Branding is easy when you follow the example of Death Cigarettes.

BJ created a company called The Enlightened Tobacco Company in 1991, selling a cigarette called “Death Cigarettes”. It was presented in a black package emblazoned with a white skull-and-crossbones logo. Just imagine how this might appeal to the rebels.

His premise was to take a position that none of the other cigarette companies was taking. Great advice – and at the time all the tobacco companies were denying any ill effects of smoking tobacco. The branding in the cigarette business was all about life style – cowboy, sophisticate, artist, debutante – imaginary stuff, and all lies.

So why not be different from the crowd and admit the truth. Come on – smokers today know that tobacco smoking is bad for you. Tell a smoker that cigarettes can kill you and they will tell you, “Hey, it’s my life.”

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So here are the words of ‘branding brilliance’ that resonated with me.

There are two ways you can create a brand – either with oodles of money or creative positioning.

Nike does it with oodles of money.

Death Cigarettes did it with creative positioning as Cunningham explained in his three rules:

1. Take a polarized position.
2. Make enemies.
3. Create tension.

Examine your position. How creative is it? If you have oodles of money like Nike then spend it on your brand. Otherwise, the only way you will build your brand is by creative positioning.

Take a position away from the crowd. Claim the niche that is open for you.

Be bold. Be prepared to disagree with the status quo and make enemies along the way. Pick your market and be willing to annoy others.

Create tension. Make people choose. Create a controversy. Coke vs. Pepsi. Windows against Mac.

Who else can you think of that has created their brand by following these three rules of creative brand positioning?

Harley Davidson jumps to mind immediately. People love them or hate them. That is powerful branding. Remember, branding is about creating powerful emotions.

Are you ready to create your brand?

Are you ready to create your brand with creative positioning? Use these three rules:

1. Take a polarized position.
2. Make enemies.
3. Create tension.

You will need to be bold. You will upset some – mainly your competition and those who never buy from you. Can you live with that?

Have you noticed that the strongest brands have lots of enemies? Love your frends and be prepared for your enemies to hate you. Then enjoy your brand rise.

Lamborghini’s Manfred Fitzgerald discusses brand strategy, corporate identity, and driving demand through a recession. You can watch the full interview now at www.meettheboss.com
Video Rating: 5 / 5

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In today’s online, virtual, and individual age and in the rapidly evolving world of Internet authentic personal branding and social media have begun playing a leading role. To stay ahead of the game, you need to have a strong personal brand and need to know how to use innovative social media to maximum effect. This master class will guide you to become a powerful authentic personal brand and introduce you to the many opportunities offered by social media.

Authentic Personal Branding is about influencing others, by creating a brand identity that associates certain perceptions and feelings with that identity. A brand identity that is in harmony with your dreams, life purpose, values, passion, competencies, uniqueness, genius, specialization, characteristics, and things that you love doing. Personal Branding is the positioning strategy behind the world’s most successful people, like Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Donald Trump, Richard Branson, Barack Obama, and Bill Gates. It’s therefore important to be your own brand and to become the CEO of your life. Everyone has a personal brand but most people are not aware of this and do not manage this strategically, consistently, and effectively. You should take control of your brand and the message it sends and affect how others perceive you.

Nobody can ignore Social Media. Whether you are a student, accountant, car dealer or machining manufacturer, Social Media is having an impact on your personal life and business. Clients want individuals and companies they do business with to be engaged with them. If you are an individual or business that has not started to use Social Media, you will not be successful. Social media marketing involves the distribution of content you have created through all kinds of online channels. This content must be in harmony with your personal brand in order to generate interest in your business and service. You will get more business and attract clients by providing valuable content that links to your site and is easily distributed by readers. It’s a way to build links to your site and create a strong personal and corporate brand identity. The key to effective social media marketing is creating the right kind of content that is strongly related to your personal and corporate brand and making it easy to find. It’s an effective strategy to get your content out there, working for you, and attracting the right people and clients.   ..read further…….http://bit.ly/jt14N    

One of the most important building blocks of creating and cultivating your personal brand is to have credibility in the eyes of your clients and prospective clients. Over the years, I have found that the most common reason that entrepreneurs and small businesspeople are reluctant to shine the spotlight on themselves is their own perceived lack of credibility.

A common misconception is that one must have as many degrees and years of formal education as possible to build credibility. This simply isn’t true. As my business partner Nick Nanton and I point out in our book “Celebrity Branding You!” some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs have had little or no formal education. What they had was an idea and the skills to make that idea valuable to the masses.

In the book, we point out three ways that you can build credibility as a celebrity expert in your field. These three things are just a few of the things you can do to showcase your knowledge and personality – and strengthen your personal branding strategy.

Write A Book

On the surface, this seems like an overwhelming task for most people, but when you break it down, writing a book related to your specific area of expertise is really one of the most effective ways to build your personal brand and increase your credibility in your field.

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Providing your customers and others within your field a tangible, lasting imprint of your knowledge is a great way to become a reference to others when looking for information about your field of expertise. If you know you’re stuff (and I assume you do!) then write it down for others to see what you have to offer.

If sitting down to write a book seems daunting, then start with special reports, blogs and articles on your website. After a while, you’ll see that you have many pieces to the puzzle already in place. Tie it all together, and you’ve got yourself a book!

Testimonials

I’ve always said that there’s nothing better than a great testimonial from a client to build your personal brand. It’s one thing to tell everyone that you will do this for them and do that for them – but when you can point to others who have come to you for a service and have been more than satisfied, your credibility is instantly increased. Not only have you proven that you will do what you say you’ll do for someone, but that your service is valuable enough for someone to recommend you.

Building a database of testimonials is also fairly simple to do. If you are providing a quality product, then your customers will, in most cases, be more than willing to give you a testimonial if you ask. Keep a list of quotes from your clients on your website or newsletter for others to easily access. I suggest using video and audio testimonials when possible, especially for your website. These testimonials help create a personal connection between your current clients and your prospective clients.

Publish A Newsletter

Publishing a weekly or monthly newsletter or e-zine (an online version) is a great way to stay connected with your client base and reinforce your personal brand with them. A successful personal branding strategy allows your customers to stay involved with you on a regular basis – much like a friend. Whether they need your services right away or in several months, keeping you and your brand in their mind is key to having repeat business.

If possible, I suggest sending a monthly e-zine and a printed version of your newsletter. People tend to process information differently. Some respond better to a something tangible in their hands, while others prefer to do everything online. Cover your bases!

These are just a few ways to help build your personal brand and credibility in your field of expertise. Try to engage your clients as much as possible. Show them why you should be their first choice when they need your services – and then deliver!

Much has been written about building a winning brand and about the importance of brand and branding in general. In my view successful branding is the culmination of a 2 – step process which is as follows:

1. Ask: What do we want to be remembered for?

2. Act always and consistently to create those memories in people’s minds.

So that every time they think of what you provide, they have only one name that they can recall and that is yours. Like all truly powerful ideas, it is very simple. The key is in execution; passionately, seamlessly and consistently.

In my view, if you are competing against anyone, i.e. if your customers or potential customers are even considering your competitors as potential fulfillers of their need, then you have failed. In the words of Sun Tzu, ‘The best general is the one who wins without fighting.’ And that is the hallmark of successful branding – that you leverage yourself out of the competition.

So how can you do that?

1. Asking: What do we want to be remembered for?

It is essential to ask this question and the answer lies in another question: What am I most passionate about? We can only be remembered for what we do best and we can only do best what we are most passionate about. So ask, ‘What am I most passionate about? What do I truly want from life? What am I willing to do anything to achieve? What do I get the most satisfaction from?’ Make up your own questions and answer them and you will arrive at that which you are most passionate about. If you always do what you are passionate about you will become known for it and people will remember you for it. So identify that passion.

2. Act always and consistently to create those memories in people’s minds.

If there’s one word which is critical in this statement it is the word ‘consistently’. It is regularity that creates dependability. People must become used to expecting the same standard of excellence when they come to you for whatever it is that you provide. Consistent Excellence. Flashes in the pan are good to create awareness but if the pan doesn’t flash every time, then credibility gets damaged very quickly.

When you do this – produce excellence and do it consistently and regularly then dependability ensues and brand is created. Brand is not built by you but by your clients who tell others and become your ambassadors to the world. One referral by a satisfied client is worth a million bucks of advertising. I am not against advertising and PR but want to emphasize that one must keep it in perspective and not imagine that it is some kind of magic wand that once waved will wipe out all the bad taste of indifferent product and service quality. It won’t. On the other hand the PR will come across as an exercise in deception and destroy credibility even more.

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Many branding ‘experts’ talk almost exclusively about ‘customer perception’ and the ‘mind of the customer’ as if they can read minds. They talk about how to ‘influence the customer’ to think this way or that as if the customer is a puppet in your control who can be influenced independently of your actions and what you provide. Their ‘campaigns’ are almost exclusively about logo design, ad copy, tag lines and color combinations. They don’t talk about product quality, delivery efficiency, service excellence or follow up. The result is that ‘branding exercises’ are all about advertising and PR and not about creating sustainable quality. This is a very big mistake because the damage to the brand which results from the eventual and inevitable disappointment that the customer feels when the PR mask is off, is something that can’t be measured and seldom corrected.

So what must one do?

Focus on ‘Moments of Truth’ and ensure that these are defined, designed to create the impression you want the customer to take away and monitored to ensure that every single time, the customer has the exact same experience.

What is a ‘Moment of Truth’?

In the words of Jan Carlson, the CEO of Scandinavian Airlines, who first used the term in this context, ‘A Moment of Truth is that moment when a customer or a potential customer, comes into contact with any aspect of your business and has an opportunity to form an opinion.’

I have underlined the key phrases in this definition to highlight their importance. Who is a ‘customer or a potential customer’? In my opinion it is anyone in the world. Anyone who meets you, speaks to you on the phone, logs onto your website, reads your brochure, billboard or any of your literature or contacts you in any way at all must go away with the most positive impression possible about who you are and what you do. This must happen even if the person decides that you are not the person he/she needs to fulfill their need at that time. They must still feel that you are the best thing that happened to them.

Moments of Truth are defining moments but are for the most part handled either mechanically (websites, answering machines and so on) or by the least paid, least trained employees (telephone operators, security guards, receptionists) with predictable results. I am not suggesting that the CEO must man the phone or stand at the gate (though having said it, is not a bad idea at all to do once in a while) but must know what anyone who calls his company or comes to meet anyone experiences. Most CEOs and managers when I get them to call their company anonymously are unpleasantly surprised at what happens. Most Moments of Truth in most organizations go unnoticed and uncommented upon except by customers, which is a very dangerous situation to be in.

The key to brand building is to ask, ‘What do we want our customers to feel when they think of us?’ Then talk to them and ask what they do feel and bridge the gap. This VOC (Voice of Customer) is the most valuable tool for brand building that you can imagine. It is a thermometer to gauge the warmth the customer feels towards your organization – the warmth of love and good feeling or the warmth of irritation and anger. Organizations that listen to customers regularly (by this I mean actually speak face-to-face not run anonymous surveys) have their finger on their pulse and are able to leverage that knowledge. They build relationships that result in customer loyalty and give them an insight into what their customers want. Apple’s iPod and iPad were the result of listening to customers and the resultant sale success is an indication of how well they know their market. Singapore Airlines advertising is supported by in-flight service that even other airlines talk about. BMW’s advertising is supported by unmatched engineering to produce a benchmark, not merely a car. Brand building therefore in my view is to listen to the customer, build a close relationship with him/her and deliver a quality of service that leaves them spellbound. Advertising and PR then is merely to inform them about new products and services.

Mirza Yawar Baig

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