What does a brands personality really tell the world?

A brand’s personality and what it has to say to the world is a powerful thing. What you buy can say a lot about you, and unfortunately, because we live in a world so full of judgment, people could be assuming things about you, merely by watching what you buy even if you are not taking the brands and what they stand for into consideration. When I started writing this blog, I wanted to say that when I buy food, I look at price and quality when it comes to making my decision, but when I’m buying anything else, clothes for the main part, I take into consideration a lot of what the brand is saying about me when I’m deciding whether I should make my purchase or not. But now it got me thinking, even though I’m buying my food for the price and quality of it, what’s more powerful then what a brand can say about your personality is that people could be drawing conclusions about me just based on what I buy.

If someone were to watch me go grocery shopping they could learn a lot about me, without even looking at the brands I’m buying. I buy meat, so they know I’m not a vegetarian. I buy milk, so they would know I’m not a vegan either. I buy eggs, so if I was being watched by PETA, at this point they would think I’m the biggest animal hater alive. I buy the normal vegetables, not organic, which could mean that I don’t care about the harmful effects the chemicals on the regular veggies could have on my body, nor do I care about things like mass production from giant land eating, earth poisoning, chemical spraying farm factories who are putting all the small local farmers out of business. I buy chocolate, which could mean I’m unhealthy and I have no self-control. I also buy the occasional trashy magazine, which could mean I’m way too caught up in the superficial unimportant things in life. This can all be assumed about me, without even looking at the brands I buy, but the good news is: I’m none of those things! Well, almost.

So what I’ve realized is this: when I’m buying a pair a sneakers, in my mind I’m thinking I want a running shoe that has a lot of support closer to the front of my foot, opposed the back, and I want them built wider, because my feet are not narrow. When I opt for the Nike runner, I’m happy with my decision, I like the feel, the look and I like what Nike says, which is that anyone can do it, you can do it. But an onlooker could be thinking that I’m way to interested in brand names, I pay way too much for a shoe and I clearly don’t care about the children in the sweatshops. So my question is, does it really matter what a brand personality is saying after all? You think one thing, when someone else could be thinking something completely different. But, I guess as far as Nike is concerned, it has already done its job when it made me feel like “I can do anything” in their shoe and bought it. They don’t care what the other person thinks, they care about what you think, which I like.