What’s your personal brand? I really don’t like the idea of having one.
So if someone asks me ‘what’s your personal brand?’ - trust me it has happened more than once - I answer ‘It depends’ and, more honestly, ‘The question makes me uncomfortable.’
I’ve spent a big chunk of my professional life working on brand development. I like brands. Here’s a useful definition of brand: “A brand is a simplification of choice.” That’s so understandable. And it wraps up lots of things in a smart phrase.
Brands you know and trust make selecting and buying easier and faster. You don’t bother looking at other options. A great brand can become fantastically predictable on a pretty tight range of parameters.
Think of brands you like.
You’ll find you like them for a few attributes in a defined frame. Without mentioning particular brands here are some brand attributes that come to mind when I think of brands I like. Good value, dependable design. I trust the ingredients. It reminds me of my Mum. I know it’ll taste great. I like the traditional packaging - makes me feel nostalgic.
Changing things in brands is fraught with risk as the brand is asking the consumer to experience something different to what they’re used to. What we want from the brand is consistency, certainty, predictability. Even a brand that prides itself on innovation (Apple maybe?) has to be consistently innovative, you want to be certain they’ll come up with something and if they fail in that or release something a bit disappointing the brand image is changed for you. It’s lost something.
I can accept that for products and services. But for me? I don’t want to be squeezed tight into a one size fits all, unchanging or micromanaged brand. I think I’m much more than could be fit into a brand.
I want to respond to who I’m with. Connect with lots of people in lots of ways. Take on things from people I meet. I want to adopt to lots of roles because the reality and joy of life is that I have them. And I like them all. Well mostly.
That genius Theodore Zeldin puts it so brilliantly:
“The idea of a sense of identity was invented by people who wanted the world to be less complicated. The alternative is to be a different person in different circumstances, to make the broadening of one’s sympathies and understanding of others a higher priority than understanding oneself.”
You can read identity for brand. There’s quite a bit of pressure to squeeze ourselves into categories. A lot of effort goes into achieving status through looking as if a desirable category has been achieved.
I much prefer the more fluid approach to life that risks change and accepts that a product brand might manage to stay the same but achieving a brand to define a person........I think we’re all more interesting than that.
Here’s more about Theodore Zeldin. And the quote is from his book An Intimate History of Humanity.
There’s more thinking about understanding who you are and how you explore that through things you choose to do, goals you choose to pursue. It’s in this post based on a letter from Hunter S. Thompson to his friend. In the letter he’s helping his friend think about what he wants to do with his life.