Brand strategist Karen Kang puts the importance of personal reinvention bluntly: “Consider yourself a free agent—no one else is looking out for your best interests but yourself. You need to be crystal clear about who you are and the value you bring to a world where constant change is the only norm.” That’s the premise [...]
May 06, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Insights, Marketing | Tags: Apple, brand communications plan, brand strategy, BrandingPays, business school, Cake, change, companies of one, constant change, emotional value, Forbes, free agent, Genentech, hypercompetitive, icing, image, Intel, Karen Kang, Marketing, personal brand, personal branding, promotion, rational value, Regis McKenna, reinvention, reputation, self-marketing, Silicon Valley, values | Leave A Comment »
Now that social media is clearly a permanent disruption (i.e., here to stay, and making organizations and individuals reinvent themselves if they don’t want to get left behind), it’s worth paying attention to the various ways its precepts can inform professional development, organizational leadership and personal branding. Business “best practices” that have been in use [...]
Apr 11, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Social Media, Technology | Tags: best practices, bold, brand, branding, CEO, CEO branding, change, charisma, clarity, conflict, crisis, disruption, experimentation, failure, Humanize, Jamie Notter, leadership, leadership traits, loyalty, Maddie Grant, organizational leadership, personal branding, professional development, reinvention, Social Media, social organization, stakeholders, strategy, transparency | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] I recently received an intriguing email from a former branding executive who now runs a small marketing consulting company. Nancy Shenker, whose new venture is called theONswitch, found a way to build a personal brand by breaking rules, being rebellious and tapping into her self-professed “dark side.” It sounds like a [...]
Apr 02, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features | Tags: Alanis Morissette, Amy Poehler, bad girl, Bad Girl Good Business, Betty White, brand, branding, breaking rules, direct, glass ceiling, Hillary Clinton, injustice, innovating, innovation, inspirational, irreverent, Judith Regan, Nancy Drew, Nancy Shenker, Nancy Sinatra, personal brand, PR, public relations, rebellious, resourceful, results, role model, Sheryl Crow, stereotype, theONswitch, Tina Fey, Tina Turner, women | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] When it comes to family names as brand names, unless you’ve done something terrible or had the bad fortune of sharing a name with someone who did, it’s hard to do much worse than “Trump.” For most of the past four decades, the Donald has slapped his name on some of [...]
Mar 27, 2013 | Categories:Brands, CSR, Features, Insights, PR | Tags: affair, Barron Trump, brand, brand name, branding, cause, celebrity, divorce, Donald, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Elle Decor, Eric Trump, Eric Trump Foundation, family name, footwear, giving back, golden ticket, handbags, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, jewelry, liability, Los Angeles, Marla Maples, New York, New York City, Operation Smile, personal brand, PR, public relations, St. Jude, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, The Apprentice, The New York Observer, The Wharton School, Tiffany Trump, Trump, Trump Organization, University of Pennsylvania, Yahoo, Yahoo Shine | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] It used to be that receiving a CEO title—and the corner office and tufted-leather sofa that came with it—was the acme of professional success. It was the recognition of a lifetime of hard work, of moving up the ranks, of following the path to its pinnacle. Once you’d arrived there, where [...]
Mar 22, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Marketing | Tags: 20-something, ad sales, adventure, America's Cup, Arielle Patrice Scott, Bianca Bosker, Bill Gates, billionaire, brand, Bravo, cable TV, CEO, college, corner office, corporate, corporate brand, Daily Candy, daredevil, digital, dropout, entertainment, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, Facebook, Fandango, fearlessness, female entrepreneur, Green Is Universal, hard work, Harvard, Healthy at NBCU, Henry Ford, Hispanics at NBCU, innovation, innovators, integrated media, InternshipIn, iVillage, kite surfing, Larry Ellison, Lean In, Marissa Mayer, Mark Zuckerberg, Marketing, mavericks, mobile, monetization, MTV, mun2, NBC Universal, Oxygen, personal brand, rebellion, revenue, Richard Branson, risk, risk taking, rule breaking, sailing, sexy, shareholders, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, social, spiritual growth, Sprout, Stanford, startup, Steve Jobs, Technology, telecommuting, Telemundo, the Huffington Post, Thiel Fellowship, title, TV One, Virgin, Walt Disney, women, Women at NBCU, Yahoo | Leave A Comment »
What will a Spanish-language Pope, a man in his 70s, do for the cohort with which he is associated? Embedded in his early brand actions are some interesting moves: paying his own hotel bill, reaffirming conscious consumerism, and now embarking on a journey to redefine one of the world’s great institutions as a peacemaker and [...]
Mar 21, 2013 | Categories:Agency News, Brands | Tags: @havaspr, brand, Catholic Church, conscious consumerism, Forbes.com, Havas PR North America, Life Is a Brand, Marian Salzman, personal brand, pope, Pope Francis, religion brand, Spanish | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] I’m writing this just after the conclave of cardinals announced the successor to Pope Benedict XVI, who last month became the first modern-day pontiff to abdicate the throne. They charted some new ground, choosing 76-year-old Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the first non-European to fill the role in more than 1,200 [...]
Mar 18, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Social Media | Tags: abdication, Argentina, behaviors, branding, bureaucracy, Catholic Church, change, church brand, communication, conservative, corruption, culture change, debate, entrepreneur, entrepreneurial, environment, Europe, Forbes, Forbes.com, George Brandt, honesty, integrity, Jesuit, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Latin America, leadership development, passion, personal brand, pope, Pope Benedict, Pope Francis, progressive, progressive pope, relationships, respect, Romy Ribitzky, Second Vatican Council, secularism, sex abuse, startup, The New York Times, transparency, Twitter, Upstart Business Journal, values, Vatican, Vatican II, vision | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] It used to be that the people who presented weather and traffic segments on the news were as dry as the topics they covered. They didn’t have the fatherly gravitas of the anchorman, the dashing charisma of the foreign correspondents, or the warmth and relatability of the lifestyle reporters. They just [...]
Mar 11, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Media, PR, Technology, Trends | Tags: AccuWeather, Al Roker, anchorman, Business Insider, Chuck Leavell, crowdsourcing, Dave Price, Dennis Crowley, extreme weather, Forbes.com, foreign correspondent, Google, Google Maps, hottest weather forecasters, iPhone, Jalopnik, lifestyle reporter, local broadcast, meteorologist, Mother Nature Network, national broadcast, National Weather Service, physical appearance, reality TV, Rolling Stones, sidekick, Swackett, The Early Show, Today, traffic, traffic reporter, Waze, weather, weather reporter | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Havas Peaks.] Given all the backlash against corporate executives who dared to get on a private aircraft in the past few years, it would seem as if anyone who doesn’t travel in seat 35E would keep quiet about it. But yet, even as the blowback against personal travel and private aviation has [...]
Mar 07, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features | Tags: adrenaline, adventure, brand, C-suite, CEO, CEO brand, Cessna, corporate jet, corporate policies, creativity, debt, decision-making, distraction, flying, focus, Gary Green, growth, helicopter, International Franchise Association, Larry Ellison, leverage, Lundquist College of Business, M&A, Mendoza College of Business, mergers and acquisitions, Micron Technology, O'Hare, Oracle, personal brand, personal branding, pilot, plane, PostNet, private aircraft, relax, Richard Branson, risk, risk taker, Steve Appleton, Steve Greenbaum, stock return volatility, Strategic Franchising Systems, thrill seeker | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] Andrew Mason’s unsurprising ouster from Groupon last week wasn’t entirely about his personal brand. As anyone who has been paying attention knows, the group-discount company has been performing spectacularly badly. Its fourth-quarter earnings report was awful, with a GAAP loss of 12 cents per share—that’s 10 cents more (or six times [...]
Mar 05, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Media, Social Media, Technology | Tags: accountability, accounting, accounting gaffes, adolescent, Andrew Mason, Battletoads, behavior, Bloomberg Businessweek, brand, candid, CEO brand, CEO branding, Chicago Tribune, daily deal, Eric Lefkofsky, experience, fraternity, GAAP loss, Goldman Sachs, Greg Smith, Groupon, grownup, honesty, IPO, irreverent, John Paczkowski, juvenile, millennials, personal brand, Peter Kafka, resignation letter, responsibility, Sam Gustin, SEC, share price, Silicon Valley, stunts, tech boom, The New York Times, Time, transparency, video game, Wall Street | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] A colleague of mine recalls a time when a new boss had taken over her department and everyone was anxious. One of his first acts: handing out New York Times obituaries of distinguished people. “Read these,” he said, “and think about what your obituaries would say.” His gambit worked. The ice [...]
Feb 27, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Media, Social Media, Trends | Tags: brand, branding, celebrity, CEO, community, Connecticut, David Collins, death, Facebook, Forbes.com, haring, journalist, Legacy.com, life directive, Life Without End, memorial service, Mindy McCready, newspaper, Nina Lentini, obit, obituary, People, personal brand, position, positioning statement, Princess Di, Social Media, survivors, The Day, The New York Times, transparencys, Whitney Houston, will | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] Last weekend, I came across an interesting article in The New York Times about people who had Livestrong tattoos and how they felt about them now. The upshot is that most of them—at least most of the people quoted in the article—don’t have a great deal of regret. They got the [...]
Feb 21, 2013 | Categories:Brands, CSR, Fashion, Features, Marketing, Trends | Tags: Andrew Weil, Angelina Jolie, Ashley Olsen, Brad Pitt, brand identity, brand logo, brand names, branding, Brangelina, cancer, celebrity, celebrity brand, CFDA, cookware, crisis, Drew Barrymore, Emeril Lagasse, Fashion, Fergie, France, Gwen Stefani, identity, JKL, Just Keep Livin Foundation, Kardashian, L.A.M.B., Lance Armstrong, Lily Munster, Livestrong, Marilyn Monroe, Mary-Kate Olsen, Matthew McConaughey, Maxim, Megan Fox, Miraval, Parker rating, personal brand, personal branding, rosé, tattoo, The New York Times, The Row, Trends, typecast, Womenswear Designer of the Year, Yahoo | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on CNBC.com.] I recently came across some survey data that suggests 2013 will be a tough year for CEOs—or, at least, many of them believe that it will be. Now that the economy’s “green shoots” of recovery are starting to bud into potential blossoms, expectations are up in terms of performance. It’s no [...]
Feb 19, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Social Media | Tags: board of directors, brand, brand building, branding, CEO, CEO Snapshot Survey, chief executive, CNBC, corporate brand, economic recovery, Facebook, Harris Interactive, human, human brand, Humanize, identity, Jamie Notter, leadership style, Maddie Grant, management, Mark Zuckerberg, personal brand, personal values, profile, recession, RHR International, Richard Branson, Social Media, stakeholder activism, strategy, team, the economy, Thomas Saporito, Tony Hsieh, transparency, Virgin, Zappos | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, Fiorello LaGuardia: The mayors of New York City have long been men with outsize personalities and strong personal brands. Not only have they had one of the most influential, highest-profile platforms in the nation, but they’ve also been strategic about positioning themselves and shaping the way others [...]
Feb 12, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Politics, Social Media | Tags: 9/11, Andrew Cuomo, brand, branding, Cablevision, climate change, Democrat, Ed Koch, Fiorello LaGuardia, Forbes.com, gun control, Hurricane Sandy, Independent, Joe Lhota, legacy, lymphoma, Madison Square Garden, mayor, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Michael Bloomberg, MTA, New York, New York City, New York Daily News, personal brand, philanthropy, political party, Quinnipiac University, Republican, Rudy Giuliani, Sandy, September 11, smoking ban, soda ban, subway, transit, Twitter, unbranded, Village Voice, website | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] I can’t muster up too much sympathy for a Hollywood star whose personal branding woes haven’t prevented him from earning more money than most of us ever dream of seeing, but from an image point of view, I do feel bad for Ben Affleck. Even after all these years and all [...]
Feb 05, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Insights, Uncategorized | Tags: Academy Awards, Africa, Argo, Ben Affleck, Bennifer, best director, best original screenplay, Boston, brand, branding, charity, Critics' Choice Awards, Dazed and Confused, Forbes.com, Gigli, Golden Globe Awards, Gone Baby Gone, Good Will Hunting, Hollywood, image, J. Lo, Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Lopez, Kathryn Bigelow, Kevin Smith, Matt Damon, movies, New York, Oscars, Perez Hilton, personal brand, Quentin Tarantino, Razzie Awards, reboot, rehabilitation, Steven Spielberg, tabloids, The Town | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] Even though Lance Armstrong has been in the news for months—the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s incriminatory report was released in early October, though speculation was raging well before that—he’s really just at the beginning of his problems. From a crisis management and personal branding standpoint, he has a long road ahead [...]
Feb 01, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Media, PR | Tags: apology, Ashley Olsen, athlete, brand, branding, CNN, crisis communications, crisis management, cycling, doping, drugs, Forbes.com, fraud, interview, Jake Tapper, Lance Armstrong, Livestrong, Matthew McConaughey, Media, media consultant, Oprah Winfrey, performance-enhancing drugs, personal branding, PR, public relations, publicity, reboot, rehabilitation, responsibility, Sheryl Crow, Social Media, sportsmanship, The New York Times, United States Anti-Doping Agency | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] In what was undoubtedly old news to anyone who has been paying attention to the British royal family, St. James’s Palace issued an official statement last week to announce that “Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are delighted to confirm they are expecting a baby in July.” (Hello, [...]
Jan 29, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Social Media | Tags: baby, brand, branding, British monarchy, British royal family, Cambridge, Carole Middleton, child, Cirque du Soleil, Daily Mail, duchess, E!, family, hair, Kate Middleton, Kim Kardashian, merchandise, Michael Middleton, MILF, Morrissey, personal brand, pregnant, Prince Harry, Prince William, Princess Diana, Queen Elizabeth, royal, St. James's Palace, Today, Twitter, URL, Us Weekly, Windsor Castle, Yummy Mummy | Leave A Comment »
On Forbes.com’s CMO Network, @havaspr CEO Marian Salzman focuses on one of the most important issues today in business: personal branding. She has talked about it through the lens of the red carpet, political beliefs, reinvention, ideas conferences, even Hurricane Sandy. She has wondered if branding should begin at birth and whether readers align their [...]
Jan 28, 2013 | Categories:Agency News, Brands, Politics | Tags: branding, British monarchy, CMO Network, Forbes.com, Hurricane Sandy, ideas conferences, Kate Middleton, Lance Armstrong, leadership, Marian Salzman, personal branding, Politics, Prince William, red carpet, reinvention, Sandy, Social Media, Timothy Ferriss, Tony Hsieh | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] Pleasure and entertainment are probably the main reasons people tuned in to the Golden Globes and its red carpet pre-show on Sunday. It’s safely sanctioned, free fun to see the fashion and hairstyles and the reactions to them. But these events are also fascinating as trend barometers, pointing out what’s new [...]
Jan 17, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Fashion, Features, Media, Social Media, Trends | Tags: actor, Badgley Mischka, Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper, Brands, Carey Lowell, celebrity, Claire Danes, Emily Blunt, evolve, Fashion, girls, Giuliana Rancic, Glamour, Golden Globe Awards, HBO, Hugh Dancy, hyphenate, influencer, Jack Black, Jennifer Garner, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, John Krasinski, Kate Hudson, Keith Urban, Kristen Bell, Lena Dunham, Liev Schreiber, Lincoln, Naomi Watts, Nicole Kidman, personal branding, personal brands, Pinterest, Polyvore, power couples, purple, red carpet, Richard Gere, Savannah Guthrie, star, style | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] I recently got a humorous pitch from a real estate agent in New Hampshire, where, he wrote in his email, “there is a theme-branding wave that is part capricious, part serious business.” At first his proposal made me giggle, but then I saw how it reflects the ways in which personal branding [...]
Jan 15, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Marketing, Politics | Tags: branding, Brands, community branding, corporate branding, freedom, identity, libertarian, liberty, Live Free or Die, Marketing, New Hampshire, PorcFest, porcupine, real estate, state | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] I’ve written extensively about brands—personal brands, community brands, conference brands and so on. But I’m certainly not alone. This era is widely regarded as the age of the brand. But most of the personal branding conversation doesn’t focus on the age at which we begin branding; it focuses more on adults [...]
Jan 09, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Social Media, Trends, Youth | Tags: Blue Ivy, branding, Brands, career, children, college, community brands, company brands, conference brands, domain, hiring, name, parenting, personal brands, school, search engine, TED | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] To a certain extent—in this age of marketing ourselves, finding our niches and explaining how our distinctive personal backstories make for unique selling propositions—all our names are brand names. But some have gone above and way beyond. That’s especially true in the world of fashion, where some of the most iconic [...]
Dec 19, 2012 | Categories:Brands, Fashion, Features, Marketing, Trends | Tags: Alexander Wang, Balenciaga, brand, brand name, Brands, Chanel, CSR, Dita Von Teese, Donna Karan, entrepreneur, evolution, Fashion, Karl Lagerfeld, Kenneth Cole, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Marketing, Martha Stewart, personal branding, personality, Ralph Lauren, risks, The New York Times, Tommy Hilfiger | Leave A Comment »
[Originally published on the blog of the Council of Public Relations Firms.] Great trendspotting creates great consumer marketing campaigns, terrific innovative new products and savvy newscrafting. I know: The most famous brands in the world have hired me over and over for my trendspotting methodology, ensuring that their multimillion-dollar (sometimes billion-dollar) ideas, products or services [...]
Dec 12, 2012 | Categories:Brands, Features, Marketing, PR, Trends | Tags: 120M Books, Brands, business, change, content, Council of Public Relations Firms, fatigue, Havas PR, Lady Gaga, Madonna, mancession, Martha Stewart, metrosexual, newscrafting, pattern recognition, Steve Jobs, the Kardashians, The New York Times, the prime crisis, Trends, trendsetters, trendspotter, trendspotting, weather, What's Next? | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] With last week’s news that Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, and his Downtown Project have pledged $1 million to Venture for America to help revitalize downtown Las Vegas (full disclosure: My agency helped spread the word through pro bono media outreach), I got to thinking about the role of character [...]
Dec 12, 2012 | Categories:Brands, Features | Tags: Amazon.com, authentic, authentic communication, bad boy, BitTorrent, branding, character, community, content, corporate culture, customer service, Delivering Happiness, Downtown Project, Fast Company, Forbes.com, good guy, human element, Jeff Bezos, Noah Fleming, old-fashioned values, open communication, personal branding, The 4-Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss, Tony Hsieh, Venture for America, Zappos | Leave A Comment »
