Today I received an introductory copy of the first chapter of “personality not included“. A great example of an OPEN brand, the author has shared the first chapter and encouraged bloggers to post about it, and will also be answering individual interviews with bloggers to post on the date of the official book launch. Sounds Personal, Networked, and Engaging to me!
As books about branding/marketing/innovation have to do, it started with a story about Apple and the iPod. It talks about the shuffle, and the fun note in the disclaimer “do not eat iPod”. It’s a bit of commentary on brand personality. It made me think of the fervour generated around the Tom Bihn washing instructions a few years back.
One major statement the author tries to drive home is that “marketing isn’t just about selling”. This is very apparent to me: we do brand marketing at Resource all the time, and there is rarely any direct eCommerce being pushed forward. It’s about cultivating a relationship with the brand, beyond an exchange of money.
The big idea of my book is that personality is the key to creating an inspiring brand.
Personality is the unique, authentic, and talkable soul of your brand that people can get passionate about.Personality is not just about what you stand for,but how you choose to communicate it. It is also the way to reconnect your customers, partners,employees,and influencers to the soul of your brand in the new social media era.
This quote is obviously important to really focus on the book’s main premise, but the idea of “how you choose to communicate” really struck me. It’s about cultivating a unified public persona. Just yesterday a friend questioned the unwillingness of a certain big box store to match prices between their online and bricks-and-mortar experiences. My friend doesn’t know or care that those are two business divisions: the label on the product is the same, and he expects the same level of quality and service. Putting forth a consistent public persona implicitly lends credibility to a company’s internal organization and strategy. A company that presents too many different faces and pursues too many diverging priorities doesn’t offer the consumer a strong sense that they (the consumer) is number one.
Which is where personalization and customization really comes into play. A brand CAN have dramatically different strains of potential consumers, and each one needs to feel the brand is speaking to them. And we all know from our “effective communication” classes that listening is a critical skill in fostering relationships and making people feel valued.
Marketing books often strike me as “the stuff I know… I just never really thought about”. The author lays things out in a palatable way, and I will admit I laughed out loud at the important truth (complete with hand-drawn illustration) that “Personality can’t save crap”. It’s true: an engaging experience and open communication with a brand doesn’t enhance the quality of the underlying product or service. The other week I mentioned Jesse James Garrett’s discussion of the layers to add value to a client. Although he focussed on the topmost “design” layer, ultimately the foundation was in the technology. Like in the dating scene, “she’s got a great personality” isn’t always enough to sustain a long-term relationship. This is not to say every product needs to be the first (or only) in its class. Personality can help take something from “good to great” – it just needs to at least be good first 
The book “personality not included” provides the reader with plenty of stories and anecdotes, guiding him through understanding of the significance of cultivating a brand personality to the actual cultivation thereof.
Related posts:
- Subscribe to the RSS feed
- Get Email updates
- Tweet This
- Stumble It
- Add to del.icio.us
- Share on Facebook
- Email to a friend
{ 1 trackback }
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
This book has been on my list to buy and after reading your thoughts, I am even more excited to get my hands on a copy. It’s funny, you touching on “personality” made me think of the scene in Pulp Fiction where Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta’s characters are discussing pigs as “filthy creatures.” One of them brings up dogs and says they are filthy creatures too, and the other says “yes, but they have great personalities!” It’s true, personality goes a long way.
More from author