Andrzej Moyseowicz - Media & Innovation Director, Saatchi & Saatchi EMEA

Great brands are about storytelling. Lovemark brands tell a story which is compelling on three levels; Sensuality (are you drawn or attracted to the brand?), Intimacy (does the brand reveal itself in a personal, individual way?) and – too often forgotten – Mystery (does the brand leave you intrigued enough to discover more?). These three perspectives form the basis of brand management, they are also absolutely fundamental to your own personal brand, ‘BrandYou’.

The most enduring brands are based on and built around insights; the most powerful of these come from third parties. In this sense, BrandYou is no exception. Colleagues, acquaintances inside and outside the workplace, those with whom you’ve done business in the past, those with whom you’ve come in contact for professional and non professional reasons will all have an opinion or perspective on you ranging from the rational to the emotional. BrandYou is about capturing those insights, learning from them and building them into something that will support you throughout your career.

Traditional brand management is built around the concepts of ‘paid’, ‘owned’ and ‘earned’; a format which lends itself perfectly to BrandYou. As brand managers will concede, the relationship between the three vectors is not linear – different audiences will respond and react to different combinations. The key is for the brand – and for BrandYou – to remain compelling and consistent throughout, irrespective of format and irrespective of media.

Entertainment or utility?
Ensure that BrandYou is relevant to your audience

With any brand the brand management process begins with a rigorous round of research involving a range of audiences and stakeholders, including analysts, management, investors, customers, partners and – most significantly – employees themselves.

Impartiality and a complete absence of preconceptions are essential to this process. A range of data and feedback is collected – including both quantified and non-quantified – to address some fundamental questions:

• What are the rational values associated with the brand?
• What are the emotional values associated with the brand?
• Is the product or service a utility/necessity?
• Is the product/service an entertainment/non-necessity?

The resulting analysis will form a solid basis for resulting brand positioning efforts. A brand whose product is a genuine utility cannot be supported by positioning designed for an entertainment service, it will be perceived as frivolous and inappropriate; a brand for a product which is considered as entertainment (as opposed to a necessity) cannot look solely to the rational for endorsement, an emotional element is integral to the product itself.

The same approach can be adapted for BrandYou; a consideration of your ‘offering’ and the audience to which it is being targeted is fundamental.



The above diagram illustrates two different BrandYou profiles based on differing levels and proportions of rational and emotional values and proof points. As with any brand, it is highly unlikely that BrandYou will be made up exclusively of emotion with zero rationality or vice-versa; however, ensuring the right mix in light of your desired audience is crucial. To this end, you should consider your target audience, their interests and concerns, their priorities, and to what extent your brand should be positioned as entertainment or utility. The latter will depend on your chosen/desired sector, your role within it, your experience levels and – of course – who you plan to engage with. In effect, precisely the same logic that underpins the effective management of any brand.


BrandYou1 is heavily influenced by emotional credentials. These could be a combination of qualitative characteristics, hobbies, interests, pursuits. This positioning could be based on the person’s career state (depending on the sector, college leavers may lack relevant experience, professional qualifications or other rational credentials to draw upon); it could, however, be a conscious choice designed to interest and implicate a specific audience. This audience could be motivated and more likely to respond to an emotional brand; BrandYou is, therefore, built accordingly.


BrandYou2 is relatively rational, based on more quantitative credentials which could include qualifications, awards, relevant experience, professional membership etc. Once again, the positioning could represent a distinct choice to associated with the target audience; certain audiences are certain to respond and engage more favourably to this type of profile.



The BrandYou research process can include insights friends, colleagues, ex colleagues as well as desk research (qualifications, relevant experience and interests) covering both rational and emotional aspects. But this process should not be an entirely inward-looking; research should also include the desired audience, who you would like to reach, with whom you are aiming to build a relationship. A thorough and objective assessment of this aspect will ensure that the resulting BrandYou is relevant, appropriate and engaging – just as any brand should be – with respect to its target audience.

The art of story telling

Brand building is indistinguishable from the art of storytelling. As such, three key elements are equally essential to any brand as they are to any story:

Sensuality – are you attracted to the story, the scenario, the characters? Do you care about any of the protagonists; do you have a reason to read on? Do the story and the characters within mean something to you, can you associate with any of them, do their experiences and insights strike a chord?

Intimacy – is the story honest? Do the characters behave and react in way that is coherent with how they have been described previously? Readers feel cheated if protagonists suddenly start acting ‘out of character’ in the absence of any clues or insights contained within the text. Readers who have invested time and energy to understand a character’s thoughts and motivation will become disillusioned if this groundwork suddenly becomes irrelevant.

Mystery – are you sufficiently intrigued to keep turning to the next page, an act which presumes you are going to learn more about the characters and the unfolding story? The manner in which the mystery is handled – the revealing or explaining of events – is fundamental to the art of storytelling.
The elements above are of course synonymous with Lovemarks and the same principles should be applied to BrandYou:

Sensuality

• How could BrandYou be deemed attractive? What does it offer to its target audience in terms of their business needs?
• Is BrandYou proposing insight and opinion, specific and relevant expertise, access to more contacts, pure entertainment, a combination of these?
• Remember, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, particularly in the context of brands. Study your target audience, learn what interests them, where they discuss, what they discuss and how they interact. What can BrandYou offer them?

Intimacy

• You are human and so should be BrandYou! Really powerful brands admit their shortcomings and try to learn from them.
• What is your biggest professional or non professional mistake, what did you learn from it? Are you prepared to engage in this level of discussion?
• BrandYou should reflect you; your thoughts, fears, opinions, experience, learnings, desires and...your mistakes. People react far more positively to brands which are perceived as ‘open’ and ‘human’ as opposed to ‘closed’ and ‘corporate’. BrandYou will be no different.

Mystery

• You don’t have to reveal everything at once. Mystery can be a powerful weapon to inducing intrigue and desire.
• BrandYou should invite dialogue, discussion and exchange not monologue. Think about what to keep back, tailor your discourse for your audience fund out what interests them and – when the moment is right – reveal it.

Paid, owned and earned

Irrespective of the medium or mechanism through which the brand comes onto contact with its audience, the message and values associated with that brand remain consistent and compelling.

Here is how this methodology can be applied to BrandYou:

Paid

• For BrandYou, ‘paid’ is all about your collateral, paid for memberships of clubs and organisations (professional and non professional).
• ‘Paid’ could include subscription-based forums, directories and discussion groups where BrandYou could be profiled.
• Think about how you invest your resources with respect to BrandYou; do these audiences matter to you, are you being consistent and coherent with your brand values?
• As with any brand, paid for presence is entirely legitimate for BrandYou as a complement to other platforms.

Owned

• For BrandYou, ‘owned’ is about your personal ‘real estate’. In online terms this would include profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook, your Twitter profile, how and with what style and frequency you communicate across these platforms.
• The growth of social media and the merging between work and non-work related interactions has increased the relevance of the online ‘owned’ platform as a means to communicate BrandYou.
• It can also mean what you wear, the car you drive, how you present yourself; these are all investments that will impact the way others view BrandYou.

Earned

• As with traditional brands, ‘earned’ is potentially the most powerful but also the most difficult to control.
• From a traditional brand management perspective, while ‘paid’ equates to advertising, ‘earned’ is all about PR and editorial.
• The growth of user generated content means that, not only can anyone have an opinion on any subject, they can also very easily broadcast it. From a brand management perspective, this means that PR activities are no longer limited to traditional media but extend to any influencers (private or professional) who could potentially impact the brand.
• For BrandYou, ‘earned’ is all about personal recommendations from credible third parties, encouraging others to endorse your credentials, subscribe to your communications platforms and engage in your discussions.

In common with FMCG and corporate brands the association between each of these platforms and the communities being targeted is not linear. The weight and influence associated with each will differ according to the type of people BrandYou is looking to engage with. The key is to ensure that the values and message remains consistent and compelling irrespective of the platform.

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Andrzej Moyseowicz works with the Saatchi & Saatchi EMEA media innovation community to proactively connect with content owners, new technology and artists. Andrzej has worked on a full spectrum of brands including the launch of the new Toyota Prius, European Tour Every Shot Imaginable campaign, T-Mobile, VISA Europe, Procter & Gamble and Guinness. Andrzej also designs CSR communication programmes, runs media creativity workshops, develops content and sponsorship opportunities and is a key driver of emerging technologies, platforms, and participation planning across the network. His diverse career started in the innovation and engineering space where he drove R&D programs across four continents, which led to his private consultancy focusing on innovation, sustainability and communications. His qualifications include an engineering degree, cognitive science and an MBA with honours from Cambridge University. Andrzej enjoys outdoor sports, running, food, reading, and art and lives in England with his wife Annie and two sons Tom and William.