Hi folks!  Trying a new feature this year — a monthly round-up of my published content.

It’s a mental buffet of ideas that may seem schizophrenic at times (I do work on fast food restaurants as well as fitness brands, after all!), but it’s all in the service of helping companies understand and apply the “brand as business” management approach.  Enjoy!

retail and restaurants:

• 12 truths to guide retailing in 2012 – a slideshow success in retail from speakers at NRF’s Retail BIG Show in 2012
• Vickie Achee on the Grand Retail Experiment at Patagonia – an interview with the head of Patagonia’s retail marketing
• Brand Experience Brief: Patagonia’s Tin Shed – photos and notes from my audit of the new concept
• Killing Retail Giants – guest post by Stephen Denny, author of Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath in Your Industry.
• New Retail Opportunities – my post on Stephen Denny’s blog
• Picking a Marketing Firm for Your Company – advice from my QSR Magazine column
• J C Penney to Revise Pricing Methods and Limit Promotions – quote in New York Times article
• Is J C Penney Stuck with Stores? — the thoughts behind my NY Times quote
• How Wendy’s Found Itself, Slipped Past BK Into No. 2 Spot – quote in Advertising Age

digital health and fitness:

• Digital Health and Fitness at CES 2012 – video recap of highlights from CES
• Will 2012 Be Like 1984? – a bit inspired by the 3D TV hullabaloo at CES
• Digital Device Manifesto – a call to arms to get and keep the industry’s focus on the user
• Crossing the Health & Fitness Tech Chasm – article published by CE Vision magazine
• Fitness Technology: It’s Not Just Entertainment – a write-up on the panel I moderated at CES’s Fitness Tech Summit

other brand-building topics:

• Brands to Watch in 2012 – my prediction of brands that will make headlines this year
• Brands to Watch – a brand as business brief (e-newsletter) highlighting another brand to watch in 2012
• Lesson from Kodak – a bit about companies shedding their legacies and reinventing themselves
• Differentiation through Specialization – a bit about how to differentiate
• Brand-building for Small Businesses – an excerpt from the course I taught for Marketing Profs University, “Why Small Businesses Need Brands and How to Build Them”
• Learning at Lego – a bit about using anthropological research methods to understand users
• Sam Palmisano’s Legacy: Teaching a Giant to Run – a bit about Palmisano’s four question framework

brand as business bit:  I just taught “Why Small Businesses Need Brands and How to Build Them,” a session in Marketing Profs University course on Marketing Your Small Business.

I talked about how brands don’t only create value for large companies — they’re also important to small businesses.  A couple of reasons:

Small businesses need to build relationships with suppliers and distributors, the media , investors, local government, banks, etc.  You need to stand out among the sea of proposals or plans they are inundated with and you need to be crystal clear about what your value is so they will want to business with you.  A brand can help you do just that — a thoughtfully-designed brand identity and substantive brand story communicate what the company stands for and express it in a memorable, compelling way.  If your company doesn’t have the salience and clarity that a strong brand provides, your business is likely to be passed over by these people without a second thought.

Also small businesspeople have so many decisions to make and a brand serves as a compass for making them.  For example, the pressure to grow and produce immediate results can lure entrepreneurs into pursuing areas outside the company’s initial charter.  While branching out into a new technology or adding to your service offering may make sense when viewed through the lens of short-term growth, these distractions divert precious dollars and manpower away from your top priority – that is, developing a strong and sustainable core offering.  Because a brand embodies the values of the company, it can serve as a decision-making filter when you and others are evaluating growth opportunities.

Heather Rast, the course curator, tweeted some of the other points I made — here’s a screen grab of her Twitter feed during the session:

P.S. If you’re interested in the course, it’s recorded for use on demand.  Use my code “BRANDASBIZ” when you register to save $200!

brand as business bit:  Next week I’m teaching a webinar, Why Small Business Needs Brands and How to Build Them, as part of a Marketing Profs University course on Marketing Your Small Business.  Here’s a sneak preview:

One of the topics I will cover is how to differentiate — and among the approaches I will discuss is specialization.  By designing your business to appeal specifically to a certain type of customer, you become known as an expert for that market and stand out from the crowd.

An example:  When I did a Google search for website agencies in my city, I got over 8000 results.  Now that’s probably not an accurate number of actual agencies in town — but I can imagine there are at least 100 and they all seem exactly the same. They all seem to be saying and offering the same things – effective, innovative, well-designed websites.

But then there’s City Gates, an agency that specializes in making websites for churches.  They’ve developed a real expertise in knowing the kinds of features, content, and designs that churches want and need – and this expertise separates them from the crowd.

If you were a church, which agency would you pick – one who specializes in serving organizations like yours or a generic one?  That’s the power of differentiation through specialization.

(P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about Marketing Your Small Business, register for the course and use my code BRANDASBIZ to get $200 off!)

In a recent post, I described a meeting I led for one of my clients that needed to engage its senior leadership with its brand. And I mentioned that I had started the meeting with a cheeky “What Can Brands Learn from Lady Gaga?” video.

Although I can’t show the video here, I did want to share with you the points from it, since I really do believe the Lady has a lot to teach us about brand-building. And the success she’s achieved in such a short time is admirable for anybody – and any organization – that’s looking for tangible results:

• won five Grammy awards
• 1st album “Fame” hit #1 on record charts in 6 countries
• named Billboard Artist of the Year in 2010
• on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People
• is #7 on Forbes’ list of Most Powerful Women
• sold over 22 million albums and 69 million singles worldwide
• grossed $170 million on 137 songs in 22 countries in 1 year

Those are impressive numbers on the key metrics that matter for someone like Lady Gaga. How did she build such a powerful brand? Here are the top 5 lessons we can learn from the Queen of the Little Monsters:

#1. define a clear identity

“Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta” just wasn’t who Lady Gaga aspired to be, so she changed her name and assumed a new identity:
• a change agent
• a diva
• pop culture
• creative
• outré (definition: unusual and startling)

Companies need to clearly define their brand identity. While visual image is certainly an important piece of this (Lady Gaga wouldn’t be Lady Gaga without her unique looks), identity is much more than just a logo or look and feel. Brands must be clear about what they stand for – the values and attributes they want to be known for.

Companies need to ensure the brand identity is understood, embraced, and interpreted and reinforced properly by all internal stakeholders so that it is clear to the outside world. This is particularly important in today’s social media-dominant world where if you don’t define your identity, someone else will.

#2. be different

If there’s one thing Lady Gaga is, it’s different. She stands out from the sea of female pop artist sameness by looking, acting, performing, writing, and being different. “You have to be unique, and different, and shine in your own way,” she explains.

Differentiation is critical to brand-building as well. It’s important because our brains are hard-wired to notice differences. So differentiation enables you to stand out and get noticed – not a small feat in the today’s over-crowded marketplace.

More than that, though, differentiation also helps create brand preference by helping customers understand their options and giving them reasons to choose one over the other. And it helps companies charge higher prices. If people perceive an offering as special, they are willing to pay more to get it. Think of how at auctions it’s the one-of-a-kind items that people drive up the price for. Plus, if you offer something completely different from everyone else, customers can’t easily compare it to others and so you can set your own price expectations.

#3. tell your story by creating an experience

Lady Gaga is an entertainer, so she knows how to create a breakthrough experience that really brings to life who she is and what she wants to say.

Think about the 2011 Grammys. She was paraded through the streets and down the red carpet in an egg carried by staffers in revealing eggshell-like costumes. On stage, the egg hatched and Lady Gaga emerged, launching into a spectacular version of Born This Way. At one point, she played on a dramatic organ with disembodied heads balanced on top and, at the end her dancers stripped off their latex outfits. Talk about an experience!

Most companies, of course, wouldn’t want – or need – to create such a spectacle, but they do need to create customer experiences that stand out and send a message. Brand experiences should tell a story, appeal to the senses, and inspire — from start to finish. And, details matter (you can bet every moment of Lady Gaga’s time at the Grammy’s was choreographed.)

#4. stand for something bigger than yourself

The gospel according to Lady Gaga goes something like this, “I want women — and men — to feel empowered by a deeper and more psychotic part of themselves. The part they’re always trying desperately to hide. I want that to become something that they cherish.”

Or in other words, “To everyone who says this is wrong to feel like this say, ‘I was born this way baby.’”

To her fans, Lady Gaga is more than a singer or performer. She is hope, love, inspiration, and empowerment. That’s why she’s able to create such a powerful connection with them.

Companies can develop powerful connections with their customers as well. For some, this is done by connecting the core values of the brand with customers’ core values. For others, it’s about calling people to a higher purpose to which the company and its customers aspire. The point is to recognize that, as humans, we all seek meaning in our lives.

#5. foster a community

Community is what creates impact for brands and for Lady Gaga.

Lady Gaga calls her community her “Little Monsters.” They love it; they love her. She’s written a manifesto and created an app for them.

She also uses different tools to engage, listen to, share with, and relate to them: Twitter (12.2 million followers), Facebook (42 million likes), YouTube (150 million views), etc. Her website features a wiki-style blog, Gagapedia, which features nearly 2,000 pages of content she and her Little Monsters have created.

These tools and tactics are powerful brand-builders. They help develop relationships that seem exclusive and personal, while fueling buzz and broad awareness. What company wouldn’t want to have a passionate community of supporters and evangelizers?!

To riff on her song title, Lady Gaga teaches us about brand romance!

related post:

• kicking off a brand journey

“Differentiation is really the best way for all businesses to address consumers’ new value mindset.”

That is the key point of the article the folks at Franchise Update Media Group asked me to write.  Decrease Your Deal-Dependency with Differentiation is part of their latest newsletter (subscribe here).

I’ve heard from so many business leaders who struggle to clarify and leverage their differentiation that I’m now making one of my speaking topics available as a webinar or in-person seminar.  ”Differentiate Your Way to Success” is a practical and instructive session that teaches you how to develop and use a brand positioning to strengthen your competitive advantage.

Here’s a preview:

Please contact me at mail AT deniseleeyohn DOT com to learn more or to arrange to share this program with your organization.

I read with great interest an article in SmartBusiness about Red Mango and the yummy yogurt chain’s founder, president, and CEO of Red Mango, Dan Kim.  I’m fascinated by the frozen yogurt chains that have emerged on the cultural landscape in last 5 years.  Pinkberry has probably gotten the most coverage in the press, with its high design aesthetic and celebrity fans, but there are plenty of others in the game including Red Mango.  The category is very crowded with operators of all sizes competing in a relatively small niche with punch cards and discount days.  Building brand awareness and shoring up a loyal customer base are particular challenges, which is in part why I’m so interested in the category (liking fro yo also has something to do with it too!)

In the SB piece, Dan explains his thinking and approach to building the Red Mango brand.  Clearly, this is a guy who gets it.  He believes in the power of his brand and he actively nurtures and protects it.  Here are my reactions to his comments, along with some suggestions for how he might ensure his brand-building efforts continue to be successful as the chain grows.

Good stuff
Dan’s commitment to the Red Mango brand is remarkable:

• It’s his primary focus. He says, “We always start with, ‘Who do we want to be when we grow up and who are we as a brand?’…We always keep that top of mind in terms of everything we do.”  And he keeps his focus on it.  “If you constantly change who you want to become, the strength of your brand goes away.  If you try to do too much and address too many things, you stretch yourself too thin and really can’t accomplish anything.”
• He’s clearly articulated what the brand stands for and has documented it in a digestible, memorable form.  Unlike many entrepreneurs, he didn’t just assume that his employees would know what is in his head – nor that explaining it once is enough. He created a “brand trifecta” that outlines the brand’s core values and there’s a “MangoFesto” in the form of a poster in each store that explains to employees what the goals and philosophy are.  Dan says, “The thing that you can do that’s not cool is you write [a brand manifesto] once, and you never come back to it, and it gets lost.  You have to make that part of the cultural fabric of your organization.”
• He also uses the brand as a filter for decision-making.  In other words, he operationalizes the brand platform in key decisions about what the company should or should not do.  Frozen yogurt in cones didn’t pass the brand test but papaya as a new topping did.

The next level
Dan’s brand-building efforts have paid off.  Last year, the company received a $12 million cash infusion and they’ve been successful enough to recently launch an aggressive franchise push with the goal of opening 550 locations over the next five years.  That kind of growth will present a host of challenges, not the least of which is maintaining the priority on the brand.

It’s a common problem.  When a company is smaller, there are fewer players who need to “get” the brand.  And as long as the founder (or whatever role the brand champion might play) is actively involved in the daily operations of the business and as accessible to employees, it’s fairly easy to stay on track.  But issues arise as growth inherently brings more people to inculcate, more opportunities to assess, and more touchpoints to align.

A couple of tools and approaches will help Red Mango and other companies aspiring to grow their brands and their businesses:

Competitive positioning. I’ve found the best brand strategies are actually brand platforms comprised of a brand identity (what the brand stands for) and a competitive brand positioning (how the brand compares).  The brand identity is based on the key values and attributes of the brand – including the brand essence or core belief.  The competitive brand positioning outlines the target, the competitive frame of reference and how the brand is optimally positioned in that frame, and the unique benefit of the brand.

Some companies only outline one part of the brand platform but both are important.  You must understand the defining values and attributes of your brand (brand identity) but without a competitive positioning, you aren’t indicating how you will use those core elements to establish competitive advantage.  And you must outline how you compare with other options, but without a solid brand identity, you won’t have the foundation that drives consistency and focus.  Furthermore, the brand identity should remain constant; the competitive brand positioning might change over time as the target audience or the competitive landscape changes.  The two parts of the platform are complementary and symbiotic.

The Red Mango brand essence is outlined in the SB article:  it’s the convergence of health, taste and style.  The piece, however, didn’t speak to the chain’s competitive strategy.  Perhaps a competitive brand positioning exists, but if it doesn’t, I would encourage Dan to clearly articulate one.  And in particular, getting the competitive frame of reference (i.e., the mental file folder that the target puts your brand in) is key.  I’m guessing it’s not simply other fro yo brands (although carving out a unique position in that category is important) – but also other quick serves as well as buy/make at home options.

Empowering stakeholders. In explaining the aforementioned no-go decision on the cone idea, Dan relayed that it was a franchisee who suggested the idea and it was Dan and his executive team that assessed the opportunity.   As the chain grows, it will become increasingly important for others including franchisees to be able to make their own assessments.  Otherwise the executive committee will become a bottleneck for decision-making and a barrier to growth.

I suggest an effort to inspire, inform, and instruct everyone about the brand and how they should interpret and reinforce it in their daily decision-making.   A brand toolbox is an effective way to do so. The collection of tools in a brand toolbox:

• relays the brand identity and positioning along with the background and rationale to increase understanding and buy-in, and outline principles and examples to guide appropriate brand execution
• connects people to a purpose and values bigger than themselves, get them excited about working on the brand, and motivate them to adopt behaviors which support it
• helps people make decisions and take actions that are “on brand” through interactive exercises and decision guides

A brand toolbox can take a variety of forms – workbooks, videos, website, downloads, or a combination of these – the important thing is to develop one that engages everyone who works on the brand.

Aligning stakeholders. A brand toolbox can also be helpful in aligning all stakeholders and their expectations.  At one point, Dan laments, “…you have a lot of outsiders or board members or executive managers who don’t understand how the strategy is executed in regards to having the right resources, then you’re in a situation where you just constantly want to do more and more things without people understanding why you can’t do them.”

He’s talking about brand stakeholders and the real need to align them in order to garner their support.  Board members for example significantly influence the value the organization delivers and the way it does business through their strategic, high-level guidance on things like resource allocation and M&A activity. The businesses a company works with to develop, make, distribute, and sell the product — vendors, strategic alliances, distribution channels, service providers, franchisees/affiliates, etc.– are stakeholders in the brand. The number and range of stakeholders only grows as your business grows.

By fleshing out what the brand is and how it is used, a brand toolbox facilitates brand understanding among these audiences.

Imagine your brand as a source of light. In an ideal world, the light of your brand would shine strongly and directly on its intended target. However the current marketplace is far from ideal and so your brand’s light becomes quite diffused and unfocused in the clutter and competition that exists between your brand and its target.

Brand stakeholders actually function as filters for your brand light. Essentially your stakeholders are situated between your brand and its target. Each stakeholder bends and directs the light in their respective roles.

Problems arise when different stakeholders bend and direct the light in different ways. The result? A mess of light rays all pointed in different directions and none focused on the target.

Your stakeholders need to be aligned so that you end up with a laser-like beam of brand value delivered to your target. While it may seem that the people and groups who comprise your brand stakeholders are independently-operating entities fulfilling a specific function or playing a particular role, a more accurate picture is that they are linked together in a brand value delivery chain.

A brand toolbox is a great way to reinforce this linkage.  Sometimes there is a need to protect or segment some parts of a brand toolbox, but generally speaking the more transparent you can be about what your brand is all about and how you’re operationalizing it, the better.

I hope these suggestions are helpful not only to Dan and his team at Red Mango, but to all business leaders who are passionate about their brands and about growth.

related posts:

• simple brand tools
• if a brand has something to say, say it

Is it possible to build your brand without spending a bundle? You bet.  So says an article of mine which the American Management Association published this month — it outlines 5 ways to improve the value you provide to your customers regardless of the size of your marketing budget.

Since the article appears in the members-only portion of AMA’s website which requires a password, I’m reprinting it here — let me know what you think.

BUILD YOUR BRAND WITHOUT BREAKING YOUR BUDGET

Chances are you’re more than a little worried about your brand’s prospects, thanks to today’s tough economic climate. But contrary to popular opinion, brand-building doesn’t have to depend on splashy advertising campaigns and big media budgets. In fact, the best way to increase the power of your brand is to improve your company’s fundamentals.

After all, what is a brand? It is a bundle of values and attributes that define:

• A product or service’s value that is delivered to its customers
• A way of doing business that is the basis of a company’s relationships with stakeholders

So, simply put, brand-building is about improving the value of what you deliver to customers and how you do it. And you can accomplish that regardless of the size of your marketing budget.

Here are five effective, yet thrifty, ways to build your brand in a tough economy:

1. Get crystal clear about what your brand stands for.
Between layoffs and budget cuts, it’s easy for your people and their efforts to become unfocused, or focused on the wrong things. Develop the tools to ensure everyone is aligned with what your company stands for, what’s on-brand and what’s not, who your target groups are, and how to interpret and reinforce the brand for them.

2. Conduct a brand audit.
Examine all of your touchpoints and evaluate your brand’s current brand performance. Chances are you’ll find a few problem areas. In richer times, it may have been acceptable to let some touchpoints go unchecked, but in all likelihood, a shrinking budget has limited the number of touchpoints you’re creating and implementing, so each one has to work harder. Make sure everything your company does passes through your brand filter.

3. Get your external stakeholders on board with your brand.
A stakeholder is a person or group that has an investment, share, or interest in something. In this case, that something is your brand. The people who have an investment, share, or interest in your brand extend beyond your company walls and include business partners like vendors and distributors, agencies, and contracted service partners. Like you, your partners are feeling the pressures of competing priorities. Take the time to ensure they are informed, inspired, and equipped to play their role in delivering your brand and its message.

4. Engage operating groups with rich target customer insights.
Customer intimacy may be second nature to marketers, but engineers, logistics managers, and controllers may not understand who your target customers are or what they need and want from your company’s products or services. Chances are, your marketing team is sitting on a gold mine of knowledge and insights that could inform their decision making. Segmentation strategies, customer data, and learning from consumer research of years past should be conveyed throughout the organization so customer understanding can be translated into the development of a complete system for delivering value.

5. Use promotional tactics as brand-building opportunities.
Typically, price promotions and other short-term traffic-building tactics are planned to run along with “brand” campaigns, but limited budgets may eliminate such a two-pronged strategy. However, you can reframe—and re-concept—your promotional tactics as brandbuilders. That doesn’t mean cramming brand messaging into coupons. Instead, think about brand-enhancing initiatives like brand ambassador programs and forging relationships with new co-marketing partners.

The good news is that the steps described here don’t involve a huge outlay of cash; they do, however, require focus, commitment, and a lot of hard work. The time is right to transform brand-building from a costly, discrete, and subjective activity into the most integral way of managing and growing your business.

Rather than fretting over limited marketing budgets and skyrocketing media costs, leaders should seize the opportunity to focus their efforts internally and work on putting their brand in the driver’s seat of their organization. Smart brand-building is critical, not despite the tough economy, but because of it.

Author Bio:
Denise Lee Yohn is a brand as business™ consulting partner, working with companies to operationalize their brands in order to grow their businesses. Contact her on the Web at www.deniseleeyohn.com

A few weeks ago, in response to some inquiries by colleagues and friends, I wrote about personal branding.

As a reminder, I suggested that a personal brand is a bundle of values and attributes that define:
-  the value that a person delivers to his/her “customers” (business partners, bosses, hiring managers, family members, community, etc.) , and
-  the way that person operates that is the basis of his/her relationships with them

My main point was that, contrary to most of what is said about personal branding these days, brand-building — whether for individuals or brands — depends on increasing the value you deliver and how you do it.  So, your brand is not the perception you want to create; it’s the reality of who you are.  I got some great comments here as well as through email –- thanks for the feedback.

At the time, I promised I’d follow-up with a Part 2 to address what makes a strong personal brand, and so here it is.  Actually I’ve decided to try to do this by applying the 10 criteria from a tool I use to assess the strength of any brand (I originally distributed the tool in one of my newsletters, and then brandchannel.com asked me to expound on it and show that the ways to strengthen your brand depend less on how much, or little, marketing money you have these days.)

I found the tool works pretty well as an assessment of personal brand strength, with a few adaptations and in a different order.  So here we go — a strong personal brand distinguishes itself by:

1. being meaningful – a strong personal brand is relevant and compelling to our customers.  As noted above, when I say “customers,” I mean business partners, bosses, hiring managers, family members, our community, etc.  So having a meaningful personal brand means we offer something of value that these people want.  For example, if we’re applying for a job, we bring the requisite skills, experience, attitude, working style, etc. to do it.   If we don’t, then we shouldn’t be applying for it.
2. being differentiating — a strong personal brand gives us a distinct advantage over others who might be competing for the same job, promotion, attention, or resources.  This isn’t simply about looking different or standing out from the crowd per se.  Lately people have been giving all sorts of job-seeking advice based on how to create a stand-out resume or how to make a memorable impression – while these tactics are important, having a differentiating personal brand is more dependent upon delivering unique value to our customers by being the only person who does what we do the way we do it.
3. being transcendent — a strong personal brand conveys value beyond the specific job or role — e.g., the waitress who genuinely cares whether her guests are satisfied with their meal, the co-worker who always gets the job done regardless of what it takes, the manager who takes personal responsibility for developing and nurturing those around him.  People with strong brands do more than what’s expected of them and inspire others to do the same.
4. adding “business” value — a strong personal brand produces “business” results.  I use quotation marks here because, unlike the brands for which I usually use this criterion, our personal brands aren’t limited to business situations – yet, in all situations, we should be seeking to deliver tangible, measurable results.  Simply put, having a strong personal brand means making a difference.
5. being operationalized — a strong personal brand must be more than a vision of who we want to be — it must be what we do and what we deliver.  Operationalizing a brand involves the deliberate and systematic management of the business around brand – in the same way, operationalizing a personal brand means identifying, prioritizing, and implementing the things we do to deliver our brand values and attributes.
6. being used as a tool — a strong personal brand inspires, informs, and instructs our daily decision-making and actions.  Instead of something we use to promote ourselves, it should be used as a resource we draw upon to drive everything we do – if we were cars, our brand would be our fuel, engine, and GPS all combined into one.
7. being clearly articulated — a strong personal brand is clearly defined and can be easily described.  Before we develop a great “elevator speech” or memorize a sound bite to go along with a firm handshake, we must do the hard work to clearly define what our brand stands for and determine the best way to communicate it.
8. being consistently experienced — a strong personal brand is a consistent one.  That is, we do what we say, and we say what we do.  We all know people who present themselves one way when they first meet someone (on a date, in an interview, etc.) but turn out to a totally different person once you get to know them. Surprises are great for parties, not for relationships.
9. having integrity (this criteria is “believable” in the original tool) — a strong personal brand doesn’t stretch too far or over-promise.  “Know thyself” has proven a worthy discipline since its origins in ancient Greece and it serves people well today as we are all feeling the pressure to do more with less.  Rather than taking on more than we are capable of doing well, or stretching the truth in an effort to make ourselves more attractive, we should act with integrity.
10. being sustainable — a strong personal brand enables us to be successful now and in the future.  Instead of allowing ourselves to be defined by our current circumstances, we should be developing a big enough platform to sustain us beyond our next gig or job.  We should be constantly growing and learning so that we can continue to deliver our value as new positions, technologies, and opportunities open up.

Just as the tough economic climate has caused some business leaders to cut brand investments, we may be tempted to try to cut corners with our personal brand development.  And if we heed most of the advice about personal branding that’s out there these days, we might simply focus on things like developing a personal website or dressing to impress.

But hopefully the above criteria show that the ways to strengthen your brand have less to do with how you express yourself, and more with what you deliver.  Many companies focus their brand building too much on external marketing activities, instead of channeling their efforts internally and putting their brand at the core of what they do and how they do it.  Let’s not make the same mistake with our personal brands.

Personal branding seems to have re-emerged as a hot topic.  The concept introduced by Tom Peters over 10 years ago is now back on everyone’s radar screens — or at least mine.  Several friends and colleagues have recently asked for my POV on personal branding; last week I read a stimulating post by Jonathan Salem Baskin on the topic; and it’s being named as one of the top 5 digital trends to watch by the digital arm of PR-giant Edelman.

Perhaps personal branding is getting all this attention because of our nation’s unfortunate situation of experiencing the highest number of lay-offs since 1974 and so all of those job hunters are seeking a competitive edge.  Or perhaps it’s because our new President seems to enjoy one of the most, if not the most, influential personal brands of our time.

Whatever the reason, it makes me nervous.  There’s the danger that if personal branding is misunderstood or misused, branding itself will become misunderstood or misused.  There’s certainly a lot of misinformation about it on the social media circuit lately.

Self-described “leading personal branding expert” Dan Schwabel states, “Personal branding, by definition, is the process by which we market ourselves to others. As a brand, we can leverage the same strategies that make these celebrities or corporate brands appeal to others. We can build brand equity just like them.” He then goes on to list 10 ways to create your brand, ranging from having a business card to selecting a wardrobe.

“Question everything you do, every tool you use, every article of clothing you wear. Are they consistent with your brand? Do you have a WAP phone but use a printed calendar or a handwritten to-do list? Do you carry a briefcase?” advises William Aruda, “the Personal Branding Guru.”

I fear this kind of talk about branding — personal or not — trivializes the importance and role of brands as drivers of business growth.  It reinforces the incorrect but already commonly held view that brand-building is about what you communicate instead of what you do — and it emphasizes the expressive and marketing value of a brand, while overlooking its more fundamental business value.

Here’s my view:

A brand is a bundle of values and attributes that define:
-  a product or service’s value that is delivered to its customers, and
-  the way of doing business that is the basis of a company’s relationships with stakeholders

Translated to the realm of individuals, the definition would read something like:

A brand is a bundle of values and attributes that define:
-  the value that a person delivers to his/her customers (business partners, bosses, hiring managers, family members, community, etc.) , and
-  the way that person operates that is the basis of his/her relationships with them (it seems like customers and stakeholders are the same for individuals)

So brand-building, whether for individuals or brands, depends on increasing the value you deliver and how you do it.  Your brand is not the perception you want to create; its the reality of who you are.  It’s not the way to get noticed; it’s what you do on a daily basis.  It’s not about being different for the sake of being different; it’s about delivering unique value to your customers by being the only person who does what you do the way you do it.

I’ll soon follow up this post with another about what makes a strong personal brand but if you want to jump start your personal branding efforts now, the aforementioned post by JSB provides some great thoughtstarters for ways to build your brand.

Last week’s Ad Age featured a column by brand luminary Al Ries that I just can’t let go without comment.  Ries’s main thesis is that brands must remain narrowly focused in order to dominate their categories.

Having grown up as a brand enthusiast, studying the seminal texts of Trout & Ries and forming my understanding of brand strategy by their insights and edicts, I find myself in the interesting position of taking issue with several points in Ries’s column.  But I feel I must raise some questions.

By stating that “you can’t dominate a category if you expand your brand into many other categories,” Ries seems to be lobbying for limits on businesses that are unacceptable in today’s marketplace.  It’s true, businesses in narrow categories can well afford to keep their brands focused and resist the temptation to expand into new categories.  There are only a certain number of uses of facial tissues, after all, and no shareholder is expecting the Kleenex brand to become a multi billion dollar business.  But in most cases, shouldn’t a company that wants to remain viable not only grow its share of its existing category, but also look for new growth outside of it?  And wouldn’t a smart brand architecture (e.g., the use of endorser or sub-brands) can help strengthen the brand as it grows into new areas?

Ries argues the most reliable measure of the power of a brand is market share.  Really?  Can’t brands prop their share up through promotions and incentives without actually growing?  And isn’t the channel playing an increasingly powerful role in balancing out competing brands, such that market share is less a measure of value to the customer and more a result of purchasing clout (or lack thereof)?  And what about brands that are big but not necessarily strong?  McDonald’s has been the fast feeder market share leader for decades, but only in the last several years have they been able to derive their strength from something more than sizable brand distribution.

Which leads me to my last question – how are we defining “building a brand” here?  Ries points to market share leaders like TurboTax and Taco Bell and praises them for being dominant.  He then flips to Coca-Cola and Nike and uses their value according to Interbrand’s list of 100 most-valuable global brands to prove their strength.  While these measures have their merit, I question whether they are the best bellwethers for brand power.  If a brand is, as Ries states, “a word that stands for something in the mind of prospects,” then shouldn’t brand strength be evaluated on how strongly it stands for that something?  Or how strong of a connection it has with its prospects?

In the end, Ries seems to be saying that building a business is at odds with building a brand.  I guess I simply disagree.   I advocate a “brand as business” approach – that is, applying brand understanding to business decision-making about which categories to enter and how.

Care to weigh in?