal (Favorability) instrument are outlined below:

• Instrument Name: Brand Personality Appeal – Favorability Subscale (BPAF)
• Authors: Traci H. Freling, Jody L. Crosno, and David H. Henard (2011)
• Construct Measured: Consumer evaluative favorability and valence of a brand’s projected personality.
• Target Population: Consumers aged 18 and older capable of completing self-administered surveys. Applicable across business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) domains.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil questionnaire, web-based survey, or mobile evaluation interface.
• Estimated Administration Time: 1 to 2 minutes (when administered as an isolated 7-item subscale); 4 to 6 minutes (when administered within the comprehensive 16-item BPA battery).
• Number of Items: 7 items.
• Response Scale: 7-point semantic differential scale anchored by bipolar opposite adjectives (e.g., 1 = Unsatisfactory, 7 = Satisfactory).
• Scoring and Indexing:
  • Each item is scored from 1 (most negative pole) to 7 (most positive pole).
  • If the instrument is administered with alternating polarities to mitigate acquiescence bias, reverse-coded items must be recoded prior to computation so that the positive pole is assigned the value of 7.
  • An overall Brand Personality Favorability score is calculated by averaging (or summing) the 7 item scores. Average scores range from 1.00 to 7.00.
  • Higher scores represent greater perceived brand personality favorability and positive affective valence.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Brand Personality Appeal framework and its Favorability subscale were published in 2011 in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (Volume 39, Issue 3). The scale items are published within the academic literature and are generally accessible for non-commercial, academic, and educational research purposes under standard academic fair-use conventions, provided proper attribution and bibliographic citation are given to the original authors (Freling et al., 2011).

For large-scale commercial usage, proprietary benchmarking databases, or inclusion within revenue-generating assessment software, practitioners and organizations should consult the copyright policies of Springer Nature (the publisher of the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science) and/or contact the authors directly to obtain formal commercial licensing clearances.

References

• Aaker, J. L. (1997). Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research, 34(3), 347–356. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224379703400304
• Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.
• Epley, N., Waytz, A., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2007). On seeing human: A three-factor theory of anthropomorphism. Psychological Review, 114(4), 864–886. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.114.4.864
• Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
• Fournier, S. (1998). Consumers and their brands: Developing relationship theory in consumer research. Journal of Consumer Research, 24(4), 343–373. https://doi.org/10.1086/209515
• Freling, T. H., Crosno, J. L., & Henard, D. H. (2011). Brand personality appeal: Conceptualization and empirical validation. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 39(3), 392–406. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-010-0207-3
• Keller, K. L. (1993). Conceptualizing, measuring, and managing customer-based brand equity. Journal of Marketing, 57(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299305700101
• Sirgy, M. J. (1982). Self-concept in consumer behavior: A critical review. Journal of Consumer Research, 9(3), 287–300. https://doi.org/10.1086/208924
• Slovic, P., Finucane, M. L., Peters, E., & MacGregor, D. G. (2007). The affect heuristic. European Journal of Operational Research, 177(3), 1333–1352. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2005.04.006
• Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel & W. G. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7–24). Nelson-Hall.

Items of the Scale