Brand Personality and Positioning: A Look at Elemis

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A brand’s personality is a set of human traits or characteristics that are attributed to a brand name. The brand personality allows the customer to relate to the brand and allows the brand to establish positive brand equity due to the brand’s consistent and relatable set of characteristics that their target group can enjoy. The brand personality assists in shaping the way consumers feel about the products and services offered. It evokes an emotional response in its target segment and entices actions that positively benefit the brand. Customers feel they can trust a brand and are more likely to become brand loyal if the brand has a personality behind it.

Elemis the Sophisticated Brand

There are five main types of brand personalities; however, this post will focus on this skincare brand’s brand personality, Elemis.

“Elemis is the pioneering British spa and skincare brand, proud to work with over 1600 luxurious spas and salons, 155 lavish cruise ship spas, British Airways Elemis Travel Spas and over 130 retail stores around the globe.” Therefore, Elemis falls under the brand personality type, sophistication. A sophisticated brand is known for being luxury, refined, prestigious, lavish, and elegant; this usually results in pricey products or services. Elemis manufactures their line of skincare suited to nearly every skincare need and concern, and these products are used exclusively in their spas. As a luxury brand, Elemis‘ primary focus is on an upper class and glamorous lifestyle, which attracts a high-end and high spending consumer base. Sophisticated brands are typically not for the majority and cater to the 1% that are willing to spend more to project a sense of social status. These brands are often flashy, but then so are their customers.

What makes Elemis unique in their positioning is their philosophy, “Defined by nature, led by science.” This philosophy is what the brand’s story is built on. Elemis was one of the trendsetters in the clean beauty trend, with natural ingredients being the basis of their story since the 1990s. Using cutting edge technology, Elemis has made amazing discoveries in the field of marine and plant medicinal therapy and has patented some of their principal and most common ingredients such as Padina Pavonica and the scientific innovation in developing their Tri-Enzyme technology. This makes the company unique as only Elemis can use these groundbreaking scientific discoveries. 

Maintaining a strong brand personality is essential as it allows customers always to know the kind of service to expect from the brand. Therefore, they can assume the quality of the visuals they get, the type of persons associated with the brand, the quality of the products, packaging, and even the service. “The goal of creating a brand personality is creating an identity for your customers to interact with. It is about turning a company that can often come across as cold and impersonal into something that people can relate to.” Looking at Elemis, the brand focuses a lot on clean imagery to imply clean and natural products and sophistication through the use of a lot of white, sea blues, and natural greens. The brand uses a lot of real people for their content and not usually celebrities; however, it is designed to look fresh, crisp, clean, cultured, and expensive. This persona attracts customers who want to develop these qualities within themselves. Once the brand can convince their target that the product compliments their ideal lifestyle, the brand personality will resonate with them and many others and will further the company’s reach.