Creating Memorable Personal Brand Experience

When all is said and done, brand is all about perception, experience and memory of the brand users. Brands-in whatever form belongs to the target audience and not to the owner.
About three months after a change in management of any corporate brands or when a friend moved out of your life. How many names among them can an individual on the street remember? How many of them have their names and faces imprinted on the minds of the populace for life? If my guess is right none. For any brand to remain relevant, there is a need for an intentional, deliberate acts that will bring emotional attachment to the brand. But the sad fact is that many do not know how to create an experience that the audience will remember for good years after they had gone.

Let us take a bet, what memory comes to mind when the names of former presidents of Nigeria are mentioned. What impacts have they all made? What about all the ministers they had ‘used’ or had? Can we remember any of them in a glowing and positive note? I knew there are few. It is sad to note that many do not take absolute control over their personal brands. Since they do not deliberately take steps to give expression to the place where their brands are going, people or the society affix one for them.

For personal brand to be successful or memorable, it is necessary that a deliberate effort be taken to create right experiences that are in ‘sync’ with the goals of the brand. Let us examine some of them in this article today while others will be examined sometimes later. One, an individual must aim to be a transformer. By being a transformer, one can give greater gift to his audience. Being a transformer begins with being a differentiator. Like I used to say, that is not a big deal.

All an individual needs to do is to look around and see that everything is still in its progressive form. Check every personal brand with greater memorable experiences, they have aimed and achieved the status of a transformer. They were not pleased with status qou in their profession; society, environment and culture. They were all ready accomplices in blazing a trail and given direction to their audience. They showed the way by standing out of the crowd. When an individual takes the first step of standing out of the crowd, his target audience or followers in this instance will surface.

The second step which aid the first one is to find an intersection of your personal brand’s passion and the current world’s need. It is expedient that personal branding project must constantly be on the look out for an intersection point where passion and current world’s need meet. The moment a personal branding project finds such an intersection, there is need to latch in and hit the place so hard as if life depends on it.

It is amazing how many smart personal brands had used this ploy to create a memorable attachment to their brands and generations. After they had gone people still have nostalgic feelings about their personal brands. How long do you think Nelson Mandela name will remain a household name in the history of South Africa? Many of the crops of leaders we have now do not know where they are going and so therefore, their personal brands as leader will remain in the ‘guttermost’ part of our lives.

One other way to create a memorable experience for our personal brands is for us to be comfortable to say ‘I do not know’. It is impossible to know everything. Only that individual brand must be a reservoir of knowledge in his niche. Acknowledged that you do not know everything but you are willing to learn the rope if shown the way. Many personal brands had been buried just because they proclaimed they need it all.

In addition to that, a memorable personal brand will be comfortable in contradicting himself sometimes. This is reflected when a mistake has been made. Memorable personal brand will admit to one realizing that we all make mistakes. How many of our leaders, ministers ever said sorry after implementing failed project that gulped millions of Naira. This includes us as individuals in our daily lives.

Memorable personal brands must create smooth transition of projects even when he is not there again. Also to create memorable experience brand must answer the question “have I discovered my Niagara fall’. This is what an individual brings to the table that exceeds the expectation of the marketplace.

Finally, a brand can become memorable if the brand is rightly placed in the market. If you bring right product to the wrong market, the brand can not make any impact. Find the right place to use your skills and your personal brand will become memorable.

#Olaito,yinka helps individuals and organizations achieve maxi,um values in the brands through adequate positioning of the brand to target audience that can pay premium. He is a brand and public relations expert and he works with Michael sage consulting, Lagos Nigeria