The Age of Brandividualism

Posted by David Armano / January 23, 2009 11:54 am 

Picture 671

Yesterday was a interesting day in Chicago. In the afternoon, there was the Blogwell conference which featured real life case studies from large organizations executing initiatives in the social media space. Companies like:

  • The Home Depot
  • Mayo Clinic
  • H&R Block
  • Sharpie
  • US Coast Guard
  • Allstate
  • Walmart
  • Procter & Gamble

And later that evening, I gave a talk at the Social Media Club in Chicago (above). In both talks I noticed a reoccurring theme. When companies engage a social manner, even the big ones—their initiatives are often powered by individuals. People with real names. faces, families and lives. In fact, most of the more successful examples included people who worked for brands who were beginning to become known on a fist name basis. The Home Depot for example has Sarah, who handles their Twitter initiative. This poses a question for all organizations. What happens if the Sarah’s of the world leave your company? Isn’t it better for a brand to just be a brand?

Picture 672

Enter the “brandividual“, a term I blurted out in my talk about personal branding later that evening. The phrase was born of a series of questions from the audience which all focused around the same topic. Where is the hard line between my employer’s brand and my own? The answer is not a simple one—but I believe that trends are pointing us to a blurring of that line whether we like it or not. “Brandividuals—people who represent your brand and their own, balancing the two may be something we see more of, not less as companies and brands try to figure out how to engage on a web that’s become increasingly social and personal.

Take this list for example—40 of the best Twitter brands and the people behind them. The title of the list is enough to make you think. For each brand on Twitter, there’s an individual (or individuals) behind that effort. It’s both business and personal. The two have become one. The tactic comes from a fundamental truth when it comes to the social spaces on the Web. People want to talk to other people. They want transparency. They want to know who they are talking to.

Who’s behind that masked brand?

And as the people—the “brandividuals” begin to reveal themselves, it wil create new scenerios where we’ll all have to think about the relationships between the brands we work for and the personal ones we build and maintain and how the two relate and mutually benefit from each other. As the dawning of the age of the brandividual comes upon us, we’ll all have to re-think the boundries between us as individuals, brands, and the brands who employ us.

Written by David Armano

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  • http://admaven.blogspot.com Nicholas Kinports

    Great stuff David!

    I enjoyed the presentation in real life (as opposed to SlideShare).

  • http://www.KolbeMarket.com BarbaraKB

    Totally agree David this is how social media adoption will happens @ most corporations. But, perhaps a challenge: corporations becoming more human and humans becoming more corporate? Age-old question: How do/will folks divide time online between the corporation and the human being. As always, a challenge for corporate workers. Peace.

  • http://us.cision.com Ben West

    Great points. I think that it’s definitely a positive whenever I feel like I am talking to a person rather than a faceless brand. Some difficulty can arise, however, when people blur the lines and negatively reflect the brands that they represent. This danger is inherent on facebook, where pictures, videos, notes and comments are shared on any number of different topics. I know that there are pictures and notes that I’ve been tagged in that I wouldn’t mind representing myself, but I would not want them to represent the company that I work for. My best advice would be to remember that the line between personal communication and professional representation is there and should be navigated carefully.

  • http://www.criticalmass.com/ David Armano

    Nicholas, glad you enjoyed the presentation live (it’s always better that way)

    Barbara, you said:
    “ge-old question: How do/will folks divide time online between the corporation and the human being. As always, a challenge for corporate workers.”

    It’s an age old question that I think has now become even more important. The numerous examples of companies who have their employees accessible now makes it THE question.

    Ben, that’s the point. The line is going to become harder to draw for many of us. And for each, the decisions will be a case by case basis. No silver bullet on this one.

  • http://www.directmarketingobservations.com Marc

    Ok I’m glad I read this. No one wants to talk to a brand, they want to talk to a person. I can remember Tweeting over a year ago as a brand and it sucked to be responded to as the brand-I didn’t have a name. I know that you have to walk that line for in the end you have to make some type of rule for yourself. Am I the brand? What brand am I? Do I want to be this brand?

    What the hell is Richard@dell going to do? If he ever leaves, he’ll always find himself having to say, “I was…Richard@Dell

    Here’s a better one. Bob Denver. Know who he is? Of course not, but if I said Gilligan you might. He was never able to play another part. He was always associated with the Brand. so much so that he was “playing” Gilligan all the way up to when he died. Everyone called him Gilligan.

    It’s indeed a slippery slope.

  • jo

    Lame as usual David

  • http://www.criticalmass.com/ David Armano

    Jo,

    Criticism like that never helps anyone. Especially yourself. Next time please offer something more substantial. Thanks.

  • http://blog.brand-yourself.com Trace Cohen

    Love the new term you came up with to describe someones personal brand. As the lines between personal branding and corporate branding beginning to merge and create kind of a grey area, we need to keep in mind that these companies are just the combined efforts of all the individuals who comprise it. While it may sometimes be better for a “brand to just be a brand,” people want transparency as you mentioned and to put a face to whatever it is they are buying.

    If we lost the “Sarahs” of the world, things would look a lot different…

  • http://karensnyd.blogspot.com karen snyder

    Catchy!
    I’m dealing with this dilemma right now as I get ready to launch a blog for my company. It’s “mine” but it’s also “corporate.” Ack.

  • http://AuthenticOrganizations.com CV Harquail

    David-

    This is another useful perspective on employee/ organizational branding, both the opportunities and the minefields.

    I like the term “brandividual” so I was sorry to discover that the term is already “taken”. It’s the name of a company http://www.brandividual.com/blog/wordpress/.

    how about “indivibrand” instead?

  • http://www.med20.com/blog/2009/01/cnto411-heading-to-the-dead-phlog-pool-are-corporate-blogs-really-an-oxymoron/ Med 2.0 » Blog Archive » CNTO411 – Heading to the Dead Phlog Pool? Are Corporate Blogs Really an Oxymoron?

    [...] (too much) “Brandividualism“David Armano (from Critical Mass) recently blogged about The Age of Brandividualism, a term used to describe “people who represent a brand, as well as their own“. While [...]

  • http://www.nathanrtaylor.com Nathan Taylor

    This is an interesting article. It makes me think about how I represent my company (Dell) as an individual, but not in any formal capacity as Sarah or RichardatDell do.

    My take is that the effectiveness of the brandividual is heightened by the fact that there is only one of that person. First and foremost, they are there to represent themselves in a compelling way. This shows that the company’s message is believed in by intelligent, expressive people who you would still want to know even if they left that company.

    If true, then the number one qualification for someone to represent your company as an individual is a highly developed sense of self. The evangelism part comes second.

  • http://www.nathanrtaylor.com/why-i-value-social-media/ NATHANRTAYLOR » Why I value social media

    [...] Taylor, Nathan R [12:36 PM]: Ah. Thought that’s where you were going. I disagree with it as a negative though I posted a comment to that effect on David Armano’s post here: http://experiencematters.criticalmass.com/2009/01/23/the-age-of-brandividualism/ [...]

  • http://wearesocial.net/blog/2009/02/brands-twitter/ Brands and Twitter / we are social

    [...] post on learning to speak human. David Armano brilliantly investigates this dynamic in his post The Age of Brandividualism and his recent follow-up, Battle of the Brands (both of which are required reading here at We Are [...]

  • http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/advertising_20/archive/2009/02/25/brands-and-twitter.aspx Brands and Twitter – Advertising 2.0 We Are Social – Blogs – Brand Republic

    [...] debated post on learning to speak human. David Armano brilliantly investigates this dynamic in The Age of Brandividualism and his recent follow-up, Battle of the Brands (both of which are required reading here at We Are [...]

  • http://www.buzzle.com.au/battle-of-the-brands/ Battle of the Brands

    [...] Armano invented the term brandividuals which goes part way to explain the connection between the individuals and the corporations and [...]

  • http://www.halbino.com/2009/03/brandividualizing-my-goals/ Give It All You Have » Blog Archive » Brandividualizing My Goals

    [...] Brandividual – noun [...]

  • http://marketresearcher.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/136/ How Twitter Accomplished What Facebook Couldn’t « The Multifaceted Market Researcher

    [...] the where twitter diverts traffic. What this alludes to is the emergence of what is considered the Brandividual, the dual persona that incorporates a business’s brand and their own personal brand in order to [...]

  • http://wearesocial.net/blog/2009/04/marketing-20-day-2-highlights/ Marketing 2.0 – Day 2 highlights / we are social

    [...] as a human with individuals. Still according to David, this is where you see the concept of ‘brandividuals’ appearing – take Scott Monty for example: on Twitter, in addition to being ‘a husband, dad [...]

  • http://wearesocial.net/fr/blog/2009/04/conference-marketing-20-2eme-journee/ Conference Marketing 2.0 – 2eme journée / we are social

    [...] humanisant les relations. Toujours selon David, c’est ainsi qu’apparaît le concept de “brandividuals” (marque + individu). Prenez Scott Monty par exemple :  sur Twitter, en plus d’être ‘un [...]

  • http://www.30thbirthdaycards.net/ tessa

    I just found your blog on the google search engine and saw a few of your other posts that you had done . I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the great work. i will Look forward to reading more from you again.

  • http://www.myfamilyecards.com/ anne

    I really liked your blog! i read 4 others that are on similar subjets, but they domt update very often, thanks.

  • sue

    informative piece there, Thanks for this.its wonderfull to see someone with a like mind.

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    [...] Update: Just saw a term for this -  Brandividuals [...]

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    [...] your chance to see someone in the brandividual role taking action, over time, in the face of a big [...]

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    [...] also noted that right now, brandividuals are often individuals who already had a reputation and/or personal brand before joining the [...]

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  • http://AuthenticOrganizations.com/harquail/2009/05/20/whats-a-brandividual/ What’s a Brandividual?

    [...] I read that David Armano had “invented” the term “Brandividual” a few months ago, I muttered choice words from an array of Continental languages and berated myself [...]

  • http://www.bangpass.com/t1/pps=netkam/ BreneBoub

    I think you made some good points in your post.

  • http://cyberpopblog.com/?p=5074 shop n’ share

    [...] connecting with friends via our shared purchase histories, we are becoming what David Armano calls brandividuals, people who represent the brands we love by communicating with friends about how these products and [...]

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