ABSTRACT
This qualitative research examines the application of brand personality concept in the context of country branding. From a marketing perspective, brand personality reflects the ideas of employing human personality traits associated with a brand. This concept has been extensively used to market typical brands and products. Country personality, therefore, further extend this concept by describing a country based on brand personality traits. France is selected as a focal country due to its important role in the global area. As research in country personality is relatively scant, thus, in order to fill in this gap, the present study opts for a qualitative research to gain insights in this topic as well as encouraging the possibility that new country personality dimensions and/or traits will emerge. Data collected from twelve Thai consumers reveal eight dimensions of country personality of France: sophistication (e.g., fashionable, luxurious), identity (cultured, patriotic), activeness (e.g., enthusiastic, hurry), freedom (i.e., free, democratic), strictness (e.g., punctual, orderly), friendliness (friendly, easygoing), attractiveness (e.g., attractive, well-known), and macro- environment (well-infrastructure, environmentally-concerned). The study results provide a number of research implications regarding country branding, country personality, and management of France image.
KEYWORDS
brand personality, country personality, France