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In today’s world, almost everything is a brand. Entire countries are brands, there are brands of state institutions, brands of holidays, brands of geographic objects, branded lifestyle elements, and much more. In fact, even recreational features such as billiards, bowling, diving, or skiing are brands. As soon as the economy touches any sphere of our life, as soon as there is an opportunity to make profit from any human need, capital rushes into this sphere, competition appears and, as a consequence of the need for effective competition, all preconditions for the emergence of brands are created. It is naive to think that people cannot be brands, they are brands in the first place, all significant figures of the past and present are brands in their purest form.
Brands – people have always expressed or symbolized something: Albert Einstein – the image of a scientist, Marilyn Monroe – sex appeal, Ozzy Osbourne – the dark side of rock and roll, Che Guevara – the romanticism of the revolution. These people were more than just people, they were idols, symbols, almost gods (and for some without “almost”). Many people brands exist today – these are actors and musicians, athletes, politicians, television hosts. But this article is not just about brand people per se. We are interested in the principles of successful interaction between product brands and brand-people in the course of promotion and other business processes.
Д. Ogilvy considered involving famous people to promote brands one of the most senseless expenses, but sometimes life completely disproves the classic’s opinion: it is believed that the involvement of Michael Jordan for Nike ads brought the brand about $ 2 billion, and such examples are not isolated. People in general need leaders, opinion leaders, role models, leaders of the human herd, and people are ready to believe them. It is because of the authority of a well-known person, the object of consumption often becomes desirable, in demand among its target audience, but sometimes, popularity alone is not enough.
The use of brands by people is exactly the area in which it is not simply inexpedient, but rather harmful to take the example of economically developed countries. The Protestant ethic that largely determined the growth of the United States as an economic empire has, over time, been transformed into a cult of success as such; as a result, any prominent person there can already be a role model.
Many draw analogies between sports, politics and show business. We must admit that the cult of the show that reigns in the modern world has made almost any public activity a kind of show business, be it political, educational, charitable or sports activity. But in order to understand principles and rules that work in spheres that are relatively different from show-business, it is necessary to begin our consideration with the most predictable and transparent sphere for analysis – the sphere of national popular music. This area is absurd at first sight: the reasons for the popularity of the overwhelming majority of performers and bands lie far beyond artistic taste and elementary common sense, but the better to see the true reasons for the existing attitude to these “products of life activity” of the production centers. It is the market of popular music that shows us the most vivid examples of people-brands, which we can analyze, make the necessary conclusions and try to transfer to all other areas of life, where the concept of “human branding”, the concept of “creating people-brands” can be applied at all.
The most telling example is the unrequited love of teenage girls for the “stars” of boy bands or individual performers, sometimes reaching the point of mental illness. What happens in the souls of consumers of these products of show business? Everything is simple enough, there is no need to delve into the depths of the psyche and put our wards on the couch psychoanalysts. It is obvious that the performers are the living embodiment of young girls’ dreams, the embodiment of concepts such as sexual attraction or romantic love, i.e. personal values, internal beliefs of consumers, related to a certain sphere of life and very important for the consumer. In this case, neither the style, nor the content of the texts, nor the level of performance, or even sometimes the appearance itself, do not play a decisive role, it is important only that the whole set of properties, all the attributes of the brand corresponded (or at least declare compliance) value, which is the main factor in making a decision.
The essence of pop culture in general is that this phenomenon makes no sense to divide it into its components. Neither the text, nor the music, nor the stage image are of any interest to such groups/performers separately. Only when these components come together under a unifying value, the effect of attraction sets in, the performer/group begins to meet the innermost expectations of the audience, that is, the value inherent in the performer’s brand begins to be shared by a person. In other words, the performer declares with his/her entire activity: “I am the embodiment of value,” and the consumer agrees with this statement and accepts the performer in his inner world in the corresponding quality. Demand inevitably meets a fully adequate, albeit imposed offer. But that is not all.
It must be said that even around these girls there are probably many young men who correspond to the ideas of the girls themselves, but for some reason they love the “stars”. Why? “Stars” are devoid of the shortcomings of ordinary people, they are idealized in the minds and subconscious of consumers, “stars” have no natural needs, they are always disguised (apparently, even when they sleep), they are the embodiment of chosen values always (since everything else remains behind the scenes), unlike people who are around and whose flaws are visible to the naked eye.
Of course, the set of values demonstrated by the participants of this market is not limited to romantic love, there are also values of social protest and values of friendship, but the principle does not change from this – the value is primary, it makes people consider the artist himself a living embodiment of what carries the vector of his brand.
In all segments of this market the situation is essentially the same, except for the nuances – the consumer is attracted primarily by the personality of the performer, or rather the fact that he is the embodiment of a significant value. Well, the consciousness can interpret the predilections of the person at will, fitting any information to the answer, which is usually not difficult to guess. And if we ask a female fan about the reasons for her predilections in respect of a performer exploiting the love-sexual theme, the “argument” will be that the idol is “sweetheart” or “cutie”, although the members of many pop groups or performers can hardly be objectively described as such.
If the brand is built on the values of understanding, worldly wisdom and compassion, then the answers will be the phrases “This song is about me” or “about people like me”. , “he (she) understands me,” etc. However, if we look at things soberly, we see that the lyrics of most performers are fantastically banal and describe trivial situations in the most primitive words. But values, as always, are crucial. Moreover, since many performers’ personal lives do not work out because of excessive personal ambition, their real “suffering” is infused into the vector of the brand, reinforcing the value component.
Conceptually, the creation of a person-brand can be outlined by two rules:
Assigning a person the role of expressing a certain personal value (an inner belief, a judgment about something, applicable to a person in general), meaningful to the target audience.
Elimination of all shortcomings that prevent the person from being considered the embodiment of the chosen value (a point that makes no sense with regard to product branding, since the product being created already fully meets all our requirements – it is inherent in the process of creation).
The consumer consciously exalts people-brands, makes them his ideals, role models, he makes their personal “gods” in a certain area of life. With the younger generation, this process is more evident only because it is all-encompassing. Older consumers have a more balanced attitude, but the principle remains the same: people-brands are deified, some of their qualities (corresponding to a significant personal value) are overestimated, all others are ignored. The consumer, when building a brand, must be given clues so that he exalts the pretender to the proud name of “star,” whether it be a political or show business star, rather than letting the process take its course. The more godlike the person-brand looks, the more he is capable in the eyes of the consumer, the more chances he has for success in the market, whether it is the market of advertising, politics, the film market or the market of musical performers, within the framework of the value component, of course.
It must be said that some producers (brand managers, in fact) in show business intuitively understand this and create incredible legends for their brands, like legends of scouts, and this is certainly justified – who has more chances to become a “star” – a former restaurant singer or a young man who grew up in a mysterious eastern monastery? In this respect, the “star factory” strategy can be called a loser – “people of the people” have far fewer chances to become “stars,” and the situation confirms it: the brands created at the “factory” have a fairly short life cycle, unless significant funds are invested in their promotion. Although if we consider such programs as a media project, it is certainly effective, but at this point we are interested in people. Let us now move away from popular music and try to look at the situation as a whole.
There are laws of marketing in any market, and one of the main ones that we have formulated is that a brand is determined not only by the personal value that its creators put into it, but also by the segment of influence. As it is known, value perceptions are not universal and strongly depend on a number of factors, first of all, on social environment. Ideas about the proper embodiment of a number of internal beliefs (values), as well as the hierarchy of values itself is different in different social groups, so in developing a strategy it is also necessary to clearly define the segment of influence. That is, we again come to the concept of “brand vector” as it was formulated in relation to goods or services without any changes: personal value + segment of influence.
