THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY

SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE

DEPARTMENT OF MARKETING

Celebrities Personal Brand Analysis

TOREY JOSOWITZ

SPRING 2021

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a baccalaureate degree in Marketing with honors in Marketing

Reviewed and approved* by the following:

Jennifer Chang Coupland Paiste Fellow in Teaching and Learning Clinical Professor of Marketing Honors Advisor and Thesis Supervisor

Eunice Kim Assistant Professor of Marketing Faculty Reader

* Electronic approvals are on file.

. i ABSTRACT

The objective of this analysis is to identify how public figures protect their personal brands throughout their social media platforms. While current events occur in the United States such as the COVID-19 Pandemic, Black Lives Matter Movement, and the 2020 Election, it is crucial to analyze how celebrities evolve or do not evolve their social media platforms to protect their brand name while still maintaining a large following. To help with identifying how celebrities share their brand personality through social media, I decided to analyze Jennifer Aaker’s 5 Dimensions of brand personality and explain how the dimensions correlate with different celebrities. I found that by giving each public figure a different dimension of Aaker’s brand personalities, it identified whether or not they would change or adjust their posts when different current events happened.

ii TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ...... iii

LIST OF TABLES ...... iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... v

Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 2 Introducing Aaker’s 5 Dimensions of Brand Personality and Goffman’s Human Behavior ...... 5

Sophistication ...... 7 Ruggedness ...... 9 Competence ...... 11 Excitement ...... 13 Sincerity ...... 16 Erving Goffman’s Theory on Human Behavior ...... 18

Chapter 3 Combining Aaker’s and Goffman’s Theories with Celebrities ...... 19

Sophistication: Kylie Jenner ...... 20 Ruggedness: Lea DeLaria ...... 26 Competence: Taylor Swift ...... 29 Excitement: Lady Gaga ...... 35 Sincerity: Selena Gomez ...... 40

Chapter 4 Real People vs. Brands ...... 45

Chapter 5 Conclusion ...... 48

Bibliography ...... 49

iii LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Influencer Pyramid ...... 3

Figure 2: Tiffany & Co. Boxes ...... 8

Figure 3: Otterbox Advertisement ...... 10

Figure 4: Bank of America Logo Figure 5: Chase Bank Logo .... 12

Figure 6: Apple Logo History ...... 13

Figure 7: Nike Logo ...... 14

Figure 8: Tesla Logo ...... 15

Figure 9: Hallmark Logo ...... 16

Figure 10: Hallmark Vision Statement ...... 17

Figure 11: Jenner Halloween 2020 Figure 12: Jenner July 2020...... 21

Figure 13: Jenner's Instagram Figure 14: KylieCosmetics Homepage 22

Figure 15: Jenner Audience Demographics ...... 24

Figure 16: DeLaria Instagram Posts ...... 26

Figure 17: DeLaria Trump Post ...... 28

Figure 18: Swift's Instagram Page ...... 29

Figure 19: Swift's Instagram (Lover) ...... Figur e 20: Swift's Instagram (Folklore/Evermore) ...... 31

Figure 21: Swift Follower Demographics...... 33

Figure 22: Gaga's Instagram Content ...... 36

Figure 23: Gaga MTV Awards 2020 ...... 37

Figure 24: Gaga #ServeThePolls Campaign ...... 38

Figure 25: Gomez Body Confidence Photo ...... 41

Figure 26: Gomez Juneteenth Post ...... 42

Figure 27: Gomez Rare Beauty Post ...... 43 iv Figure 28: Gomez Follower Demographics ...... 44

v LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Aaker’s Brand Personality Framework ...... 6

vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my honors advisor and thesis supervisor, Dr. Jennifer Chang

Coupland. She has always been a great resource and has offered her assistance whenever she could.

Without her, I would not have had a final thesis topic, she was able to help me formulate the topic to what it is today. I appreciate her kindness, patience, and understanding throughout the whole process. I would also like to thank my mom who has helped me every step of the way throughout the thesis process. She has constantly checked my work and was available whenever I needed to bounce ideas off of her.

1

Chapter 1: Introduction

Before the creation of social media, fans would follow along with magazines, television and tabloids to find out the latest news about their favorite celebrities. The most popular celebrities would receive thousands of fan mail each day. With this new era of digital media and public platforms, a virtual space has been created for public figures to interact directly with their followers.

Not only has social media provided celebrities with a public space to post whenever and whatever they want, it has also allowed them to enhance their brand personalities. Brand personality is defined as “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand” (Aaker). This could be like feeling a sense of happiness and nostalgia when seeing the Disney logo or how the

John Deere logo gives an outdoorsy and masculine feeling. Although brand personality is used to humanize businesses and organizations, it can also be used to help celebrities stand out in the public eye.

Celebrities are in the public eye constantly. They have even created reality TV shows that follow their lives. According to The Daily American, “reality television has become a household commodity in just a few short years, and there are many reasons that contribute to the raise in popularity”(Phillippi). People watch Reality TV for mindless entertainment. They do need to necessarily watch each episode but they enjoy seeing real life situations. Some popular examples are Keeping up with the Kardashians and The Bachelor. They can millions of viewers each week because “people like to watch others who are successful”(Phillippi). Following the Kardashian family in both their reality show and social media platforms is what sparked my thesis idea in the 2 hopes to find out how they are able to continue to stay relevant to their followers through social media when compared to other celebrities and influential figures. The biggest question that arises when comparing celebrities' Instagram pages is how could Kylie Jenner and Selena Gomez both have over 200 million followers on Instagram when they both post completely different content?

With celebrities gaining access to social media it has formed a new segment of marketing called social media marketing. According to Buffer, a software application for web and mobile, they define this form of marketing as “the use of social media platforms to connect with your audience to build your brand, increase sales, and drive website traffic”(What Is Social Media

Marketing?). Celebrities have been able to use their social media platforms to advertise their own businesses, new releases, and their songs.

The rise of social media marketing has also increased the presence of influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing is “a type of social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from influencers–individuals who have a dedicated social following and are viewed as experts within their niche”(Chen). A lot of celebrities participate with influencer marketing by creating partnerships with businesses. Celebrities are considered mega-influencers when they reach over one million followers on their social media platforms (Figure 1). Being a mega- influencer has many perks, they have a variety of choices when it comes to forming partnerships, they receive compensation for posts related to their sponsorships, and they can promote themselves and their own personal brands. Throughout this thesis, it will only focus on the mega-influencers in order to form an analysis. 3

Figure 1: Influencer Pyramid

This thesis will discuss how celebrities utilize the brand personality framework to enhance their social media content and gain more followers. By creating a certain persona on social media, celebrities are able to directly connect with their fans. This thesis will show how even though people are more dynamic than consumers brands they can still use this framework to their advantage. Aaker is taking human traits and applying them to consumer brands. Rather than applying human traits to brands I will be re-applying them to brands that are also humans.

The difference between consumer brands and celebrities’ personal brands is that the celebrities brands are tied directly to their name. As humans, we make mistakes and not everyone thinks or acts the same. This could be an issue when it comes to celebrities and their personal branding. Celebrities express themselves the way they want and are less controlled than a brand such as Pepsi. Consumer brands have a team of people who constantly monitor and control what the company does publicly in order to prevent and reduce backlash and remain true to the brand’s 4 mission. Although celebrities have a management team, they are subject to being human and have more freedom to act any way they want to.

Celebrities are subject to dramaturgy. Dramaturgy “implies that identities can shift with varying contexts and moments”(Mediatexhack). This means that depending on where and what a celebrity is doing, his or her personality can differ. Celebrities have to put on a front stage personality when in the public eye, but they also have a back stage personality that is present when no one is around. The goal of this thesis would be to apply Aaker’s framework to celebrities public and private personas and see how they keep their branding separate from their personal lives.

5 Chapter 2

Introducing Aaker’s 5 Dimensions of Brand Personality and Goffman’s Human Behavior

Jennifer Aaker, a behavioral scientist and author, was among the first behavioral scientists to identify the dimensions of brand personality. She conducted a research study in 1997 to identify the dimensions of brand personality. She did this by using a total of 631 subjects who rated a subset of 37 brands on 114 personality traits. Aaker was able to narrow down the many personality traits into five separate facets. Aaker’s based her study off of The Big Five Theory of Personality when grouping these traits together. “The ‘big five’ are broad categories of personality traits; Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism”(Cherry). She used these personality traits as guidelines for her own study. After her analysis she concluded that consumers perceive that brands have five distinct personality dimensions: Sincerity, Excitement,

Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness.

Each participant was asked to personify each brand they were given, and rank each one on a Likert scale between 1 and 5(1 indicating “not at all descriptive,” and 5 indicating “extremely descriptive) (Aaker). For completing the questionnaire, the subjects names were entered in a raffle to win a gift card of their choosing. For the subjects to understand what Aaker’s was looking for in the survey, attached at the top were these specific instructions:

“Most of the following questions are about a variety of brands of products or services. We would like you to think of each brand as if it were a person. This may sound unusual, but think of the set of human characteristics associated with each brand. For example, you might think that the human characteristics associated with Pepto Bismal are kind, warm, caring, soothing, gentle, trustworthy and dependable. The 6 human characteristics associated with Dr Pepper might be non-conforming, fun, interesting, exciting and off-beat. We're interested in finding out which personality traits or human characteristics come to mind when you think of a particular brand.”

The purpose of this study was to figure out if brands could be personified even though they are intangible and cannot speak for themselves. Seeing how there is a correlation between personality traits and brands, shows how people will personify things in order to explain them.

Although this framework was discovered using branding of different businesses, I wondered if Aaker’s framework could also be applied to identify how celebrities brand themselves within their social media outlets? Before I could use this framework on public figures, it was important to understand how the framework has been applied in the business perspective. This is especially important, since Aaker’s research was conducted focusing on consumer goods brands instead of people.

Table 1: Aaker’s Brand Personality Framework

Sincerity Excitement Competence Sophistication Ruggedness Trait 1: Down-to-Earth Daring Reliable Upper Class Outdoorsy Trait 2: Honest Spirited Intelligent Charming Tough Trait 3: Wholesome Imaginative Successful Glamorous Masculine Trait 4: Cheerful Up-to-Date Hard-Working Feminine Western Example: Disney Tesla Volvo Rolex Timberland 7

Sophistication

Sophistication aligns with brands that appear as upper class, charming, glamorous, and feminine. The is the personality trait that represents the high end brands in each industry. A few examples of brands that fall under sophistication are, Tiffany and Co., in the jewelry industry and

Louis Vuitton for the retail industry. The way these brands have their logos written out in cursive or fancy fonts highlight the fact that their companies maintain an elegant image to the public eye.

Each brand in this facet has built up a reputation in society to make them elite in their industries.

“Sophistication and Ruggedness tap a dimension that individuals desire but do not necessarily have. This premise is consistent with the advertising created for prototypical Sophisticated brands (e.g., Monet, Revlon, Mercedes), in which aspirational associations such as upper class, glamorous, and sexy are a focus”(Aaker).

Brands under this category give a sense of false hope by providing consumers with a feeling of yearning for more than they have. Consumers see the luxurious products these brands offer and the companies know that the average consumer may not have the financial ability to purchase their products on a regular basis or at all. In a research paper by Professors Karl Aquino and Jessica

Tracy they concluded that, “consumers purchase these goods for a variety of reasons, among them because they convey a sense of status, wealth, and exclusivity. These purchases lead others to make rapid inferences about the character of the purchaser”(McFerran). 8

Figure 2: Tiffany & Co. Boxes

From just carrying around a Louis Vuitton bag, people know how expensive that one item is. The logo itself, raises status to oneself in the public eye. Louis Vuitton conveys glamour through using high quality and expensive leather, assembling their bags by hand at site and using celebrities to endorse the brand at fashion shows and public appearances. When everyone sees a little blue box they know right away that it is a Tiffany and Co. product. Tiffany radiates a feminine essence by incorporating their signature “Tiffany Blue” in their branding, having strong correlation with the 1961 movie, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the actress Audrey Hepburn and being a “beloved red carpet accessory among Hollywood's elite” (Biron). These companies not only use the best quality materials in their products but they also have the advantage to partner with the top celebrities in the industry.

9 Ruggedness

Ruggedness aligns with brands that have personality traits such as being outdoorsy, tough, masculine, and western. Aaker’s explains that “Ruggedness brands (e.g., Marlboro, Harley-

Davidson, Levi's) tend to glamorize American ideals of Western, strength, and masculinity”(Aaker). This can be seen with brands such as John Deere and Timberland. Their logos both incorporate the outdoors and they are in dark and earthy tones like green, brown and yellow. They use these outdoor images to indicate that their brands are ready and capable for any obstacles that their buyers face.

The products these brands sell are appealing because they tend to be durable and built to last. If someone buys from a company with the ruggedness facet, they could expect equipment or hardware that they can use for a long time. They hone in on their target consumer market by relating to them on a personal level. “Brands with this personality focus on encouraging their customers to stand strong against obstacles and showcase their ability to outperform their competition”(Find the Right Combination). An example of this is REI and their in store climbing walls or OtterBox being known as the one of the most protective cases for phones. 10

Figure 3: Otterbox Advertisement

This Otterbox ad above has a phone dressed up in a suit and tie. It is advertising the companies “Defender Series” of cases. This ad uses words such as “durability” and “demanding conditions and harsh environments” to emphasize its strength and capabilities of the case. Rather than addressing its style and color, it sticks to describing how tough the case is which is why the brand falls into the ruggedness category. Additionally, keeps the advertisement simple by using

“masculine” colors such as gray and black to match its’ ruggedness. 11 Competence

Competence aligns with brands who appear as reliable, intelligent, successful, and hard- working. Brands that use the competence trait want their customers to know they are trustworthy and experts in that specific field. A great business example of this trait are banks, such as Bank of

America and Chase Bank. Bank of America incorporates the American Flag in its logo specifically to utilize the meaning behind each color and make an association to them. “The red stands for hardiness and valor, the white stands for purity and blue symbolizes the justice and freedom”

(Boris). All of these traits fall under the competence category.

The banks logos are neat, easy to read, and in primary colors such as blue and red in order for the public to easily recognize their company. With their logos being simple and readable from close and afar, it creates a persona for the whole company of being serious and straight to the point.

In a study reported by the Harvard Business Review, they discovered a correlation between logo symmetry and brand. They concluded that “symmetrical logos boosted consumer attitudes, and consequentially, the brand’s financial valuation”(Stamatogiannakis). The symmetrical brands did not associate with excitement, rather they were closely identified with personality traits such as, seriousness and reliability. 12

Figure 4: Bank of America Logo Figure 5: Chase Bank Logo

When a company’s logo is plain and simple but still looks professional, it makes consumers recognize that the business is credible. In addition, the colors blue and red are purposely chosen due to color psychology, the science of how color affects human behavior. “The color blue is a color of trust, peace, order, and loyalty.” It is also important to know that, “the highest-converting colors for call to actions are bright primary and secondary colors”(Patel). When banks use color psychology for their logos it provides consumers with the will to have more trust in depositing money.

13 Excitement

Excitement aligns with brands who identify themselves as being daring, spirited, imaginative, and up-to-date. These are the brands that think outside of the box and try to differentiate themselves through being innovative. Through her study, Aaker’s was able to find out that brands that use the excitement trait try to “tap an innate part of human personality” (Aaker).

This means that brands try to hone in on their customers inner thoughts and what they find most to be intriguing.

Brands with the excitement persona tend to be the leaders in their industries in areas such as creativity and technology. They are constantly releasing new products and are trend setters in their industries. Some examples include Tesla, Nike and Apple. These three companies are always up-to-date and constantly changing their products to match with their customers. Even their logos present an exciting appeal, such as Apple being the actual apple instead of the word apple.

Figure 6: Apple Logo History 14

Apple incorporates excitement by releasing new products ever year with updates that are tied around convenience. They thrive on the ability consumers have with connecting all of their

Apple devices. Apple released the Cloud which is a new and innovative way to store one’s data.

While symmetrical logos convey seriousness and reliability, asymmetrical logos convey action and excitement. The famous Nike Swoosh is one of the many exciting brands that have asymmetrical logos. Nike continues to be innovative by creating sneakers that are different and unique, such as the Nike Go FlyEase, the first hands-free sneaker.

Figure 7: Nike Logo Tesla on the other hand has a symmetrical logo, the way their logo conveys excitement is by using the color red. The color psychology around red is that it makes people feel passionate and energized as well as it indicates danger and excitement(Gremillion). Tesla has released both electric and self-driving vehicles to imply that they are the exciting brand in the car industry. 15

Figure 8: Tesla Logo Each of these companies are trailblazers in their industries. They are the first ones to release new and improved products. They are the companies that create the impossible and unthinkable products within their respective industries.

16 Sincerity

Sincerity aligns with brands who appear to be down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, and cheerful. These traits create a sense of calmness in which customers can relate to. An example of a brand using sincerity as their personality trait could be seen with the Hallmark brand and logo.

The company uses the trait of sincerity throughout its business model. For instance, the vision statement highlights how they want to make a genuine difference in the world, this indicates how they consider themselves more than just a business and want to personally relate to their customers.

Hallmark purposely uses the color purple to show the femininity and wholesomeness of the brand itself. “The purple branding also carries with it connotations of the feminine and ties directly to

Hallmark’s women’s lifestyle and movies channels”(Barrell).

Figure 9: Hallmark Logo

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Figure 10: Hallmark Vision Statement

Brands that focus around the sincerity facet tend to be the ones that openly care about their consumers and audiences. They are the companies that actively help others and want to make a difference. It is clear to the public that the sincerity brands want to make their customers experiences as memorable as possible. Although these companies want to make a profit, they prioritize benefiting their customers and then they focus on increasing sales. Hallmark is seen as a traditional, family oriented business. Hallmark actor, Dean Cain, addressed how Hallmark targets a niche audience by saying, “Viewers tune in, knowing the kind of programming they’re going to find on Hallmark. Quality, family-friendly films that deliver positive messages especially around the holidays”(Falzone). Hallmark wants to help their viewers by providing them with movie content for the whole family to watch together. Hallmark’s movie are wholesome through from their titles to their content. Some Hallmark movie titles include: A Family Thanksgiving, A

Soldier’s Love Story and A Gift of Miracles. From the title, hallmark is intentionally trying to connect to their family-friendly audiences.

18 Erving Goffman’s Theory on Human Behavior

Aaker’s study is very simple in the sense that it focuses on having each brand align with only one of the personality facets she created. This makes sense since brands are tangible and they can be carefully controlled and monitored. When applying Aaker’s study to celebrities, it needs to be acknowledge that celebrities are more complicated and less controllable than brands. In order to use her study properly it needs to be combined with Erving Goffman’s theory on understanding human behavior.

As I said before, celebrities have both a public and private persona whereas tangible items do not. It is important to address their personality traits through the lens of their public lives versus their private lives. In sociologist’s Erving Goffman’s book, “The Presentation of Self in Everyday

Life” he builds out a metaphor of comparing the theatrical terms, “front stage” and “backstage” to understanding human interaction and behavior. Front stage, refers to what people do and how they act in public while backstage is what they do when no one is around. In front stage behavior we tend to see people more put together and almost as though they are putting on a show for whoever they interact with that day. It is the backstage behavior that differentiates themselves from others.

“When people engage in back stage behavior, they are free of the expectations and norms that dictate front stage behavior”(Cole).

19 Chapter 3

Combining Aaker’s and Goffman’s Theories with Celebrities

After learning about Aaker’s research study, it made me wonder if it could be applied to celebrities and their representation of themselves through social media (specifically Instagram).

Although these are people and not brands, each celebrity has their own personal brand they try to promote to the public. After careful analysis and creating a content timeline of different celebrity posts, it became apparent to me that there is a consistency with their content and how or what they choose to post.

Below are celebrity prototypes that I have chosen to represent each of the five dimensions.

These celebrities are currently using this framework to enhance their individuality on social media. In addition, they are also using Goffman’s theory by having both public and private lifestyles.

The goal of this thesis is to identify how this personality framework is not limited to just brands, whereas it can be used for real-life people when mixed with Goffman’s theory. This framework becomes more dynamic when it is used to describe celebrities and their social media presence in the world. When adding a real person to this study rather than just brands it creates more variability in how celebrities interact with the world.

20 Sophistication: Kylie Jenner

Kylie Jenner is the daughter of Kris, late wife of Rob Kardashian, and Bruce (Caitlyn)

Jenner, Olympic gold medal decathlete. She was born into the public eye and has always been in the celebrity bubble with close friends such as Sofia Richie and Jaden Smith. Although Kylie

Jenner did not become famous for acting or singing like most celebrities, she has been able to make a name for herself by being both an influencer and entrepreneur at a young age.

In 2019, Forbes declared Jenner as “the youngest-ever self-made billionaire, reaching a ten-figure fortune at a younger age than even Mark Zuckerberg (who was 23 when he hit that mark)”

(Robehmed).

When it comes to the five dimensions of brand personality, Kylie can be categorized in the sophistication segment. As said before, sophistication is often paired with the traits; upper class, charming, glamorous, and feminine. This can be seen in every single post Jenner creates. Her content is the epitome of a glamorous, girly, high-end lifestyle and she capitalizes on that fact.

Kylie Jenner uses her social media platforms as an additional marketing tactic. Her

Instagram page is used to promote her makeup line, clothing line, skincare line and her luxurious lifestyle. This is where influencer marketing comes into play, Jenner would be considered a mega- influencer with over 200 million followers. She is able to promote products and persuade a large group of people to purchase them.

In addition to advertising, Jenner’s Instagram page is where her followers can escape from reality and their personal lives. Even though there has been a Pandemic since March 2020, when checking in on Jenner’s social media, there is not even one post that could relate to this global pandemic. Instead, Jenner has continued to travel, party, and hangout with her friends and family.

All of these activities she has done and posted about with no mask in sight. This can be seen 21 through her series of photos from Halloween (Figure 11) or her photoshoot when she was on vacation in the middle of July (Figure 12). Noting that all of her traveling pictures are in exotic, beautiful and expensive destinations that most people would not be able to afford. By doing this she is keeping up with her front stage sophistication personality.

Figure 11: Jenner Halloween 2020 Figure 12: Jenner July 2020

Kylie Jenner has this large following because people want to experience things they simply cannot have. Jenner’s Instagram page creates a fantasy world for her following. As one could see, she continues to live her life as though there was nothing bad going on in the world. People do not follow her because they want to know her political opinion, they follow her to escape their daily lives.

Jenner represents herself as a product through her front stage behavior of being confident with herself and her life. She shows how outrageous her lifestyle is and flaunts off her body from top to bottom in almost every post. This is ironic because of her back stage behavior, which is seen in her TV show where she comes off as quiet and shy and admits to being uncomfortable with parts of her body, like her lips. Jenner tries to maintain her front stage image through social media and her public appearances, her family’s TV show gives a glimpse of her back stage persona and how she actually acts when she is not promoting her brands. 22 She promotes herself by sticking to a color scheme on any digital platform that has her name tied to it. She tends to lean towards the light pinks and reds with the classic black and white to accent it, to maintain that feminine/girly vibe to it. For special occasions, such as holidays, her posts will completely change color schemes to match her products she is selling that time of year.

Kylie’s ability to match her products color palette to her own personal color palette reiterates the glamorous, charming lifestyle she is trying to promote.

Figure 13: Jenner's Instagram Figure 14: KylieCosmetics Homepage

Kylie’s frontstage personality is all about living a high end, luxury, fast pace life. Her backstage personality reveals that her life is not all that it is perceived to be. Kylie hid her pregnancy from the public, she keeps her relationships private and she rarely posts about her daughter. Having a child does not match with a lifestyle filled with traveling and partying. Jenner is being both wholesome and sincere when she is with her daughter. This clashes with her over the top lifestyle. This is why she rarely features her daughter and that part of her life is kept in her 23 backstage persona. If Kylie were to make her brand solely about her being a young mother, it would not align with this glamourous lifestyle she has built. Jenner stayed inside for almost nine months, but nevertheless continued to keep up with her front stage persona by marketing and promoting her products on her social media. Once she was ready to announce her pregnancy, she posted an apology to her fans for not sharing that part of her life with them. Kylie is successful because she limits her social media to relate to only her front stage persona. No one is following her because they think she is down to earth and laid-back. Having a daughter is not a bad thing but it could negatively affect her strong social media presence she currently has.

An example of how powerful her Instagram is to her business was in 2015 when she first created a lipstick line. “Jenner launched the trio of products as a test run, producing just 5,000 units of each shade priced at $29. The products sold out immediately and it took roughly six months to produce the next batch of products”(Ilchi). Not only did her lip kits sell out in her first launch, but they have continued as she has released new products. Kylie’s name is what really made the company increase exponentially in a short amount of time. Within the first 18 months, the brand had made over $420,000. Kylie Jenner’s social media followers buying out her product lines is an example of brand loyalty. Her target consumers would buy her products simply because she was advertising and selling it. Having a large following on social media made it easier for Jenner to sell her products and provided her an opportunity for essentially free marketing. She can attribute her consumer’s brand loyalty to her sophistication presence on Instagram. Before she had her own product lines, she maintained a glamorous lifestyle presence that followers were intrigued about.

This can show how Kylie Jenner also has a competence dimension in her persona. She knows her audience very well and was able to make almost half a million dollars in under two 24 years. In order for Jenner to be successful, she has to be hard-working and motivated. This is yet another aspect that she keeps in her backstage persona.

With over 200 million followers on Instagram, it is important to understand her followers demographics when compared to other popular celebrities followings. This will help explain why she has an active following.

Figure 15: Jenner Audience Demographics

As one can see, according to Social Tracker (Figure 15), of Jenner’s 211 million followers, the majority are between the ages of 18 and 24 (48%). The main group of followers consist of

Caucasian, female Americans. Knowing her audience has helped her boost sales and continue to gain followers. Her makeup is modeled by her and her sisters, who have the same skin tones as the majority of her followers. Jenner has been able to seek out her majority of followers and match their wants and desires. Kylie takes after her family by being a hard-worker and continuing to create new products. Her ability to be competent in her work contributes to her sophistication front 25 stage persona. With the competent persona behind the scenes, Jenner is able to make products that actually work and worthy of buying.

Aaker’s framework can be used to describe how Kylie Jenner presents herself publicly without all of the tabloids and media. Jenner’s outrageous lifestyle could be depicted as excitement or competence, but with her highly feminine tone through her content it is clear she matches with the sophistication category the most. If she were to do something that did not align with the sophistication dimensions, she would face a lot of backlash from her followers because of their high expectations. If she switched her color scheme on Instagram to all dark tones, the public would think she was trying to change her image and this would not align with the rest of the products Jenner represents.

26 Ruggedness: Lea DeLaria

Lea DeLaria is a comedian, actress, and jazz singer. Most people will recognize her from her role as Big Boo in the Netflix series, Orange is the New Black. A few other big accomplishments she has had in her career was being “the first openly gay comic to break the late- night talk-show barrier with her 1993 appearance on "The Arsenio Hall Show” and she was “seen in the 2000 Broadway revival of "The Rocky Horror Show" as two male characters, Eddie / Dr.

Scott”(Lea DeLaria).

Despite having less followers than the other celebrities I chose, she is a perfect example to represent the ruggedness brand personality trait throughout her social media. Although she identifies as a female, she tends to dress and talk in a masculine tone. In addition, all her photos show her with little to no makeup on, unedited content, and her own original selfies and photographs.

Figure 16: DeLaria Instagram Posts

Her career has revolved around breaking social norms and being true to herself and her beliefs. By doing this, she became a trend setter in the entertainment industry for the LGBTQ community. Although she identifies as a female, it has not affected her appearance nor her ability 27 to land roles that are meant for males. Delaria’s front stage persona embodies that ruggedness, tough person who stands up against social norms. This is ironic because she was not brought up that way, rather she grew up in the Midwest and went to a catholic school. Her past is her backstage persona that she does not address unless it is in her comedy shows. Her backstage persona can be categorized as sincerity. This is where she can be both vulnerable and feminine. Her frontstage persona is to be a tough women, so she has to hide her emotions to be able to stay true to her ruggedness.

DeLaria only displays her front stage persona on social media, leaving her backstage persona to be questioned. Her thoughts and beliefs are very public, but she has kept her relationships very private. There are no photos of her two brothers, two sisters, parents and relationships on her social media platforms. All of her posts contain her personal opinions but they do not include aspects of her personal life. Her social media platform is used for activism and promoting events she is attending or hosting to maintain her frontstage personality. Her ruggedness would not be as effective on social media if she were to start being wholesome and posting about her family members.

DeLaria has had some major successes in her career, but it is clear that she is not as famous as some of the other celebrities I chose for this thesis. As of January 1st, she only has 1.2 million followers on Instagram. With her being so different than social norms, she has a specific and niche following base.

As one can see, she posts a lot of unedited content and selfies. This is important because she is showing her true self through her social media platforms. Instead of doing what society expects from a celebrity, she creates a world that mimics her daily life. DeLaria’s content 28 additionally represents current events in the world. She posts photos with masks on and advertises zoom events that she is participating in (Figure 16).

Figure 17: DeLaria Trump Post

DeLaria openly swears on her posts and is not afraid to share her opinion to the world

(Figure 17). This enhances her ruggedness digital presence by not adjusting her speech to conform with society. For example, her post about President Trump’s Twitter account being suspended and her saying “it’s about f**king time”. Just in one post, her followers can tell what major events are happening in the world and her personal opinions about these events.

Ruggedness is a category revolving around masculinity and toughness. DeLaria does not wear makeup in her posts and does not sensor her content, this gives off a masculine tone when compared to other female celebrities. If one day, DeLaria were to decide to completely change her image by dressing more feminine, wearing makeup and censoring herself, she would lose the front stage persona that she has built her career around and it would not help her in standing up against society. 29 Competence: Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift grew up singing and songwriting. By the time she was 14, she signed with

Sony Records. From then on, she became a popular artist in both the country and pop categories.

Taylor Swift was certified platinum by 2007, having sold more than one million copies in the

United States. She was touring all over the world and has continued to stay in the public eye to date (Taylor Swift).

It is no surprise Taylor Swift would be the prototype for the competence personality trait.

Her Instagram page depicts how much of a hard-worker she is in the industry and how successful she continues to be as she presents herself as a highly intelligent intellectual in the public eye.

Swift advertises her music by using quotes from credible music critics such as Rolling Stone and

The New York Times. Rather than just promoting her music like other artists, she shows what other people think of it which makes her reliable and trustworthy to her fans (Figure 18). Swift does not post revealing photos of herself, most, if not all of her posts are professionally taken photographs.

Figure 18: Swift's Instagram Page

30 Taylor Swift communicates to the public through a color scheme on Instagram that is consistent with the album she is currently working on or trying to promote. At first she was a country artist, but now she has branched out into all different kinds of genres and her personality traits will switch depending on the genre she is currently working on. In 2019, she released Lover, which is categorized under the pop genre. She mimics her Instagram posts to relate to that upbeat, exciting description that pop music gives off by including bright colors, unique outfits and bold fonts(Figure 19). One year later, when Swift released Evermore and Folklore, her Instagram went from a bright and vibrant color palette to earthy and simple tones(Figure 20). This is because

Evermore and Folklore were the alternative/indie albums she released and it was apparent to change her public appearance to match her music. Throughout both of these examples, Swift continues to encompass the competence trait, she is able to tie in other personality traits when switching her album genres. Her album, Lover, ties in the excitement personality group, while

Evermore and Folklore brings out the sincerity side of Swift and her music. Although her albums represent different genres and personality traits, competence encompasses the mastery and success of all the albums. Songs from each of her albums have hit the top 100 lists and she has become more successful after each new album release. 31

Figure 19: Swift's Instagram (Lover) Figure 20: Swift's Instagram (Folklore/Evermore)

Swift has always made it clear that her purpose is to make music and that was it. She has rarely ever spoken out about her personal opinions such as political views until, in 2017 when

Taylor won a sexual assault case against a DJ who groped her. When she released her documentary on Netflix in 2020, Miss Americana, it followed her on tour and showed how she is one of

America’s most followed and talked about celebrities in the media. The documentary revealed

Swift’s backstage behavior. Swift’s front stage behavior is being put together and professional, but her backstage behavior showed her vulnerable and angry side. The documentary went into further detail on the trial and how she came to the realization that she has to use her voice to stand up for others who cannot nor have the publicity for it. Swift’s father addressed in the documentary that

“for 12 years now, we’ve not got involved in politics or religion”. So a monumental time in Swift's career was when she finally posted her first political post on October 7th, 2018. It stated:

32 “I’m writing this post about the upcoming midterm elections on November 6th, in which I’ll be voting in the state of Tennessee. In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now. I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent.

I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love. Running for Senate in the state of Tennessee is a woman named Marsha Blackburn. As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn. Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values. I will be voting for Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives. Please, please educate yourself on the candidates running in your state and vote based on who most closely represents your values. For a lot of us, we may never find a candidate or party with whom we agree 100% on every issue, but we have to vote anyway.

So many intelligent, thoughtful, self-possessed people have turned 18 in the past two years and now have the right and privilege to make their vote count. But first you need to register, which is quick and easy to do. October 9th is the LAST DAY to register to vote in the state of TN. Go to vote.org and you can find all the info. Happy Voting! ” (Taken from Taylors Swifts Instagram Post on 10/7/18)

After Swift’s first political post and call to action over social media, over 50,000 new registrations to vote were filed. From one post on Instagram, Taylor Swift was able to make a big difference and she did so while remaining competent in her words and opinions. Taylor Swift struggled for a long time as to whether to make her “back stage” political beliefs “front stage”.

This was the first time Swift exposed her backstage personality to the public while still remaining intelligent and competent in how she worked her statement. In Swift’s post she capitalizes certain words and phrases. She says “In the past I have been reluctant to voice my political opinions”, this can be tied to her ruggedness side that she has kept hidden in her backstage persona in order to protect her front stage appearance. For the most part she has remained neutral in the public eye, but this post revealed that she has an angry side. Although in this case it worked out for her, she 33 has to be careful on how much of her backstage personality she chooses to share because it could affect her image and her branding.

What sets Swift apart from other successful female celebrities on social media is her professionalism and her ability to reach a large international audience while continuing to keep them on their feet. Based on the Analisa.io Instagram Follower Demographics and Authenticity

Tool (Figure 21), Swift follower demographics extend to countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, and

India. Although she has a lot of followers from the United States, her majority of followers are international, making Swift a popular figure all over the world instead of just one country.

Figure 21: Swift Follower Demographics

With so many fans all around the world, it is hard to continue to surprise them as a music artist. Taylor Swift surprises her fans in creative and innovative ways. She is very intelligent in hiding “Easter eggs” in her posts, music videos, and songs that will hint off about other music releases or events that may occur. Swift will also release music unannounced. For instance, in 34 2020, she released two new albums five months apart. Fans knew about the first album, but the second was released as an early Christmas surprise to everyone (Benveniste).

Taylor shows the competence trait on and off the screen. She makes sure that she uses her

Instagram page to support causes and people she believes in. She is an advocate for people that are different from her which puts more respect to her name. Aaker’s competence category includes the traits of being intelligent, successful and hard-working. Swift’s social media presence resembles this by maintaining professionalism in each and every post. Her grammar is correct, she cites sources and she is constantly creating new music. All of these attributes show the public how much of a hard worker she is. Her frontstage persona is apparent through social media, but over the years as she grew up in the public eye her backstage persona has made its way to being known.

At first she kept her thoughts and feelings to herself, but as she has grown and matured her personality has too.

35 Excitement: Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and fashion icon. Some of her biggest hits include Born this Way, Poker Face and Just Dance. She has entered into different genres of music from Pop to Rock to Country. Gaga has been able to stand out through her unique fashion style. She received the The Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Icon award in 2011 and has continued to make creative fashion statements such as wearing a meat dress to the

MTV Video Music Awards and wearing a jacket made out of Kermit the frogs (Friedman).

Although it may seem weird and unusual there is a reason she does this. She told Ellen on The

Ellen Show that her meat dress “was tied to her protest against the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and was a statement against the governmental restrictions placed on the rights of gay soldiers”(Mapes).

This is also present in Gaga’s social media platforms. To reiterate her front stage personality of being an outgoing, creative person, Gaga’s post includes a variety of different outfits, hairstyles, makeup looks(Figure 22). Her backstage behavior only comes out if she is posting about something she believes in or is making a statement, other than that Gaga uses her online platform as a promotion tool to echo the persona that she and the public have built together over her career. 36

Figure 22: Gaga's Instagram Content

Gaga best represents the excitement personality trait through her posts being creative and imaginative but still showing she is up-to-date with the trends and what is going on in the world.

For instance, she was the only artist at the 2020 MTV VMAS to perform with a mask on. What made her create excitement amongst the viewers was that for every award she won that night, she came out with a new and fashionable mask each time and posted each one to her Instagram page later that night(Figure 23).

37

Figure 23: Gaga MTV Awards 2020

Each one of Gaga’s posts brings an exciting aspect to it. Whether it is her colorful hairstyles or vibrant outfits, Gaga is able to keep up with the trends in an intriguing way. Aaker’s excitement dimension consists of traits such as daring and imaginative.

Gaga’s social media resembles this trait whether it is posting about her own product launches and music or current events in the world. An example of this is seen in her 2020

Halloween post (Figure 24), instead of wearing a simple costume, Gaga took this opportunity to encourage her followers to vote. Even if you did not read the caption you can tell what her message was just by looking at her outfit. By spearheading the #ServeThePolls campaign on her Instagram page, it gave room for her to be innovative in the way she presented it. Even though Gaga is demonstrating competence by informing her followers to vote, she is able to put her own excitement spin on it but doing it her way instead of societies way. Gaga could have just posted a photo and told people to go out and vote, instead she made a Instagram challenge to dress up when going to the polls. The goal was for “Instagram users will use the same "Sour Candy" audio and offer their own stylish, #ServeThePolls runway walks — in addition to, of course, voting early, in person, or by dropping off your absentee ballot at your designated polling site or ballot 38 box”(Garcia). This is just one example of many of Gaga staying on brand with her unique, strong and out-of-the-box personality.

Figure 24: Gaga #ServeThePolls Campaign

Gaga has roughly 50 million followers which is one fourth of the followers Selena Gomez and Kylie Jenner have. For someone who is so different yet one of the best artists of her time, it is surprising she does not have the large following as opposed to other music artists. Data collected from a study: Social Intelligence Report: Lady Gaga, “finds that 52% are women and 48% are men, which is not surprising. However, despite her reputation for being popular among tweens and teens, the largest percentage of her fans (28%) are between the ages of 35-44. Only a combined

16% are between 0 and 24. About two-thirds (64%) are 35 or older” (Lady Gaga Provokes Mixed

Brand Reaction). This could be because her biggest hits were back in the early 2000s, so her fans have grown up with her. Although she is exciting, Gaga has a competence backstage persona.

People respect her and treat her like royalty in the music industry. She is not targeting the young generation, rather she is targeting older people who can she can relate more of her life with. 39 Lady Gaga’s front stage persona is all about being unique and outlandish. Gaga is simply a stage name. She even admits that her “public persona is partly an invention that is separate from her true self”(Begley). Her backstage persona is the girl whose family lives in West Virginia and grew up loving to sing, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, also known as Lady Gaga’s real name. There is no sense of excitement when you hear the name Stefani Germanotta, but if you hear Lady Gaga you know she has just released another amazing song or she wore another crazy outfit to an awards show. She has been able to keep her public and personal lives separate even by using two different names. Her front stage behavior is more upbeat and outgoing than her backstage behavior which is being more of a down-to-earth family person. In addition, Gaga shows off her competence personality by being an impressive musician and winning awards. If Aaker’s framework were to be applied solely based on Gaga’s front stage, there would be a whole half of her life missing in that conclusion. Gaga’s backstage brings out her sincerity personality trait, she is more relaxed and vulnerable. This can be seen throughout her Netflix documentary.

40 Sincerity: Selena Gomez

Selena Gomez started as a child actress in the Barney show and eventually became a very popular actress in the Disney franchise starring in Wizards of Waverly Place. From a young age she was in the public eye and specifically to the younger generation of television viewers. From her childhood stardom till now, she has aligned with the sincerity category.

Unlike other Disney stars who eventually changed their personality traits once they left

Disney, Gomez was the opposite. She embraced the sincerity facet as her fame continued to grow. Her front stage persona was being that sincere, wholesome individual. This has left no room for Gomez to reveal her backstage persona. For example, if she were to be arrested for drunk driving, it would damage her reputation because it would be unexpected of her.

Gomez has controlled her personality and as she grew up in the public eye she continues to focus her frontstage lifestyle around it.

An example of how she communicates sincerity to the public is by posting photos of herself unedited. She will post polaroid pictures, baby photos and pictures without makeup on. She continues to be her honest and true self by posting a photo that shows her embracing her scar from her kidney transplant surgery(Figure 25). This example is something that most celebrities would not do. Although Swift will post polaroid photographs, but only if it relates to her music and album that she is promoting. Gomez is being truthful to her audience and the world. This post epitomizes Selena’s front stage persona of being real with the world.

She is vulnerable yet confident, which is one of the reasons she has so many followers. 41

Figure 25: Gomez Body Confidence Photo

Selena Gomez is the opposite of Kylie Jenner when it comes to posting and creating social media content. Gomez doesn’t follow a color scheme and each post is unique to current events in the world and her life. Whereas Jenner uses her platforms solely to promote her lifestyle and brands, Gomez uses her platform to spread awareness for different causes she believes in and to teach her followers about different events that are happening in the world. From her posts, viewers can tell whether it is an election, a protest, or her releasing new music. Below is a post that she made to teach her followers about Juneteenth and how important bringing equality to the world is. Gomez could have posted a photo of herself with 42 the same caption, but to make the post the most sincere it can be she chose to incorporate a photo of a collage of people who represent the black community.

Figure 26: Gomez Juneteenth Post In 2016, Vanity Fair wrote an article about why Selena Gomez is one of the most followed celebrities on Instagram. When compared to the other public figures on the platform, Gomez posts are more relatable. The article suggests that “Gomez’s posts themselves also aim for a certain relatability, in their low-key, low-maintenance manner.

Rare is the pouting selfie or view from a luxury yacht or glamorous hotel suite shot. Gomez doesn’t position herself as the Queen Bee, or the big-time movie star: there’s much more of an “Oh, whoa, I guess this is happening!” vibe to all of her output” (Duboff). She tries to be an average person on her platform instead of advertising her outrageous lifestyle. She could easily use her platform to make her seem like a product like other celebrities have done, instead she tries to hone in on being natural and conversational with her following. 43 With over 200 million followers on Instagram, Gomez has decided to use her platforms to share other people's voices who do not have as large of a following as her. She believes in equal representation, which can be seen in her Rare Beauty makeup collection.

Figure 27: Gomez Rare Beauty Post Kylie Jenner’s makeup line is technically made for everyone, but she uses herself and other models with the same skin tone to model her products. Gomez proves that her makeup line is for every skin color with advertisements showing women using all 48 shades of her products. In addition to promoting her makeup line, during the pandemic, instead of having a photoshoot Gomez sent products out to models and had them take their own selfies.

This way everyone was able to remain safe and she was respecting all of the models by not inviting them to an in person photo shoot(Figure 27).

By being sincere in her actions and posts, Selena Gomez continues to be a role model for the younger generation. Her majority of followers reside in the age groups of 13 to 17 and 18 to 24 (Figure 28). This being her followers since the Disney Channel days in addition 44 to all the new followers she continues to receive due to her honest nature of her posts and beliefs.

Figure 28: Gomez Follower Demographics Gomez has been able to maintain a strong front stage persona throughout her career, this is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because in her case, it has given her a successful career. It is a curse because she is limited to how many public mistakes she can make. She does not have the same opportunity as someone in the excitement trait to show off her backstage lifestyle. Gomez has made a name for herself with a positive association, yet if she ever wants to change her career path it will be drastic and she will have to be really careful doing so in order to stay popular with her followers. 45 Chapter 4

Real People vs. Brands

These five traits may appear to be obvious in each of these celebrities even without analyzing their Instagram presence. Aaker’s dimensions become more dynamic when they are used to analyze a person rather than a brand. Social media has created a platform for anyone to post at any time or any day they want. It has given celebrities an outlet to represent themselves the way they want the public to see them and post their own personal thoughts and opinions. Celebrities' posts can make real change but they also can ruin a celebrity’s reputation if the wrong thing is posted, like a provocative photo or an absurd statement. With having both a front and backstage, celebrities have to be very careful in how they present themselves so they do not hurt their branding.

Even though these are the prototypes I chose for each trait, each celebrity could identify themselves with more than one. People are fallible but packaged goods are more easily controlled and managed. There is a lot of variability in a celebrity's career path, which means there is room for outliers to this comparison. For instance, Miley Cyrus, who got famous through Disney

Channel but continued to stay relevant as she changed her style and music as she graduated from the Disney phase. Naturally, as Cyrus grew up she created her own personality instead of what others wanted her to be. During her younger years, I would identify her under the sincere trait just like Selena Gomez, but if I were to put Cyrus in a facet now it would either be ruggedness or excitement because she has completely changed her image. Today, she sings rock music now, openly swears, styles her hair and clothes outrageously, is bisexual, and has done a lot of questionable acts in the public eye. Selena Gomez’ sincerity means that any mistakes (e.g., risqué 46 behavior, risks in stating a viewpoint) is more easily criticized than for exciting and rugged celebrities such as Cyrus.

Another example could be seen with Justin Bieber. Bieber became famous from his

YouTube performances as a child. As a young artist, Bieber would fall under the sincerity category.

He stayed true to himself and was wholesome and vulnerable to his fans. Under Usher’s guidance, he became a hit sensation at only 13 years old. As Justin Bieber aged, he changed his image to stay relevant in the industry. He became a little bit of a bad boy by getting tattoos all over his body, being publicly intoxicated and hanging out with famous rappers. By changing his image, he moved into the excitement category. Bieber was trying to be daring and over the top in order to change his image and grow his fanbase. At first, this was not work out well and Bieber faced a lot of backlash from his fans and the industry. Bieber was revealing too much of his backstage by partying and drinking in public. Eventually, he calmed down and found religion and got married.

This helped him fix his image by combining the sincerity dimension with the excitement dimension. Bieber could now be classified again as sincere. This shows celebrities have to be careful in their personal branding in order to keep their fan base.

One final example of celebrities whose personality characteristics have shifted with their public and private identity is Ariana Grande. Grande started her career at the age of 13 as a

Broadway performer. She then went on to be a Nickelodeon actress for the two hit shows,

Victorious and Sam & Cat. Grande was another celebrity that started off in the sincerity facet but grew into other facets as she advanced in her career. After her childhood shows were over, Grande took a different direction and went into the music industry. By doing this Grande has to shift her public persona from being a sweet and wholesome girl to a successful and hard-working woman 47 in the music industry. Ariana Grande was able to move her public persona to the competence category in order to be seen and respected as a singer rather than a child actress. She has shown her competence in the music industry by being nominated for over 200 awards and winning over more than half of them(List of Awards). In order for Ariana Grande to earn respect in the music industry she had to change her public persona so she would not be categorized under a cheerful, wholesome girl and rather a successful women in the industry.

These three celebrities are just a few examples illustrating the complexity of human beings as brands. In order to remain relevant and in the public eye, celebrities must be careful with which persona they want to share with the world. In some cases like the few celebrities I just mentioned, switching personas is doable, but for others it could possibly end their career.

48 Chapter 5

Conclusion

Celebrities could lose their following if they do not stay relevant with their fan base. This means that they have to pick which parts of their front stage and back stage personas to bring into light on social media.

Brand voice is huge for a celebrity who is constantly being looked at and followed no matter what time of the day it is. In order to maintain the image they want, they need to define their online personalities before society chooses it for them. It is simple to describe tangible objects and assign them human traits. Unfortunately, no humans have only one trait. Although these celebrities strongly lean towards one of the five dimensions, this is their front stage persona that they are portraying. Humans as a whole are more dynamic, they are opinionated and each have their own individual collection of personality traits. Due to celebrities being constantly under a microscope, they tend to hide as much of their private lives as they can in their backstage persona.

Aaker’s framework works for brands because they go in a straightforward path whereas it also works for humans when you separate their front stage and backstage personas.

Social media is constantly changing. The amount of platforms continue to grow and it provides celebrities with many outlets to express themselves online. As new social media platform emerge, celebrities will have to make a decision of whether or not they should be present on those platforms. They also have to pick and choose that way the platform coincides with their personal branding and current online reputation.

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ACADEMIC VITA

TOREY JOSOWITZ

I will be joining Cox Media Group: WPXI-TV as a Digital Campaign Specialist starting February 2021 and continue after graduation

EDUCATION The Pennsylvania State University, Smeal College of Business University Park, PA Major: Bachelor of Science in Marketing Graduation: May 2021 Minor: Digital Media Trends and Analytics

EXPERIENCE Penn State Athletics Marketing and Promotions State College, PA Gameday and Grassroots Intern Jan 2019 – Aug 2020 • Assist the Marketing Department's full-time staff in planning and executing game production and promotions for 3 to 5 games per month • Lead intern for Women's Golf, Fencing, Women's Tennis, Cross Country, and Track, Duties include: being the direct contact between the coaches and marketing staff, organize and create marketing plans and promotions for each home game, and leading team photoshoots for marketing posters • Create branding campaigns for Penn State's 31 Division I athletic programs, such as working on the PINK game for women’s basketball and women's lacrosse to honor breast cancer survivors • Promote athletic events through promotions initiatives on campus and in the community • Selected by the PSU marketing staff to work short term for the second round of the Women's 2019 NCAA Volleyball Tournament

Highmark Health Pittsburgh, PA Events Intern May 2020 – June 2020 • Analyzed how Highmark Health handled the COVID-19 pandemic through their marketing strategies and social media initiatives and provided recommendations on possible improvements • Originally hired as an Events Intern for the summer prior to the pandemic

Walnut Capital Pittsburgh, PA Leasing Intern June 2019 – Aug 2019 • Handled day-to-day office tasks 4 to 5 days of the week, including preparing for showings, making appointments, and any other leasing responsibilities • 1 of 3 staff members that lead tours at The Foundry at 41st for potential prospects on a daily basis • Worked closely with Landlord-Tenant software packages such as Leasing Pad, MailChimp and Rent Café to answer inquiries and manage tenant accounts

LEADERSHIP AND INVOLVEMENT Phi Beta Lambda Co-Ed Professional Business Fraternity University Park, PA Marketing Director Jan 2019 – Sept 2019 • Manage and regularly update the fraternity’s Instagram account with at least 2 posts a week in order to engage with alumni, brothers, and the public (400+ followers) • Developed advertisements with the Rush, Philanthropy, and Fundraising chairs to advertise campus wide events to increase involvement