Arriving to the ‘IAmMyBrand’ trend, I presume that we arrive to a point of real discussion.

As some of you may know, I have a clear opinion regarding personal branding. This is that I’m against that concept:

• Brands and branding was and is developed to objects: We can work on improving certain identity and build its image
• We are subjects: We are what we are and that’s something difficult to change. We can only work on personal image
• To work on subjects cannot follow a pre-defined process: If we all follow a process to improve our image, we will arrive to the same point that companies did when they applied reengineering… A new standard without a clear differentiation between one individual and the others
• Instead that we are gregarious and want to be part of certain tribes, as persons, we are unique and that is part of our identity

However, as everybody is defining the personal image as personal branding, I’ll use those words :(

Trend #6: ‘IAmMyBrand’ Trend

'IAmMyBrand’ trend is about building our own personal brands online.

As it was said on the Trendwatching 2010 report: ‘The online world has unlocked existing needs in entirely new ways. Humans’ deep need to be interesting to others, to be loved, admired, coveted, special, recognized, unique can now be satisfied by building attractive online profiles and presences, which, if successful, will attract friends, followers, if not a proper audience’

The relation with products and services that make us more interesting is based on what they do, say, who they connect to… and help us as a dress to improve our own image. This trend needs you to be:

• An empathetic person
• A person who knows and tell valuable things
• A person who is able to envisage the future (next minute or next century)
• A person who understand the new reciprocity business framework

Challenge #6: Brands are for objects, Image is for subjects

Due to our online presence, brands can pro-actively learn about people preferences. However, there is a huge challenge here and it hasn’t solved yet:

• As individuals we have our own preferences
• Those preferences are based on our own experiences
• Experiences are lived with different brands… Each of us has a unique sort of brand salad (e.g.: we expect that the retail experience that we had in Barnes & Noble, instead that we are in Carrefour… we want that our new car has the same kind of apps that we have in our iPhone…)
• Companies need to understand that the issue is not their competition, is the competitors that we have in our minds (and that would reflect in our online opinions about brand experiences)
• Brands are like prêt-à-porter dresses for our image

Brands and individuals are now managing their images across multiple platforms in this real ‘off and online’ world, with different messages, different images, to different tribes… with the same identity.

What do you think?