Brand new Brand YOU
"Personal branding reflected in the zeitgeist. Watching the pros in entertainment, politics, business. And now you. What makes YOU different?"

Dear Reader,

I just want to wish you and everyone out there reading these lines a Merry Christmas. And keep in mind, everytime you see or talk about Santa Claus: he is just a (very old) personal branding idea by the Coca-Cola company.

Cheers,
PJ Harengel

Ipod yourself

As you probably know I have already some concerns on the “coolness” of all the Apple products. I probably have the wrong mental attitude or whatever but I think the rave about Apple products is all hype. I don’t remember any product which was as trendy and cool as Apple’s Ipod. Ok it’s hard to say Apple has made any marketing mistakes. They’ve run a solid campaign. Indeed they did an exellent job on getting the message out as the must-have-to-be-cool product. One part of this campaign were these black shadows on a 1-color background ads. A few guys made a website where you can get any picture transformed to an ipod-ad-alike one for about $20. What an interesting way to show how “cool” you really are.

Seth Godin appeared on the aspen music conference. On his blog are some comments by a participant on Seth’s lecture. I have a rather mixed opinion regarding it. Although he definitely has some good points, sometimes it looks like he is just trying too hard getting the music industry out at feed with his purple cow.

A must-read for everyone!

Agenda Inc Trends For 2005

Personal Story
A few weeks ago I was visiting Antwerp. Anyhow I’m always attracted to flyers/cards for parties and clubs. I’m not really collecting them but some of them are really innovtive and inspiring. One of them I kept and still have around.

Why?

Ok , on one hand I’m missing something on it. It’s a face. The face of the Dancer/Dance Instructor. I visited the Website and even there I didn’t found any “face”. It would have been a big chance to get known by some people but unfortunatly the missed it. However I found this design to be really appealing because of the following:

#1 Just by watching at it you know what it is about.
#2 It’s bright, even easy readable at night.
#3 No long texts and brubble, just Catchy the words.

It would be a good thing if they’d continue using this layout/style on the website.

Amazing Story On Music Marketing Ok, we have heared it over and over again. The complaints of how the music business is declining are just anaoying. The news, that the Ramones are selling more shirts than records is good proof for a few facts:
My Conclusion
- A strong brand for a music group is essential. From the logo ( you all know the licking Rolling Stones tongue) to the stage image. The Ramones’ creative director just mentions, that he only authorizes use of their logo on items which fit their image.
- The music itself will get less and less important. It’s just a kind of bassic product and the big buck will be made just by concerts over movies to merchandising (dvd, ringtone etc).

Source

Your Price Is Your Value

I just stumbled on a posting on David Kaspar’s blog, which just reminded me of some art marketing “rules”. You will find it even on some ebay auctions. No matter what the quality of the work is, the price and presentation can make it an attraction. One item that just sold for an high amount is a repeating P.R. story. And today you can even do it on ebay and you have a real evidence by its auctions. Well lets put it this way… if the buyer is a good friend/relative of you noone will ever care about…

How Much Is Art

Update:
I just found, that Adrants has some related story to it. (Of course) they judge it as a bad bad bad idea. HeHe

How To Trick Chris Matthews Out

And again a story I found by watching C-span. I admit its a kind of weird to watch so much C-span. But I enjoy it even it is most of the time just bloody boring. It’s a good source for some background storys besides all the sound bite news today.

So I was watching “527s in 2004: Did They Make A Difference?” Pretty amazing to talk 3h30m about this. But at least I got a small story out of it. It deals about the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth”. I found it quite amazing how they focused to bring vets in the media who had no media expirience at all. Their PR guy Chris LaCivita placed one of the vets on Chris Mathews. In his usual behaviour Mathews tried to unmask this guy. But it was of cause expectable that Mathews shouts down conservative guest especially disputed ones like this Swift Boat Veteran. But it was a kind of PR stunt, to send there an old man and let Mathew do his show. So they recieved a brilliant example how “undignified and unrespectful” deals with this “honorable” man.

2 New Links Added

As you probably noticed I’m keeping my eye on entertaining arts. Today I’m updating the link sector with 2 links.

Modern Music Marketing

At the moment my fav is a new blog on the music industry. It’s worth reading.

Movie Marketing Blog

I’m following the blog since a longer time. They are really on the spot on unusuall and creative movie promotion ideas. Not only independent stuff but real background information.

Cells are watching you

Recently I was watching C-span. During a discussion Newt Gingrich asked the question “how many of you own a mobile phone with a camera?” About 1/3 of the audience rose their hands.

So these little spy cams are just a part of our lives. Everything can be just pictured and be online within seconds. This situation has created a whole culture of picture hunters. And it is even encouraged by some tabloids and magazines. They are giving out rewards for celebrity pictures. Some people even earn their holidays by spying on celebs with their cam.

Link

Guardian

My Conclusion

Everyone is on the way to become a public figure. Thats why I started this blog. The moment you step out of your door, you have to be prepared for whats waiting out there. Also keep in mind: What you are doing today out there, can come back to you any time in pictures, soundbites or movie clips. Take care of what you are doing, how you are doing it and .. how look doing it.

As you all probably noticed, Tom Brokaw stepped down as the NBC Anchor. His successor will be Brian Williams. It’s really suprising how one, even as a serious newsancho,r has to be funny and entertaining. Williams made an appearence on Comedy Central’s Daily Show and did a really good job. You can watch a clip of the appearence here.