At age 5, on my first day at school. the headmaster stood up in assembly and proceeded to reel off a number of rules to follow. One of them was not to walk down the grass bank. I wondered why. He never explained. So at the first break, I promptly went out on the school field and started to walk down the grass bank. A teacher saw me do this… Read More »The Rules Still Apply
Companies that ‘invested’ in an ad for this year’s Superbowl were paying $5 million for 30 seconds, that’s over $160,000 per second and then up to an additional 25% was being spent on advertising to promote the advertisement!
This great cartoon from Tom Fishburne at Marketoonist.com sums it all up. Check out his previous Superbowl cartoons too by visiting his website.
The commercials and the half-time show are for many the primary reason they watch the game. Some people even plan whole parties around the ad breaks rather than the game itself.
Image Fast Company Magazine August 1997
Next year will see the 20-year anniversary of the Fast Company magazine article “The Brand Called You” by Tom Peters. This was two years before his book series, which included “Brand You 50” were published. Most recognize the article as the ‘birth’ of personal branding or at the least the first time that the concept of having a personal brand appeared on the business radar. When you Google “Brand Called You” the article still appears at the top of the rankings. Read the article here
Many people still minimize the power of personal branding and some label it as egotistical and ridiculous. The criticism is legitimate towards those who have likened branding yourself to branding a bar of chocolate. In fact, the intention is to show the contrast between a person and a corporation when it comes to branding.
It probably took ten years after that article, for the notion of owning your personal brand to be embraced as an accepted way of managing your career, business, and even life. Celebrity branding has exploded with constant exposure and an unquenchable thirst for more. This leaves many people feeling inadequate unless they too garner the same visibility. Sadly credibility can sometimes take a back seat.
Social media has been both a blessing and curse and can be blamed for some of the hype, expectation, and disdain that personal branding attracts. But fault can also lie at the feet of the ‘gurus’ and experts who tell you to “Fake it until you make it” or encourage you to turn your social media streams into a one-way flow of personally branding me, me, me that should never be turned off.
When it comes to personal branding the one question I always get is
Read More »The One Question I Always Get on Personal Branding
Since the advent of social media, I doubt there have been many events that have garnished as many comments, engagement, and mainstream media column inches as the US Presidential election, and in particular about Donald J. Trump.
I have often cited Trump, the businessman, as an example of a strong personal brand. He often followed the three C’s of branding – Clarity of message, Consistent delivery of that message and Constantly working at getting that message heard and noticed in his business dealings.
Without getting into an intense political debate, it could be argued that he delivered on the latter in his political run, but missed the mark on the clarity and consistency.
There is going to be a lot more said and written about this election, his presidency, as well as the hours spent analyzing why and how he became the 45th President of the United States.
So what were the plus and minus aspects of his campaign from a branding perspective?
All Hallows Eve is the time of the year dedicated to remembering the dead. It seems fitting that on Halloween we reflect on the personal brand lessons from the news last week that Twitter will be closing down their 6-second video app Vine. It may have come as a surprise to many of you, however, the ‘Vine Personal Brand Stars’ that it helped to create have already been moving on… Read More »3 Critical Personal Brand Lessons From the Closing of Vine
Imagine standing at a local networking event and every second that passes, two more new people walked in the door. It would soon get packed!
This is exactly what is happening 24 hours a day on LinkedIn as 7,200 new members join ever hour. As the world’s largest professional network, with over 450 million members, LinkedIn offers a huge global business opportunity.
But can it be useful on a local level and can it help you build new relationships and grow your business or career? Yes!
LinkedIn is business focused unlike Facebook or Twitter where the lines are blurred. On LinkedIn it is understood that you are connecting for business purposes. Around 40% of LinkedIn’s 12 million Canadian members live in Ontario. A simple postcode ‘Advanced Search’ can connect you with people as close as a 15 km radius to your location or target area.
You can also search by industry, company, job title and specific keywords to accurately pinpoint the connections your business needs. It is important for you to be very clear about who you want to connect with and why.
With that in mind, here are my TOP TEN ways to use LinkedIn effectively;
Read More »10 Ways LinkedIn Can Help Build Your Local Business
Time magazine gushingly reported this week that “Gwyneth Paltrow Has a Seriously Extensive LinkedIn Profile”. But on closer examination her profile may not even reach ‘All Star’ status, which is the ideal minimum that you want your profile to be. You can view her profile by clicking here. There are several good things to notice; Well taken headshot, interestingly using black and white which is different. Good use of a custom header… Read More »The Good & Bad About Gwyneth Paltrow’s LinkedIn Profile
With the Olympics, the great thing about living in one country and coming from another is I get to cheer for both, because I have double the chance of celebration. Go Canada, Go Great Britain!
Having worked with a number of former athletes, the Olympics give me the opportunity to witness great triumphs and disappointments that are accompanied by wonderful stories. I appreciate and admire an athlete’s struggles and sacrifices. I am also struck by examples of this year’s younger winners being inspired, even mentored by some of the more established and successful athletes.
Joseph Schooling first met Michael Phelps when he was 13, during the Beijing Olympics when Phelps visited his local swimming club. Eight years later, he beat Phelps in the 100 metre butterfly to win the first ever gold medal for Singapore.
Over the years, the Olympics has become much more of a commercial venture, at least in some aspects. Although host nations seem to be almost guaranteed to lose money, brands like Nike and Under Armour and top athletes usually win. Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt have become huge personal brands, with significant endorsement deals and rewards for winning. Even Joseph Schooling earned $750,000 for his medal.
However, I am sure that most Olympic athletes do not ‘do it’ for the money. The investment in supporting them to get to world-class levels can cost a country’s association way more than the bonus for medaling.
For me, one of the best examples of the win being everything was the sheer surprise and joy on the face of 16 year old Canadian Penny Oleksiak when winning a gold medal. Money was not in that picture.
The Olympic brand and logo does have huge monetary and recognition value and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is almost manic about its control. This is in part to help protect the sponsors and the huge investments they make in wanting to be recognised and associated with the event.
Read More »Achieve Personal Brand Victory with These Olympics Lessons
This past weekend I had the opportunity to speak again at the Discover Your Personal Brand Conference. DYPB 2016 was different from 2014 in a number of ways.
The focus was more toward small business and the caliber of speaker, panels and attendees was awesome. There were many inspiring young Canadians in attendance that really gave me a lift about the future of our country. All held within the back drop of Telus’ state of the art office in downtown Toronto, an environmental LEED building, bursting with technology and balanced with space and light.
The opportunity to attend conferences is always a big investment, even if its local so it was great to get such a rich experience.
After introductions from the motivating conference organizer and founder Bobby Umar and keynotes from the always excellent Mark Bowden and inspiring Real Food for Real Kids founder Lulu Cohen-Farnell the highlight of the first evening for me was the Personal Brand Leadership All Star Panel. They were;
Cameron Gordon, Head of Communications, Twitter – Moderator
Erin Bury, Managing Director at 88 Creative
Jennifer Ettinger, Founder & President at Fit Your Style
Jagmeet Singh, MPP, ONDP Deputy Leader
Bobby Umar, Founder, Raeallan & DYPB
Full bios and more details on the schedule http://www.dypb.ca/schedule/ and other speakers can be found here http://www.dypb.ca/speakers/
Here is a Summary of the questions and panel answers;
Read More »Lessons From Discover Your Personal Brand Conference – The All Star Panel
Firstly Happy Canada Day to all Canadian readers and Happy 4th of July for Monday to all my American readers. A new, unpublished Intel Security survey of 2,000 U.K.-based LinkedIn users found that nearly 24 percent of respondents have connected on LinkedIn with someone they did not know. Moreover, nearly 69 percent of survey-takers said it never even crossed their minds that the people they’ve connected with might be fictional online personas… Read More »Let’s Be Extra Careful Out There!