I’ve never really bought into the idea of being your own brand. If you happen to be a celebrity, it’s a logical business brand
. But for the rest of us it seems a little pretentious, like we’re packaging ourselves and creating a more marketable image and identity; for whom, our friends and coworkers at the office? I tend to think other folks don’t view us as brands, they view us as people.
The celebrity elite is another story, as personal branding is the key to success with those icons in sports and entertainment whose lives we follow on television, gossip magazines and Twitter. After all, inquiring minds want to know. Many are a flash in the pan and most are not able to sustain for any length of time. Personal brands are far more perishable than product or company brands, susceptible to the short attention span of a fickle consumer public, or to self-destruction. Even major brands like Martha Stewart can be taken down by a single incident or breach of trust. We’ll see how Tiger does now that his brand has strayed off the fairway.
