Image from MOLESKINE ® web site www.moleskine.com
A key component of the personal brand process is to ensure that your brand is being reflected in the various ways that people see, hear, feel even sometimes smell your brand. You live your personal brand every day and it should be lived in a way that is genuine to you and reinforces your brand with those you come in to contact with.
This, by any stretch of the imagination, does not all have to be online – far from it. And sometimes the smartphone you carry and laptop you live on, do not have to be the only tools that people see you use.
It could be something like a MOLESKINE ® which is part of an interesting trend that is emerging – the return to the old to communicate your brand in the new world. MOLESKINE ® the product has been around for over 200 years and used by the likes of Picasso, Hemmingway and Van Gogh.
The company themselves, who took over the brand in 1997, have done an exceptional job of realising the appeal of our having something to make notes in, even in a digital world, and is leveraging that connection to produce a highly interactive web site and experience for an audience of brand evangelists, where just the very sight of a MOLESKINE ® triggers both admiration and envy!
What are the items from the old world that you are using to communicate your brand and still have relevance in the 'new age'?
Hi Paul,
Great point. One of my colleagues at work (late 20’s) calls her pocket-sized moleskin her “Amish Blackberry”!
I do think sometimes people can overdo this as well though. I’ve known a few people who make such a production of using their fountain pen, etc. that they just look foolish.
So it’s a matter of striking the right balance.
Steve
I love my Moleskine! No batteries and it always boots.
Steve – a good point about over doing it, we all have to be mindful on this. I did have a client who used a notebook and fountain pen as part of his brand. But the underlying reason was to slow and control the meeting, because it took time to make notes!
Doug – Too funny – might have to tweet that one!