POSITION: ABSOLUTELY!

I’d say an unequivocal yes to that question with the proviso that it’s an authentic representation of you. Having a personal brand is very important, particularly in these challenging times, when we all need to be able to distinguish ourselves from the crowd.
 
Whether you know it or not, you have a personal brand, we all do. It’s about what others say about us; our reputation. For those of you who are interested in defining your brand, a good way to start is to ask a handful of close friends or relatives how they’d describe you to someone who doesn’t know you. Then, compare what they say to what you thought they might say, or what you hoped they’d say. You might be pleasantly surprised. 

As far as your brand being authentic is concerned, think about your values, beliefs and what you care most about. For instance, if being positive, communicating well and living a life of integrity and compassion are what drive you, do those qualities come across to others in your interactions with them via words, in writing, body language or actions? Donald Trump says that 90% of success begins with just showing up. Having an authentic Personal Brand will fast-forward you to showing up!          
 

POSITION: NO – ENOUGH ALREADY!

I’m a brand guy at heart, and I believe in its validity for individuals as well as for companies.  But the ongoing hype over personal branding has almost reached cult status, in a very creepy Tom Cruise/Scientology sort of way.

The endless babble by the legions of Schawbel-ites (the robot army that ravenously hangs on every word muttered by Dan Schawbel and the like) would have one believe that personal branding is a new practice, sprung from the popularization of social media. It isn’t.

Branding is the sum total of all user experiences with a particular product, service or person, building reputation and future expectations of benefit.  It’s no more relevant today than it was 10, 20, 50 years ago. So let’s stop making more of this than we really need to. People weren’t Neanderthals before Google and Twitter.  There’s nothing wrong with the concept of personal branding – there’s just nothing new about it either.  Before the Web, resumes still highlighted what makes each of us special, and we all put our best foot forward and did what we could to establish and maintain our individuality.

The Web hasn’t changed the means – it’s just slightly evolved the methods.

Perspectives is excited to expand our “200 Word Micro Debates” into the political arena!

For nearly a year, the Perspectives site has focused on business and marketing issues, building up a strong following of loyal readers.  Now it’s time to broaden our focus, and host debates where they matter most: politics.

Each 200 Word Micro Debate spotlights two professionals with opposing viewpoints on a given topic or question.  Participants will have up to 200 words to make their case, with no opportunity to see the opposing argument before it’s published. Readers will then be able to vote and leave comments before a winner is declared.

INTERESTED IN DEBATING? SIGN ON NOW!

POLITICS

• Is Obamacare good for America?
• Is global warming for real, or is it overblown?
• Has President Obama fumbled the ball on Afghanistan
• Has the stimulus package helped or hurt the economy?
• Should gay marriage be legalized?

If you’ve got something to say and want your voice to be heard, send an email to jmiletsky@getperspectives.com, and mention which topic you want to debate and which side you want to take!

POSITION: DEFINITELY NOT!

Personal branding is getting a ton of hype these days, and I can’t quite figure out why.  Personal branding has been around since the dawn of time, but we used to just call it reputation.  (I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that I’m not that old.)  Everything you do, every way you present yourself, and even more importantly every way people perceive you influences your reputation.

Perhaps the rise of digital and social media is causing a rise in the understanding of the concept of branding across multiple platforms, but really digital and social media are just channels for the same communication.  Put more simply, new media is just another way you can build and define your reputation, not a game changing way people perceive your reputation.

POSITION: ABSOLUTELY!

Personal branding has received oodles of attention recently.  Is it deserved?  Absolutely!  Put simply, personal branding is a method by which individuals can showcase their unique attributes – just as corporate brands have done for decades.  But why all the recent hype?  Because new technologies, “Web 2.0”, and the emergence of social media have broken long-standing communication barriers.  Armed with a blog, a flip cam, and a Twitter account, you can now broadcast your message like never before.

Previously, your life experience and career expertise were represented by a black and white resume, lost somewhere in a stack of identical pages.  But in 2009, your unique characteristics can shine through – in real-time, broadcast instantly around the globe.  How empowering is that?  And hiring managers are taking note as well.  Studies show that 75% of hiring managers research a candidate’s personal brand or social media presence while making a decision.  They’re convinced that personal branding is more than just hype.  I suspect many of your colleagues and competition are convinced too, and are building and promoting their personal brands as we speak.

Today, a strong personal brand can truly impact your career path – believe the buzz, it’s more than just hype!

What better way to kick off political debates than with the topic everyone is talking about?

We want our first political micro debate to be based on one of the most highly talked about topics in the country: Would Obamacare be good or bad for America?  But we still need some good writers and passionate debaters to step up to the plate and defend their positions in 200 words or less.

INTERESTED IN DEBATING? SIGN ON NOW!

If you have a strong opinion on the health care issue, and aren’t afraid to go toe-to-toe in a public forum, then let us know and be part of the Debate Team!  We’re also looking for debaters on other topics, including:

• Is global warming for real, or is it overblown?
• Has President Obama fumbled the ball on Afghanistan
• Has the stimulus package helped or hurt the economy?
• Should gay marriage be legalized?

If you’ve got something to say and want your voice to be heard, send an email to jmiletsky@getperspectives.com, and mention which topic you want to debate and which side you want to take!

POSITION: NO, IT’S NOT

Print has been a dying medium for most of my adult life. Now more than ever, people seem to want to kill it off once and for all.

Yes newspapers have been on the decline. Numbers don’t lie, and there’s no denying that as a marketing medium, print has serious challenges ahead of it. But not thriving doesn’t mean “dead.” There will be more significant shake-outs in the industry, but I guarantee that 20 years from now, people will still be proclaiming that print advertising is dead – minutes after executing their last insertion order.

As with any industry suffering tough times, there will be a rebalancing of supply and demand. Some publications will fold, increasing readership for the remaining titles. Surviving publications will lower ad rates until prices and available space equal a point where marketers can receive a positive ROI.

Print advertising remains a powerful tool for brand building as well as direct marketing.  All eyes might be on social media right now – and rightly so – but history will show that technology won’t completely trump traditional marketing. As long as advertisers continue to see a benefit with print (and they do), the medium will remain alive.

POSITION: IT’S GETTING THERE

It pains me to say it, but the days of print advertising are definitely on life support. In major cities including Boston and San Francisco, the readership at America’s biggest news dailies is sinking fast and ad revenue is sinking faster.

The presence of online media sources makes it difficult for news magazines like Time or Newsweek to break new “news.” Even in the world of gossip, Us Weekly and Star are beat to the punch by sources on the web.

Perhaps more telling than the distribution of physical news are the struggles being felt by the folks looking at circulation audits and financials. Insertions to spark car sales, for example, are now shifting almost entirely to the digital world as well. When consumers want to buy a new car, the first place they go for data is the web, and continue through the process until they actually select a local dealer to talk to. Even the calculations on monthly lease payments can be done online, so there are very few surprises at the dealership level and consumers can avoid the dreaded encounter until the last minute.

The death of print will be long and drawn out, but it’s coming.

1. Relying too much on data and research: Let me make this clear: I’m a big believer in research, statistics, data, focus groups, etc. I think research can give you insight into the minds and movement of any audience, and brand managers and marketers should use this information as they make their decisions. But good brand managers should also have a sixth sense when it comes to their brand and what’s best for it, and be able to make certain decisions even in the face of conflicting statistical data – not based on common sense, but based on raw, gut instinct. Brand management isn’t accounting – it’s not always just about looking at the numbers. It’s creativity. It’s sociology. It’s psychology. There may not be only one right answer, and brand managers need to know when to go against the grain.
2. Being reactive instead of proactive: Being reactive is really just playing it safe. Too often, brand managers wait it out to see what their competition does before taking any action of their own. Or they’ll balk at trying something new because nobody else in their industry has done it yet. One brand manager told me that he doesn’t like to be the first to do something because, as he explained, “the first pioneers through the canyons were the ones who ended up with arrows in their back. The next ones through knew which roads to avoid.” I guess that’s true[el]but it’s also true that first one to find the treasure chest gets all the gold. The next ones just find an empty box.
3. Going for the quick buck rather than the long-term gain: Brand-building is as much a time investment as it is a financial investment – but brand managers are often under the gun at the office, with mandates coming from higher-ups to make things happen faster. It’s understandable that this will prompt the brand manager to attempt to accelerate results. But if there is one fight the brand manager must take on, this is it. Going for the quick buck and marketing for short-term results might in fact yield short-term results, but those results will be a far cry from the much greater results that can be achieved with a longer-term brand-building strategy.
4. Not setting firm goals: No, this does not contradict the preceding bullet. Goals are absolutely necessary; they just can’t be too short-term or unrealistic. The importance of firm goals can’t be stressed strongly enough, since numeric goals are the only way to determine whether the best, most cost-effective strategies are being used.
5. Not taking their own branding guide seriously enough: Don’t get me wrong: I believe people in branding and marketing – on the client and agency side – can ignore certain mandates established by the guide as long as they maintain consistency in key areas and stay within the spirit of the brand. That being said, though, it drives me nuts when a brand manager makes some flippant comment like, “It doesn’t matter if the color is off by a shade or two. Nobody will notice.” Yes they will! And if they don’t right away, they certainly will when a full year and five print runs later the color is five or six shades off. Don’t screw with consistency – it’s a brand’s best friend.

Every brand manager is bound to make mistakes and will need to retrace their steps at some point to get back on track. To be honest, I give any brand manager a lot of credit – there’s a lot of weight on their shoulders, and very often they’re flying in a fog as they try to move the brand forward. But avoiding the pitfalls outlined here will go a long way toward keeping everyone moving in the right direction.

The favorite word of two year olds everywhere is now the name of a new magazine and concept from Time Inc and American Express Publishing.

The concept is intriguing. Instead of paying for several magazine subscriptions, readers complete a detailed questionnaire about their likes, dislikes and interests. Content is then pulled from Time Inc.’s suite of publications and assembled into one original magazine that is custom-tailored to the reader.

It’s an intriguing concept, isn’t it? As a consumer, my first response was “I want mine.”  Don’t you think that would make a great slogan?

My second response was “Hmmnnn…..”

I love the idea of a magazine filled with articles and ads I’m interested in.  Cooking is a hobby of mine, and I’ve subscribed to Cooking Light for several years now. Some months, the issue is dog-eared with pages smeared from my cooking attempts; there are more recipes than I can ever try. Other months the magazine just goes right into the pile and elicits only a snort of contempt from me.  Where am I supposed to find all those exotic ingredients out here in rural Virginia? I’m not driving two hours into Richmond just to find panko and crimini mushrooms (okay, Wal-Mart has panko – Japanese bread crumbs – but you get the picture.)  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to get a magazine with only those recipes that have what I call normal ingredients, things I can find in our rural area?

But then I thought more about the magazines I subscribe to and their contents. Have you ever had the experience of flipping through a magazine and an ad catches your eye for a new product? That happened just this week. I was flipping through Hobby Farms and saw an ad for a chicken coop for under $300.  We’ve wanted to get some chickens for a long time, but I need to rely upon my long-suffering spouse to build the coop and enclosure, and he’s not terribly enthusiastic about the project or about chickens in general. Suddenly I see a coop that even I with my limited carpentry skills could put together. It was also a very attractive little barn with safety features to keep out predators and little hatches to collect the eggs and clean the coop. Just what I wanted. I’ve now folded down that page for future reference. You know what you can get me for Christmas….

What if this new concept of “Mine” was in place with my magazines? Would the algorithm that drew content for my unique magazine have known my chicken coop dilemma?

What about advertisers? While some will welcome the targeted ads, magazines are going to have to radically rethink ad rates. Ad rates are predicated by circulation rates, and circulation rates are audited by one of the independent firms like the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) which gives marketers confidence that the information reported by the magazine is accurate.  If new magazines have custom content and custom selected ads, there’s no way to accurately predict how many impressions an ad will make. Think about it. What if only 100 of the 30,000+ subscribers to Hobby Farms note on their questionnaire want an inexpensive, small, portable and easy to assemble chicken coop?  I’m not actively shopping for a chicken coop; it wasn’t top of mind when I opened my magazine. The ad in this case inspired me to start thinking again about adding animals to Seven Oaks, our little hobby farm.

It’s a chicken or the egg scenario, pun definitely intended.  If people receive only ads and articles about what they want, advertisers can target ads better and perhaps see higher returns. On the other hand, if you don’t get your ads in front of new customers, you lose an acquisition channel.

Egg-xcellent, my dear friends.  What do you think about such a new magazine and strategy?