Brands with a Cause

Many brands use charities as one way to attract media attention. Not that it is the sole purpose of the activities I’m sure. Big Brands such as Cartier, Gucci, and Oprah Winfrey know they have to find the newsworthy aspect or unique selling proposition of their company’s story and try to attract attention to that. One example in 2002 Oprah announced her plan to build The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation for Girls in South Africa after an inspiring conversation with Nelson Mandela. She was very hands on with the construction (which was another good news angle) that consisted of 28 buildings including a theater, library, dining hall, classrooms and dormitories. Oprah Winfrey is one example of a celebrity that is very aware of the power of media. She proved that again by embracing YouTube when last year she announced her own Oprah’s Channel.

On the other hand, Cartier and Gucci decided to work together with UNICEF. Cartier is continuing its program this year after the success of sales of its LOVE Charity bracelet that featured 18K white gold mini LOVE bracelet on a silk cord. The result was a donation of more than $1.2million to global charities in 2007.

Gucci has entered its 3rd year in 2007 of aiding children directly affected by HIV/Aids. The designers at Gucci released a special accessory collection and and an exclusive version of the popular Indy bag which will be available to buy throughout 2008. However, Gucci's humanitarian effort did not go smoothly as an article in The Observer questioned the fashion giant's motives.

The Miracles of New Media

The rise of new media such as Facebook and MySpace opened up opportunities for people to share their individual voices and to PR themselves (depending on their personal agenda). My personal favourite is MySpace, because it's more than just a regular online social networking. It aims to bring together creative people especially in music industry. For unsigned artists, MySpace is a window of opportunity to introduce their work to larger audience. It also provides them the chance to throw their work right to the producers they have been wanting or dreaming to work with. For established musicians, MySpace is a powerful PR and marketing platform to maintain communication with fans and update them of what’s coming up in their agenda such as new releases, tour dates, video from their gigs, etc. As for music enthusiasts, MySpace allows them to get ‘closer’ to their favourite musicians and also to search for new music. In places where price of CDs and vinyls are expensive (such as in my country, because we have to import the actual good ones, especially if it’s not signed to a major record label) and the range are dominated by mainstream and pop music, MySpace really helps fanatics keeping up with global music scene. Hence, I would like to share my enthusiasm for MySpace by giving you a link to one of my favourite band in 2007, Glass Candy, in which (you guessed it!) I found in MySpace . Hope you enjoy it! Oh yeah, do click on the image to check out their latest music video on YouTube.

Michael Levine

You may notice I have been quoting a lot from Michael Levine - it’s because I am currently reading his book, A Branded World. It's a good read for those who are interested in consumer and entertainment public relations. Michael Levine is head of Levine Communications, an entertainment public relations firm with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., and London. He has represented more than 100 celebrities and has included prominent names such as Demi Moore, Janet Jackson, Ozzy Osbourne, Reebok and many more.

Be Your Own Brand

Have you ever wondered how you project yourself to the world? How you are perceived by the public? Let’s say if you were a brand, what kind of brand would you be? As Michael Levine put it, “Public relations and personal branding are very closely related. Because the brand being created and maintained is a person, the public’s perception of that person – the brand being the public persona – is essentially the entire product. Without public relations - without the careful crafting of the brand’s promise and presentation - the person in question would not be defined for the public, and the public is not usually enamoured of what it does not recognized or understand.”

Celebrities like Tyra Banks and Heidi Klum understand the importance of personal branding and their full potential as commodities. They have successfully expanded themselves from being “just supermodels” by bombarding us with product endorsements for big brands such as Victoria’s Secret and Birkenstock, to becoming successful TV personalities with hit TV shows such as America’s Next Top Model and Project Runway. Tyra Banks even has her own talk show called The Tyra Banks Show (surprisingly) that aims to young women.

And to further show us how marketing savvy they are, they have their own individual websites: www.tyrabanks.com and www.heidiklum.com in which the content represents exactly the image they want to portray, which are beautiful, grounded, smart, funny, lively, young, sophisticated and successful….everything any young woman wishes to be.

We can’t avoid being brands in society, and there is nothing wrong with being one, since society will always observe and judge whatever qualities we project. Once again quoting Michael Levine, “Personal branding becomes a question of degree. If you begin with personal qualities that truly are your own, and you express those to the world in general, they become your brand. But when that brand represents only part of what you truly are, you run the risk of becoming a caricature of yourself – a brand with no person inside.” This in my opinion is why Tyra Banks and Heidi Klum are so successful, because despite their celebrity stature, they still manage to portray a genuine, more human side of their personalities.

Reinvent Yourself

Each year we are confronted with the question: what’s my new year’s resolution? Some of us go for the “typical promises” such as losing weight, stop smoking, make more friends (sad but true), etc. Some of us go deeper inside ourselves and try searching for the meaning of our current existence. Is this what I really want out of life? If not, how can I get out of this situation? Get a new job? Move to another country? Start a new life? And the list goes on and on. Basically, we are all looking for some ways to improve the quality of our lives.

What’s that got to do with brands you might ask? Well, in a way brand is like a person. It is constantly struggling to find its place among society through its personality and uniqueness. Each brand is fighting to gain recognition. The one who can adapt, evolve and stay true to its identity usually wins (on top of extensive market research of course).

One weekend I was flipping through Dazed & Confused and my eyes were caught by a special fashion spread and article on Burberry Prorsum. No, it wasn’t the clothes or the quirky-looking model that particularly interested me (although I have to admit both of them look quite stunning), rather, it was the interview with Christopher Bailey, Burberry’s Creative Director who is the brain behind rejuvenating the British traditional label.

According to the interview, Burberry is a British icon that has been around for 151 years! Yet today it remains relevant and even at the forefront of the fashion industry. You may notice in recent years, Burberry colours, the Novacheck (black, tan, white, and red check) have been associated with chav culture, and have been replicated illegally countless times in order to feed mass appetite for the prestige associated to Burberry. By reinventing the brand and combining it with its trademark heritage, the stigma has now been successfully detached from Burberry thanks to the creative mind of Christopher Bailey.

As brilliant as Christopher Bailey must have been, I am sure there is a strong team behind him who is working hard to make the brand transition successful as subtle as possible, and I am convinced one part of that is the PR team. I am not saying that public relations alone can create a brand without the help of its other counterparts which are marketing and advertising, but it would also be a blunder to undermine the power of public relations as an integral part of the branding process.

As Michael Levine stated in his book A Branded World, “Removing public relations from the branding overview would be an extremely serious mistake. Because the public finds information it receives from the news media to be the most credible of all the messages it receives publicly. Public relations serves an absolutely indispensable purpose in branding, it provides information about the brand to the public, without the stigma of being from the source itself.”

Well, for a super brand such as Burberry of course it would need efforts from all kinds of discipline to rejuvenate its image and gain the recognition it desires.

But what about us mediocre people who want to rejuvenate ourselves and keep up with the changes? Obviously we don’t need a sophisticated team behind us to do the magic, but maybe we can look at Burberry as inspiration of how it is able to make a comeback by reinventing itself but not forgetting its roots.

So, how would you like to reinvent yourself for 2008?