Branding is something that gets talked about a lot when it comes to businesses. But branding applies to people as well.
I was thinking about this the other day when I watched The Sentinel, starring Michael Douglas. Through the show he always seems to be just a step or two behind and you're sure that he's going to be bested by the villain. Then in one scene he puts on his suit, straightens his tie and you know that he is now about to turn the tables and come out victorious. In fact, during this scene, I turned to my wife and said, “This is why I watch Michael Douglas movies.”
When he puts on a suit, just a regular business suit, he becomes a powerhouse. From movies like Wall Street to Perfect Murder to The Game and, of course, several others, he seems to play the wealthy-but-haggard role very well.
I mentioned this to a friend of mine and he pointed out Bruce Willis, who seems to play the worn-out-cop (Die Hard, Sixteen Blocks) or the confident-assassin role (Whole Nine Yards, The Jackal, Lucky Number Slevin) very well.
I could go on and on about the types of roles that different actors seem to play again and again. For whatever reason, when Hollywood writers want a specific role, they seem to choose a specific actor. This is branding at work in a person.
Each one of us is a brand, although most of us (I think) don't try very hard or even realize the potential of that brand. What kind of brand do you portray when you're doing business?
In a previous blog I talked about Mark Cuban's critical analysis of YouTube.com being a copyright infringement lawsuit waiting to happen. Just a week later, Google bought YouTube for $1.6 billion.