1 Introduction”To brand something i

1 Introduction

”To brand something is to make it more valuable. Branding adds value. That has always been the point of branding, and it is more true than ever whether you are branding a product, service, company, yourself, an event or your art.” (Gad, 2000, p21).

In the thesis chapter we will introduce you to the subject of personal branding. Chapter 1 includes the background, problem and purpose. In the end we have included delimitations, definitions and also a disposition for the reader to get an overview of the thesis.


1.1 Background

According to Melin (1999) the first kind of branding that we know of was the branding of cattle. This type of branding is shown on pictures in caves in Europe and on walls in Egypt that originates from the prehistoric times. During the 1300s to 1500s, the international trades increased rapidly. This gave birth to many different forms of branding (Melin, 1999). During the Middle Ages, people also started to use the word “brand”, and they used three types of signs of their products: craftsman - for identification, guild - a mark that promised a certain level of quality, and city signs - origin of the product (Riezebos, 2003). In the second half of the 20:th century, the modern form of a brand arose for the first time (Melin, 1999).

Melin (1999) claims that many of the brands that are well-known today, originates from the
1950s and 1960s. This may be explained by the rapid growth of the markets after the two world wars. According to Riezebos (2003) during the 1980s managers and marketing people started to realise the value that a brand could have for a company.

Today the importance of branding is greater than ever before. This is not at least shown when looking at the organisation Interbrand, who each year ranks the most valuable brands. At the top-three you can find Coca Cola at first place with a brand worth $67 525 millions, Microsoft at second place with a brand value of $59 941 millions and IBM at third place with a brand value of $53 376 millions (Interbrand, retrieved 2005-09-25).

Today, the competition about customers is greater than before and companies need something more than just the bare product and its quality to attract people. A brand can create certain associations for customers and this can have a major impact on the purchasing decision (Riezebos, 2003).

During the last ten years, a new area of branding has emerged - The branding of people. People have always had a personal brand, but they have not been aware of it until recently when the concept was ‘developed’ (Werner Runebjörk, 2004). The industry around the personal branding has grown rapidly and today many people hire personal shoppers, personal trainers and image consultants to make their own brand stronger and more attractive.

Maria Wetterstrand and Shan Atci are two examples of Swedish celebrities with strong personal brands. They are strong because they are not just well-known among their family and friends but also to a huge amount of people. Most people will get associations immediately when they hear one of those names. These associations might be good or bad, desirable or non-desirable.

Introduction


According to Werner Runebjörk (2004) everything that you say and do and how you act in different situations all contributes to develop your personal brand. Therefore a personal brand should be based on your own true values, and not on values that you want to stand for and want to be associated with. All people are born with a personal brand, it is the sum of our behaviours, actions, and how the market perceives us and our level of integrity. As we develop as people, we can choose to “go with the flow” or we can develop a strategic personal brand (Post, 2005).


1.2 Problem

Today we can see a new trend in the area of branding – the branding of people. One of the reasons for the recently rapid growth in this area can be the need for being different – differentiation in branding strategy. We have seen this development in the history of product branding and now the branding of people seems to face the same development.

According to Werner Runebjörk (2004) there exist two different kinds of personal brands. The first one is to market products with help of your personal brand. The other aspect is to market ideas, organizations and competences. The first aspect is also called celebrity endorsements. If a famous person appears in a fancy commercial or advertisement, people tend to transfer the image of the celebrity onto the product or service that the company wants to sell (Pringle, 2004). Many famous athletes and singers make millions of dollars each year by simply being visible with a particular brand/product today. For example the soccer player David Beckham earns 200 million SEK each year - only on commercials for different products. Swedes that makes a lot of money this way are for instance Fredrik Ljungberg, who is also a soccer player, with 19,5 million SEK and the rider Malin Bayard with 1,5 million SEK per year (Karlsson, retrieved 2005-10-24). The fact that companies today are willing to pay these huge amounts of money just to get one person to demonstrate their products shows how important this field has become. However, this area will not be examined in this report since this area has been examined many times before. Instead we will focus on the second aspect on personal branding. This means that a person can use those beliefs and values that he or she is associated to, to market an idea, an organisation or a competence.

According to Gad (2000) brands only exists in peoples’ minds and they cannot be controlled. The same can be applied to personal brands. Gad (2000) further claims that one can develop a brand, but not control which associations’ that people will have about it. Is this true? Can those associations not be determined to some extent by the brand owner?

Each person has a brand but the strength of them differs from person to person. Some people have managed very well to develop and maintain a strong and interesting brand. Other succeeds to strengthen them, but is unable to maintain them strong (one example of this is people from reality shows). Some persons are not even aware of the fact that they have a personal brand, but still they seem to do everything right to develop and maintain it. What is the determinant factor(s) of who is going to succeed with developing a strong personal brand and who is not?


1.3 Purpose

The purpose of this thesis is to describe how a strong personal brand is developed and how it is sustained.