Making the Most Out of Marketing: Personal and Celebrity Branding

Personal Branding and Celebrity Branding

Branding is the use of a distinct design, symbol, term or name as an identity to set a product apart from the rest. An individual's personal brand represents what they stand for, and what others seek them out for because of their actions, abilities and values. Personal branding, therefore, involves influencing the perceptions that others hold about you, whereas positive personal branding involves creating opportunities out of such perceptions. Product branding, on the other hand, is about giving identity to a product, rather than to an individual's values and abilities. Moreover, unlike product branding, whose goal is to make a product famous within the target market, personal branding seeks to wield influence in one's profession because influence not only creates wealth, but also changes minds. A third significant difference between the two is that a product brand has to be created and it is therefore possible to have an unbranded product in the market. The same is, however, not the case with personal branding; a personal brand has a lot to do with how people interact on a daily basis, which is to say that everyone possesses the same. A name is the simplest example of a personal brand.

Celebrity branding is, more or less, a form of personal branding, in which case a celebrity uses their societal stature, popularity, and personality to voice and certify a brand. The successful collaboration between Michael Jordan (the best basketball player of all time) and Nike offers a perfect example of celebrity branding. As has been mentioned elsewhere in this text, everyone, celebrity or not, possesses a personal brand - but not everyone has a celebrity brand. Owing to this fact, people use a celebrity's personal brand to market either themselves or their products. This gives rise to the second distinguishing factor; celebrity branding is driven by the pursuance of fame, rather than influence, which explains why it is mainly used for product marketing.

The one thing that is common to the three types of branding above is the fact that branding influences results. Positive (effective) branding yields positive outcomes; and a brand is only positive if it is properly contemplated and developed in a manner that makes it stand out among the many competing alternatives. Standing out is based upon a brand's ability to evoke three fundamental perceptions in the target market; difference, superiority, and authenticity.

Difference: be seen as original, rather than as a mere follower, as the latter makes it extremely difficult to capture market share.

Superiority: be seen as the best in its field, in terms of technology, service delivery, to name but a few, because being seen as a market leader helps one gain the confidence of those people who may not know them personally.

Authenticity: based on the truth because, just like a hound detects a fox's presence, consumers today can detect shallow hype, mainly because of the large degree of exposure brought about by the internet.

A personal brand such as 'Purveyor of the Ultimate American Lifestyle' perfectly fits a business dealing in an array of unique and classy household equipment in America because it gives a feel of the significant extent to which the American culture attaches the concept of societal class.