“10 Tips Obama Can Take From Tiger” was a monumental cover nightmare for Golf Digest. Hitting the newstands just as Tiger’s misdeeds were hitting the airwaves, most people saw this Photoshopped cover and saw nothing but a scandal. However, the most important thing on this cover had nothing to do with politics, sports or scandals. It was about branding. Specifically, their hats.
To most people, branding has fallen squarely into the business camp for quite some time. However, with the rise of the web, interest communities, and social media brands have faced a consumer populous uprising. This transfer of brand power is leading the way for the rise of a “new” type of branding—the personal brand. Much to many people’s surprise, personal branding is nothing new and the rules are strikingly similar to modern business branding.
From Pharaohs building steles, massive spires with their names on it, to the Roman Caesars putting images of their faces on coins, or to a staggering number of other examples—branding a person in one form or another has been with us for thousands of years. With the fall of monarchs and the rise of industry, brand power shifted away from the person and to the business. As businesses grew to global proportions, the idea of brand became firmly ensconced as a business concept.