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How different do you want to be Defining your personal brand

Written by: Andrea O'Neill

Article Overview: This question has been debated for years in corporate and product marketing circles. Should a product or business segment have its own unique and independent brand, or should it be a subset extension of the larger corporate or market segment brand? To veteran marketers the former is called the P&G model, referring to Proctor & Gamble’s long standing policy of uniquely individual product brands. The latter is demonstrated in many business models and often referred to as “integrated branding”. Both have their pros and cons, and for the individual developing their personal brand, both models should be considered.

How different do you want to be Defining your personal brand

This question has been debated for years in corporate and product marketing circles. Should a product or business segment have its own unique and independent brand, or should it be a subset extension of the larger corporate or market segment brand? To veteran marketers the former is called the P&G model, referring to Proctor & Gamble’s long standing policy of uniquely individual product brands. The latter is demonstrated in many business models and often referred to as “integrated branding”. Both have their pros and cons, and for the individual developing their personal brand, both models should be considered.
The P&G model consists of a broad corporate theme, with independently driven brands under the parent company. In fact, their products are so diverse that the average consumer has no idea that they are owned by the parent company. Their products include: Aussie® hair care, Tide®, Cheer®, Tampax®, Iams® pet products, Eukanuba® pet products, Crest®, Cover Girl®, Downy®, Dreft, ® Charmin®, Folgers®, Gain®, Gleem®, Herbal Essences®, and many many more. For a complete list you can check out their brand lines at http://www.pg.com/products/pg_products.jhtml. These products all have their own identity, color palettes, slogans, and individual marketing campaigns. The one thing they do have in common is a general market audience. In fact, the products are often competing products. There are several different laundry detergents, feminine products, hair care lines, and pet products.
Why would they spend so much time and effort marketing different products to the same audience??? The answer is to capture more of that audience as a whole. It costs them very little to modify a product slightly, or to modify the marketing of similar products slightly, and to see which performs better. It also means that they give the audience choices without losing any of that audience to a competitor.
Can you see places in your business or your career where this might apply to your own marketing strategy? Can you modify your product line slightly to gain more of your market segment? Can you offer choices to your market without diluting your individual offerings? Can you define the overall needs of your target audience and create offerings to meet those needs?
Now, what about the drawbacks to this form of marketing strategy? Proctor & Gamble is a multi-billion dollar industry that leverages their efforts on an economy of scale. For the smaller or independent professional, this is often simply not a viable option. The energy and resources required to drive one brand are significant. When you start to develop more than one, the financial and physical resources multiply quickly. Proctor & Gamble has the resources to support all of their brands successfully. If you do not, you need to consider consolidation. It is better to develop a strong solid brand foundation than to create multiple weak sub-branded products or services.
Creating a larger brand image for yourself is often simpler, and more powerful for the independent professional. Consider Nike. From shoes and clothing, to athletic equipment, their overall brand is consistent. Their brand message has not changed in years: “Just Do It.” And the strength of their image allows them to readily introduce new products into the market with an immediate market response and expectation of brand alignment.
This model is much simpler to manage and contains consistent reinforcement to the target market. Nike’s signature “swoosh” is a quickly identifiable symbol, and all products donning the swoosh are instantly recognized as part of the Nike line.
This same concept can apply to individuals developing their own brand within a corporation or an industry. Think about the benefits you have in aligning yourself with the existing brand of your parent company or industry. Are you a member of professional organizations? By depicting the member logo on your business card or website, you instantly gain the brand credibility of the organization. Be careful, however; this works in reverse as well. If the organization gets bad press, you can be affected by it too.
Inversely, can you strengthen you own market position by diversifying from the norm of a parent company or market brand. You can significantly create a name for yourself by setting yourself apart from the rest in your market. You can be the fitness expert, that understands the value of occasional junk food, the financial advisor who is unafraid to share the stories of personal financial failure in the past, or any other unusual segmentation that sets you apart from the rest.
There are pros and cons to embracing a larger unified brand, and pros and cons to developing individual brand elements. The key to success is accurately evaluating what you can handle, how much it will take to do it well, and the net result desired within your market audience. If you allow yourself the strategic time to project your options, the correct path will become clear. The trick is that many individuals and many businesses do not take the time to consider these paths fully. Research your competition, research your buying audience, and future map your vision for your business. It will be the best investment you can make in your brand strategy.

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Related Forum Posts
The Flaw In Personal Branding...? - To what extent do you use personal branding to build your business and your business image? To build an effective personal brand, the image you convey needs to be authentic, not phoney ... so to what extent do you, or would you, allow your personal flaws to be part of your personal brand image?? We could be talking about the physical side, including physical condition and fashion, or it could be in the area of personal behaviour and characteristics or habits, or it could be in the area of lifestyle... Don't you think it might be better to have a flaw or two on display, to appear more human, and perhaps therefore more like someone people could do business with? Or is there a flaw in the whole idea of personal branding. Shouldn't we just concentrate on branding our products??
Re: The Flaw In Personal Branding...? - The original post in this thread got my mind spinning in so many different directions. Typically when we think of branding we think of large company branding. It's interesting how many large companies have taken seemingly made up words and created a brand around those words. For example, what does the word "kleenex" mean? When you hear or read that word you automatically think of a facial tissue. How about the word "Google"? Google has come to mean an internet search engine. Having used those two examples though it leads me to what I think is most important about branding whether you are an individual, small business, or conglomerate. The purpose of your brand is to create a unique space or position in the marketplace that you and you alone own. In many cases people create a personal brand through there persona. Frank Kern is the good old boy strikes it big in internet marketing persona. Zig Ziglar is the good boy does good motivational speaker persona. When you hear there names you immediately associate that name with there unique space in the market. So coming back to personal branding and whether you should allow your personal flaws to show I would say you absolutely must because that's who you are and you can't fake you. Whether people like you or don't like you they have to know exactly who they are liking or disliking. Bottom line when it comes to branding or personal branding I think the critical question is... Does your brand create a unique place in the world that people are already looking for?
Re: CAPTION CONTEST: Create a caption for this photo! Whoever ge - GT - you can create a page for your business without having to share personal information. I keep my personal Facebook account and my business page quite separate. I never really got into Facebook until they allowed for you to separate your personal life from your brand.
Re: Twitter vs Facebook - Thanks Terri for the information. Some known people like Anthony Robbins, Jack Canfield has lot of followers. Does the personal brand matters to get massive followers? Robert.
Profit or interest driven? - So what percentage would your choice in franchise to open be profit driven v.s. your own personal interests/love for the brand? e.g. 50-50, 70-30...? From the responses in this post thus far, it would seem that many people's "dream" franchises are simply licenses to print money.


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