Sara Jacobovici

7 years ago · 2 min. reading time · ~10 ·

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Brand to Personal Branding

Brand to Personal Branding


666ddeca.jpgImage credit: gourmay.net


We made an interesting choice when we decided to use the word brand in our professional identity and call it a personal brand. The problem is that “personal brand” is an oxymoron; there is nothing personal about a brand. If you want to market yourself as a business person versus a product, then you don’t brand yourself, you identify yourself.

It’s not a matter of semantics. Marketing depends on the words we use to communicate our product. The moment we attach a word to the product, our clients and consumers identify the word with the product. So why have people think of you as a product with a personality; because that’s what the words personal brand come to mean.

Brand is defined as: 1. “A type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name.” 2. “An identifying mark burned on livestock with a branding iron.”

Personal branding is defined as “the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. ... Personal branding is essentially the ongoing process of establishing a prescribed image or impression in the mind of others about an individual, group, or organization.”

What were we thinking? Do we want to objectify ourselves in the eyes of our customers/clients or prospective employers? Do we want to “burn” our brand in the eyes of our customers/clients or prospective employers?

In a conversation, I had with a colleague about this, I was told, “Come on, Sara. Don’t be naïve. Personal branding is the means by which people remember you. Perhaps you may not see yourself as a brand, but the truth is that we all are.”

I’m not naïve and I am not a brand. I am a human being in human services. If I have a product to sell, it is still a product designed by a person to be consumed by people. And because I depend on clients/consumers to become interested in my services and products, I appeal to them as humans with identities, needs and interests, as I am myself.

My challenge is how to communicate my identity to others; individuals, companies or organizations. I do that by appropriately putting a human face on who I am and a profile that includes every aspect of my identity, both personal and professional.

Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art. -  Andy Warhol

It is an art form to create your identity, a combination of skills, knowledge and creativity. In his post, Different networks, different applications, Javier 🐝 beBee wrote: “beBee is the only platform that encourage you to use both personal and professional interests through hives. You are a whole person! - you are an amazing person much more than what's on your resume.”

This is one step to putting the human back into the identity.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell. - Confucius

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Comments

CityVP Manjit

6 years ago #8

Personal brand is a choice but it is not promoted as a choice but as a necessity. What it actually does is increase the noise on how to market, and the more one focuses upon it, the more the conversation becomes flooded with personal brand strategies and from there whole polemics about marketing. At a certain point this becomes the main subject rather than the what branding is supposed to have made memorable. Ultimately this leads to a massive personal branding push and anyone who knows that brand push = brand dilution, and brand dilution defeats the whole purpose of personal branding to begin with. Brand dilution is a problem because it is waste - there is no guarantee that a person stands out, if everyone is doing the same thing - and of course when everyone is doing the same thing, the person who stands out - and that is what creates homogeneity in our world. Next week I am writing a story about two young people who have adopted personal brand strategies. One in their business and social life and the other as a student of personal branding. In writing them I am going to keep an open mind and in so doing, it will be interesting if it changes certain views I have about personal brand, especially if the people who are then made memorable are those that I would never actually want to socialize with. Brand does have a purpose and it is where the few stand out from the rest. If everybody is a brand then what is the actual value of that brand, it becomes a nonsense statement - one which replaces the word human being with personal brand. We are still suffering from the HR profession turning human being into both "human capital" and "human resources".

Sara Jacobovici

6 years ago #7

Great to hear from you Randall Burns's article right after I posted mine. That synchronicity put a smile on my face.

Sara Jacobovici

6 years ago #6

#22
Well, first, you look great for your age! Now about the quote, I am glad that it proved true. Thanks for sharing Claire L \ud83d\udc1d Cardwell.

Sara Jacobovici

7 years ago #5

#15
Thanks for your contribution Harvey Lloyd. "We can have similar brands but not similar identities." Well said.

Sara Jacobovici

7 years ago #4

#12
So did my dad Bill Stankiewicz, \ud83d\udc1d Brand Ambassador. He made the most delicious meals with Spam when I was a kid. I just wanted to put an image up that would starkly separate us from a product and because brands are often identified with "beef".

Sara Jacobovici

7 years ago #3

#10
Thanks Ali Anani for your comment and for sharing your thoughts. I value your perspective.

Sara Jacobovici

7 years ago #2

#7
Well thank goodness John Vaughan, we have so many options to choose from. I don't need to invest who or what to be critical of, I just invest my time in making the best choice for myself. Wishing you all the best!

Sara Jacobovici

7 years ago #1

#4
Thanks for the comment John Vaughan just posted on branding today as well. Good discussion.

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