ojai news at The Ojai Post :: blog, newspaper, events in Ojai, California

just what the world needs, another freakin' blog. :)

i don't get it, tyler.... what are you talking about "a person being a brand"?? a brand of what??

why did you have that strange link to your website?

does this have something to do with the complaints about what chris wilson did?

please don't be so cryptic about all this......

tyler's putting out a cd (progressive spirituals...) to ooincide with his new site....

Hi Say What -

I'm talking about a person being a brand unto themselves. The brand itself would have a certain market position, like any product. Associating with the brand would perhaps mean status or access to capital or a certain expected results or type/quality of product produced.

Some examples of people as brands:

Dalai Lama
Steve Jobs
Michael Jordan
Warren Buffett
David Allen
Richard Branson

Here's an interesting article on people as brands.

And #3, knock it off with the evan references already. You've totally jumped the shark.

Can you say narcissistic !

Well, see that's the rub, Brian. I struggled with building out a personal site tied to my business endeavors for quite some time. But I ultimately decided to put it out there in a way that I hope comes across as professional yet accessible. I didn't do it just to stroke my ego - it basically came down to being a strategic business/career decision. And so I thought I'd start a little discussion about the idea in general.

Thanks for your considered opinion!

Apparently you haven't seen Brian.com yet !

Well....I think it's intriguing. In some ways it's a way for a person to present to the world who he or she is. In another, it's a way to use their name to carry merchandise. It's funny. I never felt odd wearing a clothing brand like DK (no relation) or Lauren but when a person WAS something BEFORE they started a particular brand, it's a little odd feeling. Like the idea of wearing jlo sweats or smelling like sara jessica parker. Or the fact that Jaclyn Smith has a brand at Walmart or is it Kmart?....to me changed the way I saw her. Not better or worse but I wouldn't have put here there. I guess I really like when the branding comes from an inherent place and seems to match the identity we know of the person already and to even carry that identity further into the world.
My 2 cents.

marketing is evil

you think the bible isn't marketing?

Brian - can't wait. Spinny red nuclear bee logo and all.

DK - applying a brand (be it a person or otherwise) to an unrelated or tenuously-related product is a great way to dilute a brand, resulting in the loss of 'equity'. Marketing guru Jack Trout talks about it extensively in his "Positioning" books. nice thoughts on the subject, thanks.

"how do you feel about a person being a brand?"

I had to stop and think about that...then realized the yoga world too is full of people who are a brand, including B.K.S. Iyengar, Bikram Choudhury, Ana Forrest and Rodney Yee, just to name a few.

Maybe rephrase the question. In truth, a person is a person, not a brand.

the bible is also evil, and it's not marketing. marketing is an outgrowth of capitalism. marketing creates consumerism and consumerism is destroying the species.

suza I think a person 'becomes' a brand as they identify their work with their name out in the world -- unless of course their work is named after someone else.
I struggled with identifying myself with my work for years as I wrote and presented work under initials. It was frightening to put my 'name' out there with it and ultimately that branded the work and in turn, I am a brand in a sense. Sort of like creating a patent in a sense, it is identified with its creator 'if' the name is used.
I find it more unifying AND I feel more responsible having my work be under my name and my name represent work.
Jack Trout is a marketing guru? Is that a real name? That is interesting branding in itself.

Suza - yes, a brand is a construct that evokes a feeling or reaction, independent of the underlying person. Michael Jordan, Nike and basketball icon, is a great example of a brand projecting an image "Be Like Mike", while the actual person is a very private, closely guarded individual. Being like Mike is a world of glamour, athleticism, global fame and a high vertical jump that really has nothing to do with Michael Jordan the father or husband or homeowner.

Continuing on the yoga thread (Hinduism, Buddhism and other eastern philosophy), is referencing a "person" really just referencing an ego associated with this incarnation, and not a direct reference to the underlying soul? And if so, is the ego simply a brand?

i yie yie. head spinning tyler

I'm with Kate--i yie yie!

"is referencing a "person" really just referencing an ego associated with this incarnation, and not a direct reference to the underlying soul? And if so, is the ego simply a brand?"

Thinking it over, I think your onto something there!

Next time you sit at the feet of some guru, ask that question and let us know what he/she says!

If I have any further insight on this heady observation I will note it here!

If I trust and like the person I'll trust and like the product unless the product ultimately proves to be crap.

If you aren't in complete control of the quality of your product, your name suffers, and you suffer. You seem to be in complete control of your product(s).

Branding has been going on long enough that we now have archetypes. For example, I suppose that one could become the Martha Stewart of something that Martha Stewart herself would never take on, odd as that sounds.

I tend to distrust brand dynasties, and I believe that they usually collapse under their own weight. Keeping it within your grasp and control makes it easier to maintain quality. However, if you merely want to be a brand associated with successful startups, you don't have to worry about long-lived quality; that becomes someone else's problem.

Jeez. I'm really rambling. I think I need to take a walk.

Yikes! I am so dense. It just dawned on me that "Suza" is a brand!

Good thing that security guard was alert and carrying a loaded weapon in Colorado Springs!

Gosh: Say What?, I'd be so honored if Tyler posted this Open Thread as a result of the responses to my Pink Minute posts. I got all grateful when I saw that Heather and Tanya responded to my shameless promotion. Please understand taht my head is so full of ideas that I often put more time into distractions or dwellings on the ideas, that I don't spend equal or greater time focusing on one and following through to something tangible. It's been the same with the Post. I was gung ho on being an active blogger when I first agreed to an authorship on the Post, and then life had me all wrapped in other things and I gave relatively little thought to it and didn't really pay attention to the proceedings. I was disconnected and stilted by my Upper Ojai removal from Ojai's Local Core Scene. So I didn't put anything up. I'm more interested now being back in downtown Ojai.
Now that I have and received responses, I can choose between being butt hurt by Tanya and Heather's responses and just saying "OK" to their insights.
Anyway, I just checked on chriswilson.com and see that its a placeholder site (thanks mom and dad for the terrifically common name) that used to point to the Australian Musician Chris Wilson.
Point being, Pink Minute, is just a followed-through-with idea that I'm riding like a untamed Mustang pony - not a branding of "CHRISWILSON" who I am. I've wanted to play with the wordpress.org open-source software (or something similar) since I had my initial meetings with Tyler when he personally invited me to be an ojaipost.com author, introduced me to cascading style sheets (css)and wowed me with his clean-lines sense of organization and uber-professional pony tale.
If anything, www.pinkminute.com and the two-sided, pink-paper one-sheet that I've now published three times is a nod to the inspiration of someone whom I so completely admire and whose honed and gifted skills for funneling chaos into cohesive, useful content have to-date elicited nearly 1,000 posts and nearly 8,000 responses. If I'm correct, that's with Tyler posting the intro blog just a few weeks shy of two years ago. Pink Minute is only a fingernail of who I am, or brand myself to be; just as sure that I am that ojaipost.com or tylersuchman.com can even begin to encompass all the facets of the man who made a blog/list work for Ojai. Nonetheless, I've got ojaipost as my home page, I'm reading, I'm paying attention and tossing in my own thing as much as I see fit now.
Just keeping the conversation going. cw

this thread about "branding" and Chris's thread reveal to me one of the prime conflicts about the internet. On the one hand is the concept of the internet as being as open and free (some would call it non-commercial) medium. On the other are the forces that would turn it into a very commercial, perhaps capitalistic tool.
Ojaipost has its small share of those who have, mostly subtly, slipped in "advertisements" for their wares and services. Examples would be solar posts and colon-cleansing wisdom. So far the management and community of readers have not made a big deal out of it. I have a bit of a button about it because I was once banned for life from a group website for Mac computer users because I had/have (see the small plug here?) a Mac consulting business and even though my posts were usually "informative", I choose to believe other posters were jealous of my knowledge as well as thought I might be doing some business building. We spent quite a bit of time hashing out this issue and I guess part of the resolution was banning me (I know I can be annoying/arrogant. I try to keep it under control).

As far as a person being a brand. I feel this is one of the most preposterous concepts foisted on us. The "zenith" of this phenomenon in my mind is TRUMP. This ahole is likely to have his name embossed on every piece of toilet paper you will wipe your little tush with. And his "promoter", the lil Madison Avenue guru, cum TV show host, possibly to be mayor of New York, DONALD DEUTSCH, has made this concept of "branding" an everyday TV reality.

There are some "icons" that have achieved such a rarefied status that I can totally see the effect of their celebrity/notoriety. The classic that has already been mentioned is Michael Jordan. This guy being the best in the world's most popular sport (soccer excluded) could sell underwear or anything else because so many people (young and middle-aged boys/men) wanna be like mike.
Paris Hilton has redefined the concept of branding because she is a "nothing" if nothing than a "marketing genius" who has turned her slim figure, a sex tape and a "that's hot" mentality into an empire.
Ultimately this phenomenon speaks to "ourselves" and the "emptiness" so many people and the culture at large "suffer" from.

I'll take Trader Joes over Martha Stewart and Jon Stewart over Bill O'Reilly any day.

this whole conversation is a painful exercise in bad diction.....

the word brand in this context requires that it be followed by "of" something...

you can have a brand of soap.... or a brand of apples.... or a brand of theatre.... but the word brand makes no sense in isolation... tyler, you say it means, can a person be a brand unto themelves.... that still does not answer the question... a brand OF WHAT unto themelves?

I think what you are really asking is, can a person's NAME be used to represent a brand of something? Michael Jordan the person is certainly NOT a "brand"... but his NAME has been used to represent various kinds of merchandise... so to that extent his name has been used as a brand.... very different than a person "being" a brand.....

again, the whole conversation is a painful exercise in bad diction... and here i thought this was a Post where people used language skillfully....

What a relief to hear from El Anonimo! Hallelujah!!

"Ojaipost has its small share of those who have, mostly subtly, slipped in "advertisements" for their wares and services."

Well, since Chris and Tyler have opened a can of worms, it's time to ask, "What are the rules?" If you two can boot readers to other sites, can I fish for yoga students by cross-posting "Your Daily Yoga Vitamin" http://www.eldr.com/article/fitness/yoga-prescription-healthy-heart

Can Heather remind us to start the New Year with a good cleansing and colonic (God knows we all need one) http://www.ojaihealers.com/body/cleansing_nutrition/

Where do we draw the line? Maybe each active author gets a crack at one "educational" Post per quarter that subtly plugs their livelihood.

Maybe that's not a bad idea. It might bring some of the authors who've fizzled out back into the fold.

Just read #23, Say What?

"I think what you are really asking is, can a person's NAME be used to represent a brand of something?"

I agree. It would have saved alot of head scratching had the original question been clearer.

To Chris Wilson - nice comment, I like having you around!

To El Anonimo - the idea of being a brand might seem preposterous, but it can also be a vehicle of social change. Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, brands one and all. Not that Mother T in ANY way cultivated her "brand" for marketing sake, but just by being her true authentic self, she became an iconic figure that compelled people to social action.

To "say what" - I respectfully disagree - a brand does not need to be followed by an "of" - I'll use Virgin as an example. The brand itself is a chameleon, applied to cell phones and spaceships, music and wine, books and brides. Check this out: http://www.virgin.com/home.aspx

The brand itself theoretically stands for something, evokes a particular emotion and thus transfers those properties to the "of". Your explanation is the product followed by the brand. The way I am looking at it is the brand followed by the product.

To Suza - it's been kicking around in my mind to have a shameless self promotion day on the Post. That would be entertaining... :)

Yes! Let's do it!! Pick a day in January (or before Christmas if we want to sell stuff).

Alert all the sleeping Post Authors. Ofcourse some of them are so rich and famous now they've forgotten their humble small town roots...

It will be almost as good as going on Oprah!http://www2.oprah.com/index.jhtml

sorry, Tyler, this is elementary....

Virgin is not a brand.... it is a brand NAME.....

you are getting the name of a thing mixed up with what the name stands for....

your real question is, Can a person's name be used as a brand name?

and the answer is, of course it can..... whether a person WANTS their name to be used as a brand name is another matter.... obviously, it is a matter of vulgar commercialization....

Say What - Well, let's take Virgin as an example. If you look at their about page, they clearly see themselves as a "brand" and not a "brand name".
http://www.virgin.com/AboutVirgin/WhatWeAreAbout/WhatWeAreAbout.aspx

Some quotes from their about page:

A recent independent research study has shown that the UK public vote Virgin as their most admired brand. A sample of 2,000 adults were asked ‘which brands or companies can you think of that you really admire?” - Virgin received more votes than any other brand with 23% of votes.

Virgin, a leading branded venture capital organisation, is one of the world's most recognised and respected brands.

In our customers' eyes, Virgin stands for value for money, quality, innovation, fun and a sense of competitive challenge.

Is this an opportunity for building the Virgin brand?

You'll find all the Virgin companies listed right here on Virgin.com, making Virgin one of the most diverse brands in the world. Although the Virgin group is a family of businesses with a shared brand, all of the companies run independently.

And from a Richard Branson page on the site:
What would you say are the key things that entrepreneurs need to make a successful business?
Branding is also important. If you get your face and your name out there enough, people will start to recognise you. Many people know the Virgin brand better than the names of the individual companies within the group. A young girl once came up to me and told me I could be famous because I looked just like Richard Branson! Branding is everything.

============================================

regarding this: "whether a person WANTS their name to be used as a brand name is another matter.... obviously, it is a matter of vulgar commercialization"

what is obvious to you is based on your own perspective. Allow me to offer this: a person(ality) who may or may not be a "brand" lends their name to a non-profit or an NGO for an important cause. Is that an example of "vulgar commercialization"?

Dang! Without a space links are not live. Try again:

http://www2.oprah.com/index.jhtml

Oprah! a brand so famous "it" goes by O!

A little bit of Ojai Trivia: Back in 1997, Oprah filmed her TV movie, "Before Women Had Wings," in the field and cottages across the street from me. There she was, day after day, sans make-up, in old worn-out overalls, just as friendly and regular as folks can be. My latest book had just hit the shelves, but alas, I did not have a TV. Fool that I am, I did not fully grasp who Oprah was. Being on the City Council, us hicks were invited to have lunch with her. My yoga students were all abuzz...urging me, "Oprah loves yoga, she's almost 50, you gotta give her your book." Talk about an opportunity for Shameless Promotion lost! I dared not say one word...

Despite what you say, there is a element of vulgar commercialism in purposely seeking to BE a "BRAND".

Ghandi, Mandela, Mother Theresa, et al, lived their lives with a higher purpose. The fact that their names became universally recognized to the collective consciousness was a result of living purposeful existences, not the goal. Do you think that the Dalai Lama sought to be a brand? I think that is where the "vulgarity" comes in. The strong need to be famous for the sake of being famous, admired and rich rich rich!

The original question was "Can a person be a brand?" I guess if a non-person can be a long-lasting and highly successful brand (Betty Crocker), then so can a person.

However, on a different point, I also agree with Say What's comment regarding the proper use of the English language. At this time of year, for about the past 8 or 9 years, we have all been subjected to hearing the word "gifting" used in place of "gift-giving". I refuse to use the word, but that's just me. I don't like buzzwords, and I don't like the dubious practice of turning nouns into verbs. There's something 1984-ish about it, in my opinion. It cheapens and dumbs-down the language, and I think that when you dumb down the language -- with the exception of ephemeral and faddish juvenile slang -- you dumb down the people who speak the language.

But, yes; in the context of the question, a person an be a brand. This kind of commercial representation has been going on for longer than anyone here has lived. It will continue. Again, though, I think that "branding" (eeew!) your own name carries a risk of contaminating your name, and the risk increases exponentially when certain events occur, i.e., your brand becomes publicly traded.

Does anyone remember the very old but commonly used admonition "Fools names and fools faces are often seen in public places"? Those words would seem to be anathema to today's capitalism, but I think that the implied caveat still contains a modicum of validity.

Dear hmmm.... I think that in this age of media saturation, being a brand helps cut through the clutter, and that it is useful for a commercial or non-commercial project.

I think the Dalai Lama is perfectly aware that there is a Dalai Lama brand - http://www.dalailama.com/ - and that is helps advance his cause. He cultivates the brand, and does so with complete integrity.

He of course didn't start out thinking about himself as a brand at what, 5 years old, but realizes that he is the focal point of Tibet's struggle for independence and without the Dalai Lama brand, the movement would not have the global visibility that it does.

Whatever we do, whether we toil in obscurity or we consciously raise our visibility, we can do so with complete integrity and without vulgarity. There is nothing inherently evil about marketing.

Here's a really interesting article about "The Brand Called You": http://www.fastcompany.com/online/10/brandyou.html

hmmm,
To this I say, "Beautifully said! I think you have described,in simple terms, where the vulgarity in branding comes from."

A very famous yoga teacher, author of numerous books, best-selling videos and star of an enormously popular TV series, once said to me as we were riding in the back of a taxi discussing the illusion of fame:
"Just don't start believing what your publicist says about you."

Remember, we are all living in the world of maya. Maya is described as the veil of illusion that prevents human beings from seeing things as they are, from perceiving and connecting with the Divine.

Branding is part of the illusory nature of the world we find ourselves in. Reading all these comments helps me to see that in and of itself, branding is not necessarilly a bad thing. As others have pointed out, it all depends on how it evolved into a brand and how it is used.

"All of us throughout our lives have to look at ourselves. Everybody is three people: who they really are, who they want to be, and who everybody else thinks they are."

And even the person who is a brand name cannot escape the truth of that!

well, it is a sad day for the Ojai Post.... now dedicated to the self-glorification of all of its so-called "Authors"..... chris, i gather you are proud of what you have set in motion.... with tyler's active encouragement....

i must say, we have come a long way from The Beauty of Ojai in Haiku Form......

somebody should write a haiku about THIS..... (peggy, where are you, now that we really need you?)

i am on the verge of concluding a good 75-90% of ojaipost posters have little idea of what is going on "out there".
diction be damned, the concept of "branding", and in the way Tyler has presented it, is a REALITY "out there".
Yes, of course i shuddered at the bad diction the first 10 times i heard it and still do, but it is talked about as if it is a "done deal" (probably another bad diction).
Ojai may be chain free, but not yet TV or internet or printed media free, so i think some of us will continue to be influenced by "crass commercialization".
any 5th grader knows that, perhaps not consciously...

I may have overstated in using the word vulgar and for this i apologize.
i think that the whole concept of "branding" (which i have been very familiar with after a 20 year career in graphic design) might be more distasteful to those of us of "a certain age" and generation :o)

To "brand" to me implies a product. Therefore, branding a person is making that person a product.

The reaction that i have to it is difficult for me to find words for. Somehow the "branding" of human beings, particularly ones who i find profoundly inspiring in the way that they have led their lives, somehow cheapens and trivializes the richness and complexity of a human being.

leave branding to coke, pepsi, gap, starbucks, etc.

I just received an e-mail that said,
"i couldn't believe what you wrote on the ojai post....that Iyengar is just a commercial brand."

In the yoga world, BKS Iyengar (see link below) is a household name. Time magazine named him as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World."

Iyengar is a perfect example of a person who did not set out to become a brand. And now that Iyengar Yoga is entering the mainstream, he and the international Iyengar Yoga Associations are left with the daunting task of protecting the brand name "Iyengar Yoga."

To that end, there are rigorous standards of yoga education that must be met before you are legitimately allowed to call yourself an "Iyengar Yoga Teacher." But there are not enough yoga police in the world to stop people who've taken a week-end Iyengar Yoga Workshop from claiming they teach "Iyengar style Yoga".

As I understand it, it was with some reluctance that BKS Iyengar even agreed to finally officially approve the term "Iyengar Yoga" even though people had been calling his "brand" of yoga by his name for years.

I pay something like $100 a year to use Iyengar's logo on my website and promotional material.

To use the name "Iyengar" in the actual name of ones Yoga Center now requires an even higher standard than simply saying you are an Iyengar Yoga Teacher.

In fact, the standard for using the Iyengar name and logo becomes more rigorous each year. The stated goal is that the name Iyengar "ensures access to rigorously-trained knowledgeable teachers you can trust."

The flip side to this is that there are now programs that claim to be "Iyengar based." Seeing the Iyengar brand name might entice some people to sign up for a Retreat, for example, without closely checking out the actual qualifications of the teacher.

No brand, like no amount of MD's and PHD's behind a name, can guarantee quality.

http://www.bksiyengar.com/

What are you people talking about. This is silly.

Say What - The Ojai Post is hardly "dedicated" to the self-glorification of all of its so-called "Authors". In fact there is much less glorification of the authors here than the original inspiration for the site -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-blog
Nonetheless, a meditative haiku on the conversation would be warmly welcomed.

hmmm - well said. But branding is not solely the domain of the Fortune 500.

Suza - an excellent example of what some might call "reputation management" and preserving "brand equity". Awfully sterile terms to describe a yoga philosophy, but accurate in terms of how we maintain consistency and reliability as associated with a name or business or product.

spk- if you don't know what we're talking about or have nothing nice to say,just stay out of it.

i guess i'm feeling irascible this AM.
must be the cool weather

A clarification:
"I pay something like $100 a year to use Iyengar's logo on my website and promotional material."

Only Certified Iyengar Yoga Teachers who have signed the yearly "Certification Mark Agreement" can use the Iyengar logo. You can't just buy it for marketing purposes.

It's supposed to be like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for yoga. (That's a brand too, right?)

I feel like I've just taken a workshop in The Power of Branding. When I woke up this morning did not consciously know any of this!

New word:
irascible, "marked by hot temper and easily arroused anger...unreasonable irritability...oversensitive readiness to take offense or flare up at slight or implied criticism...

Exactly the word I'm looking for!

one of my favorite words too suza. if said right it can roll off the tongue in a growl-like manner :)

I agree with spk, this is silly, in a delightful sort of way. I'll take a discussion about branding any day over a city council thread, unless of course someone wants to challenge my assertion that Devito means Little Devil ;)

*just joking joe*

Here's to the absurd and the fantastically amusing. Someone else can handle all that serious political junk.

chris wilson-

con su permiso,
i think you reveal your immaturity by seeing this as silly.
and maybe that's why you got the flak you did on your last thread.
there are significant issues that we are trying to get at here.
if you find them silly i don't think you understand that.

we do get carried away on our opinions and minutiae.

try to learn something instead of dismissing it.

and yes- there is ALWAYS a place for real humor

geeze- you would think i slept with a rat last night...

Ojai Post dot com

Now open for business.

Become a brand name!

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Here's what I was trying to get at over on Chris's thread.

I don't care that he is plugging his blog. I just want things to be clearly laid out.

To me there is a big difference between the following tactics:

1) Giving some information and tying it to your business or project and then saying if you want to learn more, please visit this site. The link is the name of the site, so it's clear that you're leaving the Post.

2) Giving some information which abruptly ends with a link entitled "more" or "continued" that implies that the Post article will be expanded when you click it. Instead it takes you to another site entirely.

I realize now that Chris probably wasn't being intentionally misleading, but this is a bit of Internet etiquette everyone should be aware of: many people like to know when they are about to click on something that takes them to another site.

I also think there is a difference between someone who has barely participated posting something that takes people away from the site and someone who posts a variety of things, some of which happen to plug some other site. The former post feels a bit like an invasive virtual billboard while the latter feels like it's part of an exchange of information in a community. Just my opinion.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments Tanya. I did not know how to articulate what you just expressed so well. I agree!

Tanya
I had a feeling some might see it that way. A friend who helped me put the little paper together, and I were attempting to incorporate the html tag into the "continued" link so that it opened a new window instead of navigating away from the Post. That didn't work in the preview, so we thought maybe it was automatically part of the post's architecture. well it wasn't and i apologize for the mislead.

Chris,

Thanks for the response.