Comments on: What does your personal brand have in common with a can of Coke?

By: Dave Saunders

Dave Saunders — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:11:18 +0000

Mario, you put that so well. Great stuff. I agree that the myth of a personal brand is that it has anything to do with style or substance. I’ve met a number of people who dress in very expensive clothing but they still have a horrible time establishing rapport with other people. I think this is because they are presenting a facade instead of reflecting “who they are.”

Thanks again for chiming in!

By: Dave Saunders

Dave Saunders — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:08:10 +0000

Great comment Joseph,

I think the mistake people make is to believe that they are what they do. What you do is more like a shadow cast by your values. For many people those values are more a reaction to what “the world” tries to tell them they should think and do rather than their own true core values. Managing your personal brand implies that you can control the experience someone else has of you and that is neither possible nor scalable even if it were possible. A Coke is a created product putting it in a slightly different context, but even from within a country a Coke is a Coke is a Coke. They’re not providing custom mixes to suit the customer and a brand violation doesn’t appear to result from corn syrup vs cane sugar. If it did violate the essential relationship of the brand, they would have experienced a “New Coke” phenomenon.

By: Mario Sanchez Carrion

Mario Sanchez Carrion — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:24:40 +0000

Great article. Most people make the mistake of focusing on “branding” (the logo, the colors, the look and feel, the tools) before they get the “brand” squared away. When it comes to personal branding, the challenge is even greater. Defining your personal “brand” is mostly a journey of discovery, it’s about “who you are”, rather than what you “need to be”. Know who you are, what are the attributes that define you, and then find out how you can leverage them to help people solve a problem.

By: Joseph Rueter

Joseph Rueter — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:01:48 +0000

It seems to me that personal brand is a collection of all the things you have done and what you represent packaged in a very nice way.

The quality of the brand, to my mind, has something to do with how you manage it too. Yet it can be a bit tricky to stay who you are rather than brand yourself in a way that you think is what people will want.

Now with regard with Coke. They do change the insides in different countries. Corn Syrup Coke is found here in the states but the majority of the world has Sugar Cane Coke.