Personal branding & brand purpose…more to come
July 11, 2008
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Yesterday, I had the pleasure of sitting in on two inspirational presentations at P&G. Hopefully, I will get to tell you much more about these presentations over the next couple of days. To get you ready for what is coming, I will set the stage for you below…
1st UP: Lessons in Personal Branding from a P&G VP…
As I wrote in P&G wins (gasp) advertiser of the year and laughs, P&G has been characterized by some in the advertising world as being somewhat “dry & data focused” in the past…however, that perception is changing. Markus Strobel, an outspoken Prestige Products VP, embodies another “perception smasher” at P&G (Side note: if you make VP, you are in about the top 1% of all employees at P&G) . Markus is not afraid to “buck” the mainstream corp. trend. Indeed, if you meet him in the hallway, he may not be dressed in the standard executive ”business casual” fare. Markus also has a great deal of enthusiasm and passion for what he does…and he definitely has a well-defined personal brand internally. In addition, Markus is a blog fan and in touch with “new marketing.”
2nd UP: Nick Nyhan from Dynamic Logic, a Millward Brown company
Nick Nyhan from Dynamic Logic also delivered a very inspirational presentation today…a good part of his presentation (to my delight) was centered around Brand Purpose/Ideals and how important it is for brands to communicate inspirational “reasons for their existence”. What I liked about Nick’s presentation was that he delivered more than your normal “big crowd buzz-word-fluff”. Indeed, Nick had the courage to throw out a few tangible ideas around brand purpose…and these ideas related directly related to our category.
More to come!
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6 Comments
I’ve been thinking about personal branding lately. The two examples you cite here are related. Don’t you think? For example, you’ve been able to embody both of them. 1) When I think about cause marketing and energy your name pops into my head. 2) Your brand has an inspirational reason for its existence. We need to think about green causes and corporate sustainability if we want to leave our children with bright futures. Awesome post. Although, this presents an interesting challenge to people like me in the gaming industry. What is the reason for games to exist? How are games changing the world?
Hey Ryan….if you get your hand on these presentations, I would love to see. The concept of “Personal Branding” is something I am thinking about every day as we start blogging more and more. It is a challenge in balance for sure. Great thoughts as usual!
Good thing Nick only spoke for 30 min becuase he gets really boring after that…thank you Ryan for the kind words. I am happy to keep discussing ideas here. Thanks for the ongoing forum. – Nick
Thanks for your interesting arlicle, Ryan. As a brand management alum of the company (I worked in the U.S., in Europe, and in Asia for P&G), I couldn’t agree more! In fact, I combined my passion for brands along with my certification in executive coaching to write a book on personal branding that was just released this year. It uses the same brand-building concepts that P&G embraces. The book is called How YOU(tm) are like Shampoo: The breakthrough Personal Branding System based on big-brand marketing methods to help you earn more, do more, and be more at work. It’s actually a personal branding “system” with three steps to it – define your brand, communicate your brand, avoid damaging you brand. If you and your readers are interested, check out: http://www.HowYOUAreLikeShampoo.com. All the best to you – Brenda
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[...] I wrote a couple of days ago here, I had the opportunity to see Markus Strobel (P&G Prestige Products VP) speak on the topic of [...]
[...] the CEO of Dynamic Logic, A Millward Brown Company, gave an inspirational presentation at P&G a few weeks ago. Recently, I asked him if he could provide a few of his thoughts to m-cause readers. In the [...]