discusson on branding

In class we discussed the issue of branding, in particular in relation to the online world. There are brands availble in second life of course, just like in the real world since everything on second life is user created and usually tagged by who did it. So part of this is about recognition but it's also about building a brand, displaying skill and possibly gathering clout within the online community. So in other words it's Exactly like the real world.

So what are the benefits of building a brand? On a business level, in my opinion the most important benefactor of having a brand is gathering consumer loyalty. When you get a name for yourself, projecting qaulity and relaiblitiy onto that name is of unlimited importance, and it has many different levels, think of Nike, Addidas and Puma they may not be the classiest brands, but there is a big difference between wearing a tracksuit with their logo sticthed onto it and wearing one without. So even at the level of leisure wear these names reassure qaulity and a certain style to their wearers. The names Versace, Calvin Klein and Dolce and Gabbana provide the same function just on a different level of percived qaulity to their wearers. They trust the brand, everyone knows what it is and what it represents so this in turn causes consumer loyalty.

In class we also discussed the idea of the " prosumer " a term coined recently to decribe, well, everyone I guess since the global downturn. We can no longer just consume and survive we must produce and consume in eqaul measure in order to move forward. The money people would have dropped on clothes, jewellery, handbags and acessories just a few years ago now seems childish, ignorant and wasteful, while at the time it was viewed as possibly eccentric and amusing. The world has changed, even in the music industry the idea of flashing about and flaunting your wealth has been petering out more and more for mainstream artists so they can build a more accessable, realistic brand for themselves to appeal to the masses that consume their music. So in favour of a more stripped back approach, nowadays people seem valuecentric rather than qaulitycentric.

After studying Richard Gillis' article on personal branding for the irish times I have to a few of my own personal opioinons on the subject, firstly I agree one hundred percent that people control the content that is represented about them on social networking websites such as facebook and twitter. Linking people to certain videos from your page, using certain language in status updates or tweets, untagging yourself from certain pictures that you dont feel represent your " cool" image. All classic symptoms of controling your own personal brand but my second point is how new is that really?

People have been controlling their own personal brands for years, in the clothes they wear, the way they talk, the people they can be seen with, the clothes they don't wear, the way they don't talk, the people they can't be seen with. The online world just seems to be another arena for this sort of behaviour and on some level we all do it but will I admit that this sort of behavoir is amplified by the internet in the cases of the individuals who strenuosly control their image (we all know at least one).

So personal branding in my opinion is really just as annoying and shallow as it's always been, it's just easier to recognise and "unfollow" thanks to the internet.