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May 4, 2007
How Is Your Personal Brand Name Today?
Olivier Blanchard, The Brand Builder, wrote an interesting post yesterday, “How is your brand doing?” Blanchard is a branding expert and he's referring to your personal brand, posing a series of provocative brand evaluation questions.
To be clear, though, a brand is not a product name (our specialty), tagline, or even a logo. A brand is a promise that lives inside the mind of the consumer. Consumers own brands, not companies. Seems counterintuitive, but it's true.
And your job, in Blanchard's words, is to “understand who you are, what you do... and to clarify it.” As a naming company, we face this challenge every day... developing product names that clearly express an identity.
Here are some other discussions of personal branding that I've found insightful:
- Build Your Personal Brand, by Bud Bilanich wisely notes that "you don’t want to be a vanilla brand that appeals to everyone. You want to be a Cherry Garcia brand - something that is uniquely you."
- You’re brand one?, by Raj Dash has some thoughts on A-list bloggers building their online brands, like Seth Godin and Jason Calacanis, for example.
- The Personal Branding Blog, by Dan Schwabel, discusses, at an impressive depth, how the many principles of marketing can be applied to an individual and thereby establishing a personal brand, differentiating yourself from the competition and increasing your brand recognition.
I think it goes without saying, though, that a great brand name won't improve a bad product or service. A great name can only be appended to a great brand.
And in the case of personal branding, it’s brand you.
Technorati Tags: Personal Branding, Brand Builder, Branding
Posted by William Lozito at May 4, 2007 8:07 AM
Posted to Branding
| Naming
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Great post! Thanks for the props. ;)