It would be complicated to define a brand by a simple definition, as it can have a multitude of meanings, both at the legal, marketing and economic levels. At the legal level, a brand is “a sign used to distinguish the goods or services of a physical or moral person from those of other physical or moral persons” since an order from November 13, 2019. However, nowadays, a brand represents much more than that.
If a brand is a distinctive designation, it is above all thanks to its set of unique signs: from its name, its logo to its graphic charter… These various components allow it to be recognizable and to act as a reference point on sometimes saturated markets. But it goes far beyond graphic elements, a brand is also an identity.
An identity that we recognize and with which we, as consumers, can identify through brand values, a vision, an engagement, a story…
What would be an article about humans and brands without talking about influence ? Not much. Beyond a brand which influences our behaviors and buying habits, who has never been influenced by a celebrity or public figure ?
For a few years now, we were able to familiarize ourselves with the terms of influencers and influence. Influencers take many forms, they can be medias, celebrities on social media, people who actually become famous thanks to social media et many others. Today, an influencer is above all a person who, thanks to various platforms (press, social media, videos, radio…), is going to make of his person an opinion relay, in order to influence the consumption habits of its target. Influencers therefore become brands as soon as they are able to use from their image to influence, or even sell.
At a time where us, consumers, are more and more invited to identify ourselves to physical persons -the explosion of influence marketing is proof of this-, the question is : in fine, are we brands too?
Brands aren’t the only ones to have an identity of its own. Everything that surrounds us has one, whether it is an object by its design or a word by its meaning. But identities that are the most common to us, are probably ours.
As humans, we all have an identity of our own. An identity which distinguishes itself from others by multiple and various characteristics, by values that stimulate us, by a history and many others… Finally, characteristics that can be found both in human and brands.
From this simple observation, we can therefore think that in reality, everything is a brand, including us.
Let’s get to the heart of the matter… Have you ever heard about personal branding ? If this term does not ring a bell, there is a 100% chance that you have already practiced it. We talk about personal branding as soon as you try to stand out and be recognized in a professional environment. Personal branding allow us to develop a clear and effective personal communication strategy about our professional identity.
When looking for a job for example, you will for sure need to communicate on your person, put yourself forward as much as possible and try to “sell” yourself to recruiters. Sell your skills, your experiences, your story… It is in this sense that we can think that we all are brands, because we promote ourselves daily, as we could do for any other product that we can found at the supermarket.
What about our LinkedIn profiles ?
The famous social media where professionals meet, LinkedIn, is one of the pillars of personal branding.Yes, everything is happening on the web and on social media nowadays. We create a profile, which we feed with our experiences and our story, with a large part of our life in a kind of way. We try to get ourselves know, publish posts, share posts which coordinate with our values and what we love.
In a way, through all this and thanks to LinkedIn, we get a platform to grow our brand and make our identity known as a professional but also as a human.
Do you consider yourself as an influencer ? An influencer doesn’t need to have an audience of thousand of people. One person is enough to become one. Whether it is with our entourage or colleagues, we all are influencers. We don’t realize this on a daily basis, but we all use from our image to influence. Probably not in the monetary sense that we directly refer to the job of an influencer, but in the sens where we share our identity and opinions to our closed ones. We all have, at least once, recommended a product to a relative. Influence is also this. And as soon as we are influencers, we are also brands.
We can conclude that everything around is a brand and, as humans, we are too. Because through everything that we are, everything that represents us, we share distinctive elements and values, which originally constitute brands.
So, do you consider yourself as a brand ?
