I have been reading Dan Schawbel's Personal Branding Blog for sometime.
http://personalbrandingblog.com/ it raises very thought provoking questions.
To me, a brand is subjective. It's what I think, feel, know about you and what I think you stand for -- not really what you think you stand for, but
what I think you stand for, so I decide, it's up to me as a consumer.
If it's about a politician, it would not be necessarily what he said, but what I thought he said. It's the perception, gut feeling and subjective feeling about something or someone.
But here is the thing though... a strong brand is while leading, it is still evolving, living, and growing. It means it's imperfect, makes mistakes, but at least worth mentioning.
On the other hand, a weak brand is not worth mentioning. Buick for example, is a weak brand to me. Buick rarely gets criticized because they're boring and hardly worth discussing. They don't lead, grow and barely evolving. That's a weak brand.
So if there is a flaw displayed, it is okay because it means someone is noticing you. Someone thinks of you enough to realize there is a flaw. If it's an absolutely boring brand, nobody will say anything even if there is an obvious flaw.
If someone's strategy is lie low and hope nobody notices him, nobody will notice him. He is not adding value, and with enough training and technology, that person or organization can easily be replaced.
It used to be okay to play by those rules -- that is to lie low, play safe, don't cause noise and hopefully will notice you but your job is safe. But that's no longer the case today, people have way too many choices and very little time.
It's better to develop a special skill so that we can use it to laser focus on a single task, instead of multi-tasking many jobs although multi-tasking is what the society demands. I believe what we need is exactly the opposite today. What we need is someone or some organization who are the only brand capable of doing what they're doing.
And if others perceive you as the only viable option (choice), people will know what you stand for. This way, we stand for something or nothing.
