You’re a human being, and that puts you ahead of brands in some ways. In the end, brands are just companies, and companies can never match human authenticity. In this age of social media, authenticity is becoming evermore important, with trust becoming a currency.
And while the top five brands spend more money on innovation than the top twenty celebrities earn, it’s humans, and not brands, that are the trendsetters.
Yet, there are also things to learn from brands.
What brands, good brands do so well, is being about one thing. Even Virgin, with it’s gazillion subbrands, has a distinctive personality; making a difference in markets saturated with boring brands. And Jeep makes tough cars, Coca Cola is happiness in a bottle, and Subway is fresh.
And that’s the thing. We often tell brands to stand for something, but what do we stand for ourselves? I don’t think diverse is ever a good proposition, neither for a brand or person. Yet there’s people tweeting about advertising and football from one Twitter-account. Only the first interests me, so what do I do? Unfollow that person.
Should we all make a personal logo? Nah. And should our personalities boil down to one proposition? Of course not. But ideally, there should be some recognisable and constant factors that show professionalism in everything you do. If you can go a level or two beyond the usual ‘a friendly person’, go for it.
