When I was still actively teaching in the Communication Arts department of the University of Santo Tomas, I usually start my class by doing an exercise on branding to determine the most unique feature, trait or character of each and every one of my students.
The time is short to determine an accurate “label,” but I managed—in due time—to give at least a one-word description for each of them.
The process required me to silently ask the question. “If this student was a brand, what kind of brand is he or she? Premium or basic? High-end or mass-based? Rural or urban? Sosyal or jologs? Seryoso or happy go lucky?
I was actually doing the branding exercise on the reverse. Normally, when I work on advertising, Public Relations (PR) and brand communications, I start with the development of a “brand personality” for the brand I am handling. And the most important question I asked is, “If this brand were a person, what kind of person is it?”
Well, to the young PR professionals, what more do you need to be competitive, grow and succeed in the field?
You need to stand out; be different, be distinctive. Develop a competitive advantage, and a single-minded proposition. See yourself as a commodity that your employer or client can’t do without. Determine what your company is looking for, and then project yourself around it.
The trick is to stay true to your capabilities and skills, soul and essence, but cut through and rise above the clutter. Be an excellent Brand You.
Branding is key to marketing and communication. Consider this: Once upon a time, you had dressmakers; now you have high-fashion designers. Once you had builders, now you have engineers. And in due time, you will look back and say, once “I have plain me,” now you have “passionate, excellent, winner me.”
You consume brands, drive branded cars and dine at branded restaurants. You shop at branded malls and pay with branded credit cards. You drink branded coffee or branded beer. You live branded lives, in branded cities or branded countries. You attend branded schools and work in branded companies.
Your brand as a human being is a trust mark. It makes you distinctive from the rest in your field. It is either Brand YOU or canned you, become distinct or extinct.
Brand YOU can very well stand for “Your Own Uniqueness.” It creates immediate awareness, high interest and desire for your positive attitudes, knowledge and skills. It moves your target audience, public or constituents to your desired action.
Branding yourself can take your PR career in a distinctive direction, but you have to start thinking of yourself a little differently. You have to project your best features that will make people prefer you, over the available alternatives. In other words, you have to implement a shameless self-promotion scheme—a PR tool if you ask me.
To get your name in the public arena, you must get “branded” and projected as someone with a compelling idea. A Brand YOU person believes in an idea, issue or cause, and combines that belief with a substantial level of personal passion to get himself noticed by people who matter in the court of public opinion; media, employers, colleagues and competitors.
To make Brand YOU pay, you have to think creatively about your work and your strengths. You need to assess what you do well, determine what strengths you can build on, and think about the professional image you want to project. Then you need to develop a plan and, most important, be ready when opportunity knocks.
Brand you PR plan
How do you proceed to make a Brand YOU plan? You can use the same communication plan template used for products and services. Adapt it to your own “persona” planning and documentation. You can’t go wrong with it. Sit down in front of your computer, go through a planning exercise, answering these questions:
Ask: Where Am I? Make a brand audit. Determine your assets or talents and God-given resources granted you at birth; musical or artistic ability, way with numbers, athletic inclinations, dexterity, human relations prowess and physical characteristics.
Make a list of your skills; measurable abilities like managing, analyzing, artistic expertise, communicating IT-friendliness, financial wizardry, selling, training, negotiating, and problem-solving. The list can go on and on.
Ask: Where Do I Want To Be? Make sure your goals and objectives are properly set. Follow the Smart way. Write personal objectives that are simple, measurable, action-oriented, realistic and time-bound. Your performance will be measured later on against the objectives stated in your plan.
Ask: How Do I Get There? State your strategies, tactics and executions. Create your “brand essence,” build a relationship with your targets based on that “essences” resume presentations, calling cards; and reinforce the relationship and trigger recognition with consistent visual symbols; color scheme, personal logo, imaginary character, an icon or a personalize tagline.
Ask: Am I Getting There? In the process of your Brand YOU implementation, make an effort to step backward and review your moves to tell you whether you should proceed as planned, make revisions or completely change the plan based on your own evaluation.
Brand YOU takes time and effort. It is an ongoing activity that will payoff by getting involved in things, work, activities that you love, and are best suited for. “You are a brand. You are in-charged of your brand. There is no single path to success.”
Over the years, big changes have come our way affecting the way you conduct business and the manner by which employees must cope with these changes.
What does this mean for PR people? Competition for your very own job can come from anywhere— from insiders, outsiders or talents brought in from other countries or regions of the world. There is no room for sitting around and complaining; it’s either, “you be bitter or you be better.” The world rewards only those who catch on to what’s happening, who invest energy in finding and seizing the opportunities brought about by change.
And change always comes bearing gifts.
PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom-based International Public Relations Association (Ipra), the world’s premier organization for PR professionals around the world. Bong R. Osorio is a communications consultant of ABS-CBN Corp., SkyCable, Dentsu-Aegis Network and government projects among others, after retiring as vice president and head of the corporate communications division of ABS-CBN.
We are devoting a special column each month to answer our readers’ questions about public relations. Please send your questions or comments to askipraphil@gmail.com.