Branding yourself, your company, or your country

We use branding extensively in our lives either we notice or not. We always associate an image or a feeling towards a brand, when we think of a certain brand of clothes; it gives us the feeling of comfort, elegance or quality. When we think of a certain brand of car, it gives us the feeling of speed, power, or affordability.

As a manager, have you ever though to brand yourself? There is already a brand attached to your name even if you never noticed it. What people associate with you when your name is mentioned? We all remember at some points in our careers the smart manger, the hard working manager, the helpful manager, the practical manager, the bad manager, etc.

As a manager in your company, what image do people associate with your company? The customer friendly company, the well managed company, the best to work for company, the greedy company, etc.

As a country where we live, how other people in different countries think of us when our country’s name is mentioned? The democratic country, the rich country, the best place to live country, the environmentally friendly country, the well developed country, etc..

Branding sounds like some sort of stereotyping, but that not the case. Branding is eally the image we create for ourselves, our company or our country. Corporation spends billions of dollars to associate their name with certain image, if I say Macdonald now, what would come to your mind? Macdonald is probably the world most famous brand of all times but with that we hardly turn on a TV and don’t see a commercial for Macdonald; it’s the image and the brand associated with that image the company is trying to constantly enforce in the mind of the public.