PERSONAL BRANDING OF BRANDS.

Let me tell you a story.

It was the fifties and TV was the new thing in town. Someone's great grandpa saw his first TV ad and it blew him away! You can look at it right here too

Two generations later though, a similar ad will get zero eyeballs. That is when internet advertising came to the fore-front. By the end of 20th century marketers were spending day and nigh selling stuff on the internet. What followed was the Dot-Com boom.

Marketers ruin everything!

MARKETS CHANGE BECAUSE PEOPLE CHANGE

The world of marketing keeps changing.

The ploys to sell a products that used to work in the 1950s, Radios and Print, aren't as effective now! Reason being, that we get bored very easily.

The human mind is a funny place. Us millenials have been exposed to ads since birth.It is a part of our DNA. Not only us, Generation X itself saw the rise of advertising.

We know the agenda behind blatant product placements, the brand sponsorships by YouTubers and social media influencers. If you think about sales as critically as I do, every nook and corner we are being sold something. Be it a retail outlet or a grocery or your Facebook wall. Marketers find you! And we are very much immune these sales tactics now.

That is the sad truth about marketing. It keeps changing.Because the human mind keeps getting used to sales tactics.

So what's working today? What is the new hot tactic in the market to get more sales.

THE RISE OF PERSONAL BRANDING !

You must have heard of Personal branding. In the 2010s, the social platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn have risen to mass popularity. Right now TikTok is the talk of the towns among Gen Z. What this provides is a platform for conversations, content and community ( The three Cs of personal branding). Just listen to the Guru of personal branding Gary Vaynerchuk talk about this.

The bottom Line here: People trust authenticity now. The likes of Pewdipie, Amanda Cerny, King Bach to our home grown Bhuvan Bam and CarryMinati are examples of how people today are getting attracted to authentic content. This is why in 2019 influencer marketing is the talk of the town. People are much more probable to buy from a person they trust, rather than a impersonal corporate powerhouse.

WHY PEOPLE DON'T TRUST BUSINESSES ANYMORE?

Have you seen the interpretation of corporate world in movies and pop media. It is cold and steely. People lying to each other, being money centric lying millionaires and stooping to any degree to get their customer's money.

And huge scandals like the Enron scandal and Bernie Madoff scandal during the recession made only made people trust big businesses more and more. Just underneath you can see one of the biggest scandals of all times!

So when Facebook advertising started, a ton of small businesses used it to scale.

But the big businesses are BIG for a reason. They realized that the market is changing. And it is changing fast.

" You want Personal Branding, I will give you the biggest baddest personal branding campaign you will ever see" said Corporate America. And then we get where we are today!

THE WEIRD TURN BRANDS TOOK WITH PERSONAL BRANDING!

Brands took to famous platforms like Twitter and Instagram to become a part of the community themselves. They became personal, they began jabbing other brands, talking to the customers. Essentially, not selling, but building trust and entertaining the crowd.

The smaller business have an advantage. They don't have a legacy to uphold. Or a slew of investors taking pinch at who represents the brand. So just a small sponsored video ad of the owner providing content about his services/ business is enough to build trust. (Numerous leads I generate for my business using my content itself and personal brand). What what about Netflix or Uber or Burger King. The CEO won't come up and tell you about the brand. So how to get over it?

Content. More and more content that drives conversations. So lets look at some of them down here:

Crossfit jabbing Coca Cola over it's high sugar content on Twitter.

Wendy's twitter handle is famous for being one of the best and funniest accounts ever. This Jab at McDonald's in 2018 shows how they used reference from Avenger's Infinity War to remain relevant to the millennial audience.

Netflix is a media house, so no surprises there that the tweets from them are the best ones out there. This particular meme ( again being culturally relevant to their audience) critiques how old TV actors have played very young characters over the years. This aspect of TV industry has been derided over the last half a century by the audience. But a meme like this shows that Netflix listens to the community and understands the things audience doesn't appreciate.

Chipotle again is famous for its funny twitter. Customers always shop lift from food outlets. Be it Pizza Hut or Domino's or Chipotle. Here we see them playfully jabbing those who take their Tabasco sauce bottles.

Lastly, the most important one. The one most consider to be the grand daddy of social marketing by brands. This Oreo ad sparked up in 2013. Nothing about it looks spectacular does it? What if I told you Oreo posted it during the NFL( National Foot ball league) XLVII power outage in 2013. With million of people disappointed at that very moment, Oreo shot their ad. An ad playing on the national feeling of a current event in real time. "Are the people at Oreo here? Do they watch NFL too. Wow", were the thoughts that ran in the head of many. It is by far a highly effective ad!

These brand have started treating the internet like a small village, where they are a part of the daily briefing. Pepsi and Coca-Cola Jab each other, Burger King makes fun of McDonald's daily, brands talk as people.

Authentic personified branding. That is the word ( I coined it just now). Give your brand a consistent likable personality. I read this in the book by Robert Cialdinni named 'Influence'. If you want to influence people and make them your customers, become a liked entity in their life. Their friend.