brandividuals

Fix the Brand of Men’s Figure Skating: Send Out the Clowns, and get me Johnny Weir

February 19, 2010

Tweet The ‘Brand of Men’s Figure Skating’ is broken. The brand lacks coherence, it isn’t compelling, and sometimes it isn’t even attractive. And it’s all because of what those guys wear. In an ideal world, the Brand of Men’s Figure Skating reflects a hearty frisson between between the brand’s two defining attributes: Athleticism & Artistry. […]

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Authentic Student Entrepreneurs: Embedding Personal, Product and Organizational Brand

February 17, 2010

Tweet What do fledgling entrepreneurs need to know about creating authenticity? And what, if anything, does this have to do with cupcakes? I had a chance to try to boil it all down to a few key ideas when I taught two classes of an undergraduate Entrepreneurship course at NYU’s Stern School of Business. My […]

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When Brandividuals Violate Organizational Reputation: Ethics, NPR and Fox News

December 15, 2009

Tweet Media Watchdog Eric Boehlert blasts out of the gate this morning with an incisive critique of a longstanding, problematic relationship between NPR and Fox News. Please go to Eric’s post “According to its ethics code, NPR still has a problem” at MediaMattersForAmerica to read the entire story, which he has been covering for several […]

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Why Does Social Media Interaction Lead Us To Protect an Organization’s Reputation?

December 2, 2009

Tweet I have been struggling to write a (scholarly) book chapter on Corporate Reputation, social media and authenticity. As I have been writing myself around and around the issue(s), there is one thing that I cannot get my finger on, and that is: Why does having interacted with an organization through social media make us […]

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Why We Want Brandividuals on Social Media

June 11, 2009

Tweet Brandividuals are an important tactic for representing an organization online. Yes, I know, the term “Brandividual” is kind of funky, and maybe even has an annoying buzz, but as a concept it’s here to stay. Why? Because brandividuals are the most transparent, authentic and ultimately effective way of representing an organization in an online […]

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Don’t Let Personal Branding Stifle your Authentic Voice

June 9, 2009

Tweet There is a battle brewing between the concepts of Personal Brand and Authentic Voice. If you’ve been paying attention at all (and I’m sure you have) you’ve seen the articles and the individuals touting personal branding. Everyone from Tom Peters to Seth Godin to Dan Scwabel is online telling you how to create your […]

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Brandividual In Action: Follow @cbarger to watch General Motors transform

June 2, 2009

Tweet Here’s your chance to see someone in the brandividual role taking action, over time, in the face of a big challenge. When I gave my talk about The Rise of Brandividuals at last week’s Corporate Reputation Conference, I used the example (well-known in social media circles) of @scottmonty of Ford Motor Company to illustrate […]

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7 Tips for Rendering Authenticity Through Social Media

March 12, 2009

Tweet As part of a presentation I’m giving on “Rendering Authenticity Through Social Media, ” I’ve been distilling advice for from around the online conversation on how organizations can use social media to present themselves authentically. The audience will be a group of managers (practitioners, not professors) who are not themselves directly responsible for social […]

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