The document provides a case study report on Emirates Airlines' brand identity, image, and personality. It begins with an introduction and background on the company. The literature review then examines key concepts of brand identity from Aaker, Kapferer, and De Chernatony. Their models identify important elements like vision, culture, personality, and symbols. The report will analyze how Emirates uses campaigns, imagery, and sponsorship to develop its identity as a global, innovative, and inspiring lifestyle brand.

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EMIRATES AIRLINE
CASE STUDY REPORT
Controlling and Harmonizing Brand Identity, Image, and Personality
Hoang Thi Thanh Thuy
London, 12th
July 2016

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Contact:
Hoang, Thi Thanh Thuy
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thanhthuyhp
http://facebook.com/thanhthuyhp
Table of Contents
1.
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................... 3
2.
COMPANY BACKGROUND.................................................................................................... 3
3.
BRAND IDENTITY .................................................................................................................... 5
4.
BRAND IMAGE........................................................................................................................ 18
5.
BRAND PERSONALITY ......................................................................................................... 21
6.
CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................... 23
Table of Figures
Figure 1: Emirates Ever-Expanding route network, 2016 ..................................................................... 4
Figure 2: Aaker (1996) Brand Identity System ...................................................................................... 6
Figure 3: Kapferer Brand Identity Prism................................................................................................ 8
Figure 4: De Chernatony Brand Identity Model, 1999........................................................................ 10
Figure 5: Hello Tomorrow Campaign ................................................................................................. 12
Figure 6: "Be There" Challenge Campaign.......................................................................................... 13
Figure 7: Emirates serve wine
Figure 8: Emirates Lounges.......................................................... 14
Figure 9: In-flight entertainment......................................................................................................... 14
Figure 10: Emirates' crews ................................................................................................................... 16
Figure 11: Emirates' User Imagery....................................................................................................... 16
Figure 12: Emirates' Logo
Figure 13: United Arab Emirates Flag.............................................. 17
Figure 16: The Kapferer's sender-receiver model, 2008....................................................................... 18
Figure 17: Hello Tomorrow and “Be There” Campaign...................................................................... 19
Figure 18: Emirates Sponsorship ......................................................................................................... 20
Figure 19: Aaker's Brand Personality Framework, 1997...................................................................... 21
Figure 20: Jennifer Aniston TVC ........................................................................................................ 22

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1. INTRODUCTION
This report aims to analyze the Emirates Airlines brand in the context of Brand Identity,
Brand Image and Brand Personality.
The purpose of this report is to gain deeper understandings about how Emirates is operating
to achieve the recently success. After reviewing many different theories and concepts,
Emirates Airlines case study will be analyzed based on the most appropriated concepts.
This report will be presented as following structure: Firstly, it will show some information
about company background to gain more knowledge about the current situation of Emirates
Airlines. Then this report reviews the different concepts of the Brand Identity, Brand Image
and Brand Personality. After literature review of each part, the Emirates Case Study will be
analyzed based on it. Finally, the conclusion part concludes all key points and mentions the
limitations of this report.
2. COMPANY BACKGROUND
Emirates is a part of Emirates Group, was established on 25th
October 1985 in Dubai, United
Arab Emirates (Emirates Story) – the world’s air travel hub (The Telegraph).
Started with just two aircraft: a leased Boeing 737 & an Airbus 300 B4, Emirates now is a
global airline. According to the Brand Finance Global 500 report for 2016, Emirates now is
the most valuable airline brand in the world, worth $7.7 billion. Emirates is remaining their
position by being relevant, innovative and inspiring.
As mentioned in Emirates Annual Report 2016, nowadays, Emirates main activity is
providing the commercial air transportation services. It is operating the world’s biggest of
wide-bodied jets, flying the largest fleets of Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 Aircraft. Emirates is
serving 148 cities in 81 countries on 6 continents around the world from its hub in Dubai. It is
playing important role in connecting people to places and businesses with opportunities.

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Figure 1: Emirates Ever-Expanding route network, 2016
Source: Ice Media Kit (Spafax, 2016)
Emirates has grown in the last 30 years to become the world’s largest international airline as
the present day. Recently, Emirates has many important announcements about their future as
its already state-of-the-art fleet. In 2016, Emirates expanded their fleet to 251 aircrafts
(Emirates Annual Report 2016)
The vision of Emirates is becoming the global brand. Emirates is serving the global audiences.
As the statistics from Emirates Annual Report 2016, in the period of 2015 – 2016, Emirates
carried 51.9 million passengers from Dubai. It means the average number of passengers per
day is 142,000 people.
2016 marks the profit record of Emirates in 30 years of operations, they reaches $1.9 billion in
profit. Emirates also is one of the most active airline brands in social media, with the total of
more than 8.6 million following on different social media channels: Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+
Emirates aims becoming the world’s leading lifestyle brand. They are investing to build strong
brand image, and express their identity and personality in everything they do, includes:

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products, services, staff, marketing, sponsorship, etc.
3. BRAND IDENTITY
Literature Review
The concept of brand identity is recognized recently, started in Europe (Kapferer, 1986).
Then, it was developed by different concepts from many authors: O'Shaughnessy John (1988),
Aaker (1991), Keller (1993), Kapferer (1997), De Chernatony (1999), Aaker (2010), etc.
While Aaker (1991) has defined the brand identity is the total of brand meanings, which
expressed through out product, organization, symbol and person; Kapferer (1997) stated that
brand identity is what makes organization be unique and differentiate to others. Similar to
Kapferer (1997), Janonis et al. (2007) also pointed out that brand identity is the thing that
make the meaning for brand and make it be unique.
According to Perera et al. (2009), the truly brand identity is the something, which is clearly
and objectively, value and vision of a brand. He has stated that brand identity is the vital tool
of internal and external communication. Aaker (1991) also claimed that identity is one
element of brand, and can be different over time. His theory pointed out that brand identity is
used to confirm brand’s promises and aimed to gain the attention from customers. Similar to
Aaker (1991), Upshaw (1995) also stated that brand identity helps to captures the customer’s
mind space. The strong brand identity is the competitive advantage of brand, and also
persuasive reasons, that encourage customer to buy. Collins and Porras (1994) also added that
brand identity plays an important role in helping organization to adapt to the changes of
marketing overtime. Moreover, according to De Chernatony and Harris (2001), brand
identity enables brand to position them in the market and encourage strategic approach while
managing it.
There are many author has researched and made a particular theories and model about brand
identity. However, in the limited scope, this study will focus on three main brand’s identity
models, from Aaker (1996), Kapferer (1997), and Chenatory (1999):

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Firstly, the Aaker (1996) brand identity system suggests four dimensions under which an
identity is typically developed for brand: Brand as Product, Brand as Organization, Brand as
Person, and Brand as Symbol. These four dimensions should be considered when developing
band identity to make sure the brand identity has both textual and depth.
Figure 2: Aaker (1996) Brand Identity System
Brand as product is about the product, which related attributes to brand. This dimension deals
with tangible and intangible aspects of products: scope, attributes, quality and customer as
well.
Brand as product is associated with product class. One part of the core of any brand identity is
with what product the brand is associated. For example, Coca-cola is associated with soft
drink (Aaker, 1996). According to Aaker (1996), the purpose of linking the product to the
brand is to have customer respond to the brand when the product is mentioned, rather than
make the customers associate with the product when mentioning about brand.
The product-related attributes provide the functional and emotional benefits to increase
the value for customers by offering the over expected services.
Quality/Value also is a part of Product related attributes. This perspective deals with
the perceived perspective of the brand. It is used as core identity of many brands.

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Associations with use occasion/ users perspective developed by defining the users.
According to Aaker (1996), the brand identity can be implied by the strong user
position.
Link to a country or region: As Aaker (1996) stated, the reason to associate a brand with
the particular country or region is to imply that brand will offer the quality products or
services.
The brand as organization dimension focuses on the attributes of organization rather than of
products. According to Aaker (1996), the organization attributes are created by people,
culture, values and programs of particular organization.
The third perspective is the brand as person. According to Aaker (1996), this perspective
refers that the brand is more interesting than based on only product. Moorthi (2002) also
mentioned this perspective as brand personality. It exposes what happens to organization
when it is given human qualities. It includes the brand personality traits, age, gender, and
social class as well. As Aaker (1996) argued, this perspective focuses on creating the self-
expressive benefits as the vehicle to customers shows their personalities, then make the brand
become stronger.
The last perspective in Aaker (1996)’s model is The brand as symbol. Eadie and MacKintosh
(1998) also agreed with Aaker (1996) and stated that, the buying decision of customers is not
only based on the product’s use or function alone, it’s also depend more on emotional needs,
which is related to the symbolic using of brand. According to Aaker (1996), the symbol is
providing the cohesion and structure of brand identity. It helps to gain more the attention,
recognition and recall from customers. Similar to Aaker (1996), Upshaw (1995: 22) also stated
that: “names and logos are part of the mortar that bonds together the bricks of a brand’s
identity”, as it the most frequently seen by customers, it has effected on how a brand is viewed
by customers. Furthermore, Kohli and Thakor (1997) also agreed that the development brand
name is one of the most important part of creating brand’s identity process, as it is the basis of
brand’s image. Aaker (1996) divided symbols into three different types: visual imagery,
metaphors and the brand heritage.

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The visual imagery make brand identity is more memorable and powerful. It connects with
the brand identity over time and helps to reminded brand easier while metaphors provide the
meaning of brand by functional or emotional benefits. The brand heritage shows the essence
of brand.
Comparing to Aaker (1996) brand identity model, Kapferer (1997) considered brand identity
as transferring from corporate identity to brand identity.
Figure 3: Kapferer Brand Identity Prism
In his brand identity prism, Kapferer (1997) indicated six elements of brand identity:
Physique, Personality, Culture, Self-image, Reflection, and Relationship. Moreover, these
six elements are grouped into two main dimensions: the picture of recipient vs. picture of sender
and externalization vs. internalization.
Based on these elements, Kapferer (1997) view of brand identity is using basis differences of
brand to differentiate it with others.
Physique: This includes the brand’s physical features; that appear in customer’s mind
when the brand name is called. Kapferer pointed out that this aspect is considered as
the basic of brand.
Personality: It is the brand’s characteristics. It is similar to the brand as person
perspective of Aaker (1996).

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Culture: This element is the most noticeable elements of Kapferer’s model. While
Aaker (1996) model did not mention about culture, Kapferer (1997) claimed that
culture is the direct link between organization and brand. However, comparing to
Aaker (1996) model, the Culture element from Kapferer (1997) can also be shown as
similar to aspect of linking it to country of origin.
Self-image: refers how the target group see themselves when using brands. Porsche car
is the significant example for self-image element. The driver of Porsche car could
think that others think they are rich because they own it.
Reflection: shows how customers consider the brand.
Relationship: reflects how the brand symbolized the particular relationship between
people. This element requires the brand have to express their relationship stands for.
The strong of relationship also is effected on the personalities (Robins, 2000).
Unlike to Aaker (1996) and Kapferer (1998), the model of Chenartony (1999) focus more on
brand identity within organization rather than the organization’ image. He also pointed out
that the stronger brand is result from the consistent brand identity. While the reputation of
brand tends to be assessed by external elements rather than image, therefore, the organization
should fill the gap between brand identity and brand reputation to develop the stronger brand
(Harris and de Chernatony, 2001).
Furthermore, Chenortony (1999) has argued to maintain the brand identity within
organization and added more different brand identity elements, supported for Aaker (1996)
model:

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Figure 4: De Chernatony Brand Identity Model, 1999
Chernatony stated that the branding literature has shifted from the importance of image
(Boulding, 1956), through the customer’s perception about brand differences, then to identity
(Karferer, 1997). Developing from the literature of Hatch and Schulz (1997); Wilson (1997);
about corporate identity, Chernatony (1999) pointed out that the corporate’s value is one of the
most important elements of brand identity, as it influences the brand’s value. Similar to
Chernatony (1999), Upshaw (1995) also argued that corporate should emphasize more on
identity, rather than the image.
According to Chernatony (1999), the brand’s vision and brand’s culture seem to be the most
important elements, as he put it into the center of model.
Brand vision: Chernatony (1999) stated that the success organization should have clear
vision first to have clear direction. Brand’s vision should define how organization will
be going improve in the future.

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Brand culture: It helps to develop and improve the brand’s vision. The brand culture
can be the value, which employees and people of organization remain within the
organization for the long term.
Brand position: The position should be suitable to the brand’s vision and brand’s value.
This element is missing in two previous literatures from Aaker (1996) and Kapferer
(1997). This model of Chernatony (1999) has filled the gap from those models by
adding brand position element.
Brand Personality: Similar with both Aaker (1996) and Kapferer (1997), Chernatony
also mentioned Brand Personality as one of the elements for brand identity. This
element linked with the brand’s core value, as the value effects on the personalities of
brand. It helps to improve the brand recognition.
Brand’s Relationship: Unlike Aaker (1996) model, both Kapferer (1997) and
Chernatony (1999) also mentioned Brand’s Relationship. As it is shown in the model,
the brand’s relationship is defined by the brand’s personality and brand’s positioning.
The stronger relationship between brand and customers help each party understand
each other better (Chernatony, 1999)
Brand’s Presentation Reflecting: This element is the final step in Chernatony’s model. It
helps to develop the unified identity. Self-image and Aspiration has added into this
element as the influences for the stakeholder’s brand’s image. It is quite different with
Kapferer (1997) model, in which it is stand independently.
The above model of Chernatony (1999) is the process of managing brand, conceptualized the
brand identity. Although there are some similar elements in both three models of Aaker
(1996), Kapferer (1997) and Chernatony (1999), the literature from Chernatony has shown
clear the relationship between each elements of brand identity. This model also provides some
missing model from others. However, it seem to be that Aaker (1996)’s model is the basis,
foundation to other literature rely on. To have deeper analysis of Emirates case study, this
study will look at the development of brand identity strategy, which combines the most
important elements from each model as following:

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Elements of Brand Identity Developed from author
Brand Vision Kapferer (1997), Chernatony (1999)
The brand as
product
Associations with product class Aaker (1996)
Product-related Attributes
Quality
User
Link to country
The brand as organization Aaker (1996)
The brand as person (Personality) Aaker (1996), Kapferer (1997),
Chernatony (1999)
The brand as symbol | Brand name Aaker (1996), Chernatony (1999)
Brand Culture Kapferer (1997), Chernatony (1999)
Brand Positioning Kapferer (1997), Chernatony (1999)
Emirates Case Study Analysis
Brand vision
Emirate’s vision is to become one of the world’s leading lifestyle brands. This vision leads all
the activities of Emirates to support for the aim of “Lifestyle brand”. In 2015, the “Hello
Tomorrow” marks Emirates evolution to become lifestyle brands.
Figure 5: Hello Tomorrow Campaign

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This campaign also mentioned about the new words related to travel is “globalista”. It
supports this vision, as the globalistas is travellers who think travel is vital part of their
lifestyle.
Moreover, in 2016, Emirates continues launch a campaign “Be there” stories to show the
storytelling about globalistas’s lifestyle.
Figure 6: "Be There" Challenge Campaign
This vision of Emirates is also be supported by the following elements, leads it to be
consistent in emphasizing the identity: lifestyle brand.
Brand as product
As the “lifestyle brand”, Emirates is focusing on offering the more accessible products and
services to customers with more unforgettable experiences while maintaining the high quality.
Product class
Applying to Emirates, the product class of Emirates is high quality services. The “high
quality” identity helps Emirates to differentiate with competitors, stick in customer’s mind
when they think about Emirates.
The product-related attributes
In detail, Emirates is focusing much more on this perspective. Emirates always emphasizes
customer experience is the important things to their success. To enhance the “lifestyle”
identity, Emirates is focusing on increasing the customer’s experiences. Emirates is investing
in modern wide-bodied aircraft as the keystone of their strategy. Moreover, Emirates is

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offering dedicated Lounges and free Chauffeur-drive, with 37 dedicated Emirates Lounges
around the world, which can be combined to host 11,600 customers at one time.
Furthermore, Emirates has investing hundreds of millions of US dollar in last 10 years to
serve wine in all cabin classes, aim to provide the best experience for their customers.
Figure 7: Emirates serve wine Figure 8: Emirates Lounges
In addition, the in-flight service also is one of the key focuses of Emirates. In 2015, Emirates
invested $22 million to set up and operate the inflight connectivity systems across its fleet. As
the result, 70% Wi-Fi enabled in Emirates flights with more then 5.8 million passengers
connected to Wi-Fi in the period from 2015 to 2016. In addition, Emirates also is the leading
of Inflight Entertainment System by offering over 2500 channels of entertainment in 30
different languages. One of the best evident to show that is Emirates has rewarded the
Skytrax’s ‘World’s Best Airline Inflight Entertainment’ award in 2015. (Emirates Annual
Report 2016).
Figure 9: In-flight entertainment

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Quality
It is clear that Emirates is focusing on offering the best fly experiences as shown above to
support their core value: high quality service.
Associations with use occasion/ users
As the “lifestyle” brand, the user of Emirates is Globalistas, who always looking for new
experiences, and want to be the global citizens. Emirates’s customers are well travelled; they
think travel is about connectivity. It shown that “Emirates is not just offering a way to connect
people from point A to point B but is the catalyst to connect people’s hopes, dreams and
aspirations.” - Sir Maurice Flanagan, Vice Chairman of Emirates Airline & Group. This
group of user also shown the Emirates’ identities as: Young, Cool, and Lively.
Link to a country
This perspective is clearly shown in Emirates case study. Emirates is best known in United
Arab Emirates, the most luxury place in the world. Therefore, the “high quality”, “luxury” and
“lifestyle” identity of Emirates services is one of the best examples for brand associate with
country or origin of heritage.
The brand as organization
To be more specific, Emirates brand identity also has shown by their organization. Emirates
people are the foundation of their success. Emirates is proud of their talented, opened-mind
employees, who will delivery the best quality services to their customers. Emirates is investing
on crew training and developing different programs to harness the unique talent within
organization.

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Figure 10: Emirates' crews
Moreover, Emirates also improving their organization attributes by being partnership with
leading universities: Carnegie Mellon and Oxford Universities. In addition, Emirates also
contributes to a value proposition by associating Emirates brand with the value of customer-
focus. Emirates always emphasizes their best trying in focus on customer’s experiences
through different communication channels: Website, Social Media, Printed Media, etc.
In general, the organizational attributes are often shown on related to the product classes to be
hard to copy by competitors. For example, the Etihad brand also shown their strong
organizational attributes as brand identity, but it is still weaker than Emirates in connecting it
with product class context.
The brand as person
In Emirates case study, this attributes is shown clear in the user imagery of Emirates
advertisement. Through the customer’s image, these personalities has been defined:
sophisticated, pretention and glamorous.
Figure 11: Emirates' User Imagery

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The brand as symbol
For Emirates, it is the symbol and color in Emirates logo makes it has strong position in
customer’s mind. The brand name is written in calligraphic Arabic, shown the brand as
country attributes as well. The using of color with the two main colors: red and white, in
Emirate brand logo also make it reminded easier. Red reflects prosperity, self-confidence,
passion and leadership. The white color depicts nobility, elegance and purity. Moreover,
Emirates also using the color from United Arab Emirates flag to identify their brand
recognition.
Figure 12: Emirates' Logo Figure 13: United Arab Emirates Flag
Compare to other competitors: Qatar Airline and
Etihad Airline Brand, the using of symbol as brand
identity of Emirates and Qatar is more memorable
than Etihad. Both Emirates and Qatar are showing
the unique, and easy to recognize. It is shown
clearly by the following image:
Moreover, the symbol attribute also is shown by the Emirates’
crews – the most recognizable Emirates ambassadors.
The outfit of Emirates’ crews shows clear the brand identity as:
stylish, good looking and glamorous.
Figure 15: Emirates' Crew
Figure 14: Emirates, Qatar, Etihad

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Brand Positioning
Emirates is positioning themselves as the global lifestyle brand to differentiated with other
competitors. Their positioning strategy is being the innovative lifestyle brand. That strategy is
shown clear through out all activities and campaigns of Emirates as above explanations.
4. BRAND IMAGE
Brand image related to the perception of customer about brand, as it is the decoding process
of brand identity. Kapferer (2008) has developed the following communication model, which
not only shown the communication process, but also further shown the relationship between
brand identity and brand image.
Figure 16: The Kapferer's sender-receiver model, 2008
According to Kapferer (2008), Brand identity is what the organization sends out to their
customers while the brand image is the customer’s perception about brand. It is the total
impressions of how customers perceive a brand and differentiate it with other competitors.
Moreover, Keller (1993) defined the brand image is the customer’s perceptions about brand,
which is revealed by the relations with brands in customer’s memory. In addition, Aaker
(1991) literature supported Keller (1993) as the connection between customer and brand in
their mind will be stronger with associations. Similar to them, Kolter et al. (2003) also stated
that brand image is the set of beliefs of customers about the specific brand and true result of
brand identity (Janonis et al., 2007).

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In Emirates case study, as the explanation in the previous part, the brand identity that
Emirates want to delivery includes: lifestyle, global, young, cool, and high quality. However, it is
seem to have a gap between the expectation of Emirates and the customer’s perceived. The
Emirates brand image tend to be luxury more than what they have transferred.
In additional, according to Dobni & Zinkhan (1990), customers will not perceive the Brand
image as the same way as each of them will understand the message based on their life
experiences and their human traits. Kapfere (2008) also emphasized the important of being
carefully in building the brand image, as it is impossible to affect the image; that already
stayed in the customer’s mind. In that case, it is rarely chance to change the customer’s
perception about brands. In contrast, Faircloth et al. (2001) argued that it is completely a way
to affect on the brand image since the association between brand and customers can be
improved to influence that image.
To change the brand’ image about Emirates in customer’ mind, Emirates is trying to launch
campaigns and lead customers to their new image.
The recent two campaigns: “Hello Tomorrow” and “Be
There” are playing an important role in changing
Emirates from the luxury travel brand into the global
lifestyle brand. Focusing on globalistas target group,
Emirates has shown their identity as lifestyle, young,
lively, and cool. Moreover, the message and the image
they have used to promote those campaigns also
consistent to that brand’s image.
Figure 17: Hello Tomorrow and “Be There” Campaign

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In addition, Emirates also is focusing on sponsoring sport activities to enhance and improve
their brand image as: global, young, lively.
Figure 18: Emirates Sponsorship
According to the Emirates Annual Report 2016, Emirates is one of the most recognizable
brands in global sports. They has invested in many different sports events and clubs as:
football, cricket, tennis, golf, sailing, horseracing and F1 racing. Emirates is using sports
activities as the platform to access and engage with global audiences, who are young and
having sport passion; then build the close relationship with their customers.
Furthermore, Emirates is also using many celebrities as Jennifer Aniston, Pele, Ronaldo, etc.
as their ambassadors to shows their brand image. Although Pele, Ronaldo shown the image of
strongly, lively, the image of Hollywood star Jennifer Aniston seems to be not match with the
new brand’s image strategy of Emirates. However, that TV commercial gained over expected
result, as over 37 million views over the campaign time, and attracted much more media
attention and customer’s interest all over the world (Emirates Annual Report 2016)
For that reason, it is important to create the strong, favorable and unique connection to the
brand in order to create a positive brand image. The strong brand image impacts directly on
the purchasing decisions of customers and their loyalty to brand.

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5. BRAND PERSONALITY
Brand Personality is also one of the most important elements of Brand Identity, which has
shown in the previous part. The term of brand personality has also attracted many authors
research about it (King, 1970; Aaker, 1997; Kapferer, 2008; Swaminathan et al,. 2009)
According to Aaker (1997), brand personality is the set of human traits; that associated with a
brand. It concerns how brand personality evokes customers to show themselves by purchasing.
As King (1970) pointed out, customers are choosing a brand as the same way they choose
friends, based on the specific human traits. Aaker (1997) also added that the brand personality
also plays the particular role in increasing the purchasing intention and level of loyalty.
In general, the brand personality is the specific characteristics that brand has. Brand is seen as
people, also have their own personalities. According to Kapferer (2008), humanizing brand by
adding the specific personalities plays a more important part in customer’s life.
In order to form a concept of brand identity, most of previous author used the measurement
scale. Especially, the most of studies about brand identity also based on the theoretical
framework of Aaker (1997). This framework includes 5 dimenstions: Sincerity, Excitement,
Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness as the following:
Figure 19: Aaker's Brand Personality Framework, 1997
This framework measures the brand personality by considering how the customers believe it
own the human traits. It enables the researchers to analyze and measure the symbolic meaning

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of brands. This measurement has an important role as it help the brand management
understand which brand personalities is concerned by customers, then due to that to create the
suitable strategy to attract and persuade the potential customers (Swaminathan et al., 2009)
Applying this framework to Emirates, it tends to be that Emirates shows high Excitement, as
it shows Young, Lively, Cool (Spirited), and Innovative (Up-to-date).
However, the framework of Aaker (1997) also has particular limitations, as it is built based on
the 5 points likert-scale instruments, which is low consideration when compare with 7 points
likert-scale. To sum up, the Aaker’s brand personality framework has been recognized as weak
measurement, as it has low indicator power in analyzing different level: business and
respondents (Austin et al., 2003; Azoulay and Kapferer, 2003; Bosnjak et al., 2007).
Besides the Aaker (1997) framework, the “Big Five” model; includes: Openness,
Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism, that often listed under the
acronyms: OCEAN, also has been developed by many authors (Costa and McCrae, 1980;
Borkenau and Ostendorf, 1990; Goldberg, 1992)
Applying OCEAN model into Emirates, the brand identity has shown is Openness
personality trait, as it is clear in the advertisement of Jennifer Aniston. She played the role of
customer in that advert, looked for the bathroom and bar (exclusive features in Emirates
Airlines) and trying to disclose the barman, which shown the Extraversion personality trait.
Figure 20: Jennifer Aniston TVC

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6. CONCLUSION
This study analysis the Emirates case study through the brand identity, brand image, and
brand personality approaches.
The brand identity of Emirates was analyzed based on the three mains concept of Aaker
(1996), Kapferer (1997), and Chernatory (1999). Each model has different advantages and
limitations, while Aaker (1996) pointed out the basis elements of brand identity, it still
missing some important elements as positioning and brand vision, which was mentioned in
the two models left. Therefore, Emirates case study was analyzed through combination of
most important elements from all three authors. It shown that Emirates defines itself by
different identities; includes: global lifestyle, young, lively, cool, sophisticated, high quality.
While the brand identity is created from the brand’s view, the brand image is what the
customers perceived. It can be different with brand’s perspective as the gap in conveying the
message between brand and audiences. It seems to be that the Emirate’s brand image is not
perceived as the expectation of brand completely. Although Emirates is trying to transfer the
image of life style brand, it still was seen as luxury airline brand. To change this gap, Emirates
is investing on sponsorships and launch different campaign, which aims on the globalistas
target group.
Moreover, the Emirates brand personality is shown clear through the brand identity and
brand image, as the Openness and Extraversion personality traits.
Last but not least, due to time and resources limitations, this report still have many limitations
as lack of literature review and lack of research. Therefore, it is better to have further research
in the future as qualitative and quantitative researches to ensure its validity.

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Azoulay, A. and Kapferer, J.-N. (2003) “Do brand personality scales really measure brand
personality?”. Journal of Brand Management, 11(2), 143–155.
Borkenau. P.. & Ostendorf. F. (1990), “Comparing exploratory and confirmatory factor
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