Brand Character

The most underrated tool in marketing: Brand Character

After working for eight years across various industries with companies of all sizes, we realized that almost none of them truly knew their Brand Character. But then… what exactly is a Brand Character?

What if we told you there was a marketing tool that is relatively simple in itself, yet capable of helping your brand stand out like never before? No, this is not a 200-page strategy deck, nor an AI automation tool to implement. We are talking about Brand Character.

Imagine your brand as a person. What would it say? What would its sense of humor be like? What would it tolerate, and what would it refuse? What would it stand for?

Brand Character is how your brand behaves in real life.

Yes, this exercise can quickly feel abstract or uncomfortable for someone who is not familiar with marketing tools. But stay with us, because it is worth it. It can be a true turning point, allowing your brand to move to the next level.

Brand Personality vs. Brand Character

When we talk about branding, the goal is to humanize a brand as much as possible. Rather than turning it into a simple logo, the objective is to give it attributes that resemble what attracts us to other human beings. Generally, we talk about two main concepts: your brand’s personality and its character. These two tools are closely related, yet slightly different.

Your brand personality is what your brand is on paper. It is a descriptive framework that brings together several elements:

– its adjectives (for example, our brand DARE aims to be bold, inspiring, human, and demanding)
– its values
– its archetypes
– its overall tone of voice

How do you define your brand personality? Simply by answering this question: “How would we like our brand to be perceived?”

These reflections are extremely valuable, but they remain static. Your Brand Personality will not help you decide on your next marketing actions.

Your Brand Character, on the other hand, is how your brand behaves in real life. It defines:

– what your brand says
– what your brand will never say
– what it dares to do
– what it refuses to do
– its sense of humor
– the way it speaks

It is a powerful decision-making tool that allows your brand to come alive and ensures that your audience understands it in the right way.

In short, your brand personality is an intention.
Your brand character is a behavior.

Why work on your Brand Character?

We are entering the era of saturation. Every space is crowded: advertising, organic social media content, SEO, blog articles. Every communication tool is being used, and overused, by countless companies.

So should we give up? Quite the opposite. Saturation has something almost magical about it. The louder the noise becomes, the more it starts to blend into… a single sound. A background noise made up of countless individual noises. And it is precisely at that moment that it becomes possible to create a different noise, one that stands out entirely from the rest.

👉 That is where Brand Character comes in.

Over eight years, we have facilitated more than 300 brainstorming workshops with startups, scale-ups, public institutions, SMEs, and multinationals. A rather amusing observation: 80% of them described themselves as “human” when reflecting on their brand personality.

But there is a huge difference between considering yourself a human brand, writing it on a cafeteria whiteboard, displaying it on social media… and actually embodying it through consistent behavior. Some brands consider themselves human. Others are felt as human.

Brand Character makes your brand exist. While brand personality describes, brand character acts.

Liquid Death: a masterclass in Brand Character

What if we told you that the best example we could share was… a water brand? Yes, you read that correctly. A water brand.

No, we are not talking about Evian, Vittel, or Henniez, but Liquid Death, a canned water brand valued at over 1.4 billion in 2024 (the brand now also sells soda and energy drinks).

What makes this brand unique? It has focused heavily on its Brand Character. From the very beginning, it aimed to break the codes of a boring and… uncreative market. And so it prioritized its Brand Character.

Liquid Death positions itself as a rebellious, provocative brand with an unapologetic dark sense of humor.

The brand adopts an anti-corporate, countercultural stance, borrowing codes from heavy metal and punk (skulls, tall cans, the slogan “Murder Your Thirst”) to turn the simple act of drinking water into a statement.

Its strategy is not “how do we sell more cans?” but rather… “how do we make our brand character shine?”

As a result, the brand launches campaigns that provoke reactions, spark conversation, and… rack up millions of views. Here are two examples:

1. Liquid Death responded to a hateful comment posted under one of its YouTube videos with a response that was completely offbeat. To watch the video, click here.

2. The brand launched a campaign with heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne, offering empty Liquid Death cans that had been drunk by the star himself. A bold communication move that once again powerfully reinforces its Brand Character. Click here to watch the video.

How to create your Brand Character

So… how do you create your brand’s Brand Character? Here are a few questions you should start by answering:

– How does your brand behave under pressure?
– Is it calm, or deliberately uncomfortable?
– How does it speak when it is honest, not when it is trying to seduce?
– What type of humor is acceptable? Which is forbidden?
– What sentences will your brand never say, even if they “work”?
– What cause or fight is non-negotiable for your brand?
– What behavior would instantly make people say, “that’s them”?
– Can your brand be recognized without a logo, without colors, without a visual signature?
– And the ultimate question… does your brand have the courage to be itself, even when it is uncomfortable?

Your brand is not limited to a piece of paper. It must live, sweat, evoke emotion, and… embody something. By defining its character, you will be able to lift it out of the background noise and make it truly unique.

So gather your creative teams and start working on your brand’s Brand Character.
If this topic resonates with you and you would like us to explore it in more depth, let us know in the comments.

DARE is a branding and consulting agency based in Switzerland, in Forel (Lavaux). Since 2018, we have been supporting brands in their launch or refresh through an approach rooted in entrepreneurship, collective intelligence, and real-world feedback.

At DARE, every project truly matters. That is why we only take on one project per month. More information www.madebydare.com.


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