With an involuntary guest appearance from Chris Brogan (thanks Chris!)
In Monday’s post, order I critiqued the term “Personal Branding” which generated a fairly lively discussion – including input from the patron saint of “Personal Brand Experts” Dan Schawbel. But it got me thinking about some basic terminology I use all the time – in particular the difference between “Identity” (Andrew Mueller called me out on this one) “Branding” (David Sandusky thinks we should abandon the term), about it and “Brand” (Rob Frankel doesn’t think this word ever belongs with “personal”).
Then I got to thinking about how these things could be expressed using the Twitter universe as a metaphor.
Why Chris Brogan? Well, ampoule duh…
Originally, I was going to use my own Twitter account as an example, but who am I kidding? There just aren’t enough people out there talking about me to make my own little corner of the Twittiverse a very good example.
So who could I use that has great Twitter karma, a well-known identity, is widely discussed, re-tweeted faithfully, and generally respected as a decent fellow? Why, social media rock star and überblogger Chris Brogan of course. And if you don’t know who he is, immediately check out his blog Chrisbrogan.com, his Twitter account, and his latest book Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust
It ain’t perfect, but I’m looking for help here
I know that it’s not the perfect metaphor, particularly since in corporate branding terminology, “identity” means name+logo+design standards – all of which overlap with the “branding” category above. But it’s working for me for now.
How about you? Is there a way I can make this stronger?
I think you meant corporate marketing terminology 😉
“particularly since in corporate branding terminology, “identity” means name+logo+design standards”
And why I say band “branding”.
Nope. I actually meant “branding”. You’ve convinced me to be careful about how I use the verb, but I’m still going to keep using it. The actions of building / managing / sustaining a brand are all part of making a “brand” work – otherwise I’d be out of a job -but as I’ve tried to point out, it isn’t the most important part.
Agree about Identity
Agree about Branding
Chris’s blog is the brand. Tweets are part of the branding process.
All above = Chris’s Personal Brand
I think of brand first as a noun. To me brand is your name, what your name stands for and the associations people make with your name when they see or hear your name. This can apply to people or organizations. I believe branding is the process of aligning your internal culture with your external reputation.
Absolutely. Well said Rex. That’s what I was trying to capture clumsily with the graphic. Brand as the noun that sums up the sum total of all the associations / expectations / conversations people have with or about your product. Branding is the alignment.
A fascinating take on a great metaphor.
If I may suggest this form of brand, branding and identity interpretation:
BRAND = “executable” REPUTATION
(One that you can take action on and live by)
If the BRAND is not executable then you cannot live by it or deliver it as a promise.
BRANDING = the verb or set actions all related to living that BRAND. How you walk, talk, act, promote etc…
IDENTITY = the necessary tools, standards to adhere to the BRAND
in agreement with what Dennis and David are saying
What is the Executable Reputation for Chris Brogan? A classic example of an executable reputation is BMW’s ULTIMATE DRIVING EXPERIENCE. Every day their staff, sales and customers know what they are buying, building and driving – the ultimate.
That is an executable reputation because as a staff member at BMW I know that I go to work to build the ultimate – whether I am on the assembly line or painting the car.
The BRANDING they do are short films, campaigns, James Bond product placements that associate the car to the ultimate secret agent.
The IDENTITY are their design standards, the way their cars are designed (Product / Brand Language), the way their showrooms look and feel.
Without getting into a longer discourse, I hope this helps…
Phew! That’s a whole blog post of your own Harish. It does help indeed. And you’ve expanded my thoughts in directions I can only let speak for themselves.
I actually think your break down is pretty simple. Although for a person or entity the identity is not the actually person or place but their make up of their mission, vision and values. This is their identity that drives brand and branding efforts and allows them to articulate to the marketplace what they are about and create the actions around that accordingly.
I think values are definitely part of identity, but I think an individual or company or product defines their mission and vision as the first step of reaching out through branding.
Effective branding activities have to be based on the values and non-negotiable beliefs built into their identity. But Vision and Mission are about projecting identity to other humans, and therefore need to be more flexible.