History of Personal/Professional Branding

Personal/Professional Branding Is a New Field

First of all we need to understand that personal/professional branding is not the same as corporate branding or product branding. Corporate branding is used to create a corporation's or company's brand name or brand image. Product branding is carried out by the corporations to create the brand presence of their products or services. However when we talk about personal or professional branding, it signifies the personal brand image of a specific person whether he is employed by an organization or whether he is self-employed. If he is employed by an organization he does not necessarily carry the same image as that of his employer.

In vast majority of cases, the personal branding is used for professional purposes or professional gains by an individual. When we use the term personal branding it really largely connotes the professional aspects of a person and therefore it is a good idea to replace the nomenclature personal branding with professional branding. Or we can as well use both these terms to mean the same thing.

What professional or personal branding in essence does is:

• It creates and establishes a carefully worked out presence and status of a person in his professional arena at the local or global levels. 

• It proclaims person's/professional's distinctiveness and authenticity to differentiate him from other professionals/persons.

• It facilitates easy recall of him by those who wish to seek out the best professionals in the particular domain where he has established himself as a professional brand.

Personal/professional branding is comparatively new subject when compared to corporate branding and product branding. We will now trace the history of professional branding and it is quite young.

History of Personal/Professional Branding

• 1937: Napoleon Hill introduced personal branding in his book "Think and Grow Rich".

• 1970s: USA experienced massive layoffs in early 1970s. Big name companies laid off thousands in one go. That's when individual workers learned to take care of their own professional destinies by introspecting their own capabilities, craftsmanship and looking out for work that they would be interested in. It was the start of people honing up their own skills and creating a professional space for themselves without helplessly depending on just one odd corporate employer.

• 1981:  Concept of personal branding was refreshed by Al Ries and Jack Trout in their book "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind". Authors talked about the positioning strategy for advancing the careers.

• 1997: Tom Peters wrote about personal branding in an article titled "The Brand Called You". He popularized an already existing idea.

• 2001: William Arruda made personal branding reachable to everybody, thanks to the Web.

• 2002: Peter Montoya wrote books "The Brand Called You" and "The Personal Branding Phenomenon" and spelled out a concrete method.

• Professional and Social networks facilitated the personal/professional branding process- 2003: LinkedIn, Myspace, 2004: Facebook, 2005: YouTube, 2006: Twitter.

• Current situation: Integration of professional/social networks facilitating the personal/professional branding process.          

Related Articles on Professional Branding

1. Professional Branding: Start Your Branding Journey Now http://professional-branding.blogspot.com/2013/08/professional-branding-start-your.html

2. What Is a Brand? http://professional-branding.blogspot.com/2013/08/what-is-brand.html

3. Definition of "Brand" and "Branding" in the Context of a Professional or a Person" http://professional-branding.blogspot.com/2013/08/definition-of-brand-and-branding.html

4. Premises of Professional Branding http://professional-branding.blogspot.com/2013/09/premises-of-professional-branding.html

5. History of Personal/Professional Branding: http://professional-branding.blogspot.com/2013/09/history-of-personalprofessional-branding.html

What Is a Brand?

Origin of Branding

In the olden days, branding was used to distinguish one person's cattle or animal from that of another person. It was done by stamping or burning a unique symbol on the animal's skin by a hot iron. This symbol was the distinguishing feature to identify or link the animal or set of animals to its owner. It was the mark of ownership.

The concept of branding was later used in commerce, industry and business for marketing, advertising and selling the products. Manufacturers, marketers and sellers started differentiating their product offerings by making promises to their potential and existing customers by proclaiming and making the customers aware that their products had uniquely beneficial features as compared to their competitors. These efforts were targeted in etching in customers' mind an association of those promised unique characteristics exclusively with their products.

Branding Extended

As the businessmen, marketers and professionals in variety of fields saw the advantages of branding, they did not limit it only to the products and started applying it in many territories. The concept of branding got extended to many things in due course of time. In modern times branding is done for:

• Products
• Services
• Businesses/Corporations
• Non-profit organizations
• Cities/States/Countries
• Political Parties
• Governments
• Persons
• Professionals of all the fields
• Celebrities/Personalities

Our Focus

In our articles here, we will concentrate on the topic of brands, branding and brand management related to persons and professionals.

Stay with us for the next post.

Related Articles on Professional Branding

1. Professional Branding: Start Your Branding Journey Now http://professional-branding.blogspot.com/2013/08/professional-branding-start-your.html

2. What Is a Brand? http://professional-branding.blogspot.com/2013/08/what-is-brand.html

3. Definition of "Brand" and "Branding" in the Context of a Professional or a Person" http://professional-branding.blogspot.com/2013/08/definition-of-brand-and-branding.html