PART I:
The Influencer
â1â
BEYONCĂâS DUAL ROLE
EXTERIOR: HOME DEPOT PARKING LOTâDAY
The parking lot is bustling with cars moving in and out of spaces and consumers heading for the entrance or pushing shopping carts filled with merchandise.
MOVING SHOT
The camera zooms in on a Bentley, sparkling in the sun, entering the parking lot and pulling into a stall near the back.
CLOSE-UP
On superstar BEYONCĂ KNOWLES-CARTER. She steps out of the Bentley in a form-fitting designer dress, shiny sunglasses, and Louboutin heels.
MOVING SHOT
The MUSIC BED begins to play âRun the World (Girls)â as BeyoncĂ© struts past the rows of parked cars and enters the store.
INTERIOR: HOME DEPOT STOREâCONTINUOUS
A Home Depot employee in a burnt-orange vest greets Beyoncé with a shocked expression. The MUSIC BED continues.
EMPLOYEE #1
Hello! Can I . . . help you find something?
BEYONCĂ
No thanks.
(continues past the employee with a smile)
MOVING SHOT
BeyoncĂ© continues on her quest through the store, stopping employees and shoppers in their tracks. She doesnât notice the commotion as she discovers the item she is looking for and heads to check out.
INTERIOR: HOME DEPOT CHECKOUT COUNTERâCONTINUOUS
Again, the employee looks shocked and manages to sputter out her sentence.
EMPLOYEE #2:
Did someone help you today?
BEYONCĂ:
I found what I needed just fine. Thank you.
The checkout process ends, and they exchange pleasantries as Beyoncé walks out of the store. The sun becomes blinding and the screen dissolves to white.
DISSOLVE TO:
INTERIOR: BEYONCĂâS LIVING ROOMâDAY
We find Beyoncé in an upscale living room. She is screwing in the faceplate of a new light switch dimmer.
CAMERA ANGLE OUT
The room light dims up and down as she plays with the switch on the wall. She smiles and walks over to join her husband and young children on the couch. They snuggle up, lean back, and start watching a movie together.
NARRATOR
Helping independent women everywhere build a more glamorous life.
The Home Depot: More saving. More doing.
FADE OUT
This imaginary commercial, which only exists in my head until someone shares my brilliance with Home Depotâs advertising agency, illustrates two major brands uniting in a partnership that is mutually beneficial. Some may consider this a celebrity endorsement of a corporate brand, but thatâs the Don Draper 1960s view of marketing.
BeyoncĂ© is a celebrity and the CEO of a multimillion-dollar company. She is also the product that company sells. BeyoncĂ© is a person and a commodity. Sheâs a brand, and in the twenty-first century, we call her a macro-influencer.
To begin, letâs redefine the existing notion of the term influencer. Online bloggers are not the only influencers. Politicians, musicians, authors, actors, community leaders, clergy, and so many others are major influencers in their arenas and thus earn the title. Celebrities and noncelebrities alike are busy wielding influence over vast populations both on and offline. Consumers in the digital age are becoming more distant from their fellow neighbors, but they still crave and seek out personal connections. Even if relationships with influencers are only one-sided, over a television set, through the radio, or online, the consumer perceives a genuine connection. We will discuss the principles of influence, rhetoric, and how influencers are becoming more powerful than ever before, so that you may develop the skills needed to take advantage of the influencer phenomenon.
Beyoncé, Ellen DeGeneres, Martha Stewart, and Reese Witherspoon are all members of the same club. They are successful entrepreneurs and they are powerful influencers. Over time these women have become macro-influencers across all platforms, with the ability to speak with authority on a wide range of topics. Their stories, and many others I share in this book, will help you understand how they became successful influencers by taking a crucial first step. Every one of these wildly successful women turned inward before they burst out of the starting gate. They did the hard work of figuring out who they are in order to create their unique and powerful brands.
IN THE BEGINNING, THERE IS THE BRAND
Influencers donât achieve their success by accidentâever. For a rare few, the knowledge might be intuitive, but each one understands the concept of branding, even as it applies to themselves. What makes influencer branding unique from traditional branding is that the core product is a real person, not an inanimate object. Sure, a CEO could be emotionally attached to a company or a product, but they are still one step removed. When their product receives harsh criticism or they experience the sting of a failed partnership, it is not a direct hit. In Chapters 3 and 4, I share the secrets of positive psychology that not only help you protect yourself from the ups and downs of the business, but also factor heavily into the creation of your brand.
In my twenty-five-year career branding and marketing celebrity musicians, I have heard this protest countless times: âI donât need branding; I know who I am.â
Do not be fooled. You may know exactly who you are, but you still need branding if youâre going to market yourselfâyour productâsuccessfully. Branding is about presenting your unique characteristics as a commodity. What are you selling? To whom? How will your consumer respond? Self-awareness is the first step to discovering a strong brand identity.
The late Apple founder Steve Jobs once said, âYour brand is the single most important investment you can make for your business.â I believe this so deeply that I have made it my lifeâs work to understand the complexities of branding people. I left Sony Music Entertainment after a decade in the marketing and artist development departmentâ working with artists like Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, and Johnny Cashâto focus on helping a new onslaught of independent artists cultivate marketing strategies that could compete with the major record labels with a fraction of the budget.
To my surprise, I found that a solid marketing strategy was not what these artists needed. First they needed branding. They had no idea what key, sellable elements set them apart from the hundreds of others making music. They had no narrative foundation to support a marketing plan, and no amount of money or smarts can create success without one. How can you promote or advertise a product without truly knowing what is being sold?
Imagine a house built on unstable dirt instead of concrete. A weak brand will cause any business to crumble and crash over time and even faster in the face of a storm. So, I set out on a mission to help influencers develop their brand before they made the grave mistake of going public too early or losing valuable investments. Once a faulty product is launched, it can be nearly impossible to correct. Iâd give examples, but you have never heard of them. Their names are relegated to music industry oblivion.
Unless you are completely oblivious to contemporary music, youâve heard of BeyoncĂ©, and this is the reason Iâve made her the star player in our imaginary commercial. If Home Depot approached BeyoncĂ© with a $20 million offer to star in a series of TV spots, her initial reaction could be, âAbsolutely not.â How could you blame her? Home Depot is masculine and gritty. It is blue collar with a do-it-yourself mentality. This is not BeyoncĂ©. She wouldnât be caught dead in a burnt-orange work vest.
BeyoncĂ© is all that Home Depot is not: She is glamorous and high class and the queen of independent women everywhere. These descriptions are true to her personality and her music. She is a brilliant businesswoman, too. Partnering with a brand that is quite obviously the complete opposite could destroy her authenticity and possibly her entire career. Yes, even if that career is already as solid as BeyoncĂ©âs. Turning down $20 million, while painful, would still be the right decision.
However, if Home Depot refocuses the ad campaign to empower women, things get a lot more interesting. This now becomes a conversation about narrative. Whatâs the new message they want to relay to consumers? The message in the fictional commercial is that Home Depot can empower women to become more independent. A woman, even a superstar, may be able to hire someone to change a light dimmer, but she doesnât have to. She may have a man in her life, but she doesnât need him to fix her problems. She may be wearing designer clothes, but she doesnât have to get dirty, if, of course, she doesnât want to. âWho runs the world? Girls!â
Now this partnership becomes a natural fit because BeyoncĂ© doesnât have to change who she is. The narratives intersect at an authentic place for both parties. Like Home Depotâs, the BeyoncĂ© brand did not materialize out of thin air. Itâs based on a careful analysis of who she is and what she has to offer. For Home Depot, one of the key characteristics of the brand is supporting self-reliance. For BeyoncĂ©, itâs empowering independent women, something sheâs been doing since Destinyâs Child. This new partnership reinforces the overall consistency of both brands. So, BeyoncĂ©, go on and get Home Depot on the phone!
BRAND IDENTITY FOR THE INFLUENCERâS BUSINESS
A real, live, breathing person presents many challenges to creating a successful brand, challenges a product-based company simply would not face. There are psychological components that must be addressed and incorporated into an influencerâs brand identity that are nonexistent for a typical product. These forces must help shape the brand as well as grow it over time. Failure to tap into the psychological components at the onset will spell disaster for anyone building a brand.
Influencers must learn to view themselves as a product. They need to be able to step back, remove their personal bias from the equation, and make sound business decisions. McDonaldâs golden arches canât think, and their french fries donât feel. They have a board of directors who study analytics, make projections, and develop strategies to increase their market share. Influencers, on the other hand, may have a very difficult time separating the creation of their product from the business of getting that product to the consumer. They tend to make shortsighted business decisions based on emotional or personal needs, and that typically leads to disaster. Thatâs why the first thing a young influencer has to learn is how to distinguish between the self as a person and the self that is a commodity.
Influencers must also be okay with commercializing personal attributes. Public figures must be willing to be vulnerable, sharing their true selves in order to create a connection with their audience. But sometimes an artistâs craft is so personal they donât want to taint the experience by turning their work into a commodity. In this case, my advice would be to go home and enjoy your work privately, and decide on another career path to pay the rent. For everyone else who doesnât believe that commercialism equates to selling out, read on, and you will learn how to identify your core brand and how to promote it publicly.
BRAND LONGEVITY
In my experience, outliers (top achievers who donât operate within societyâs so-called norms) struggle with finding purpose, confidence, and even happiness, like the rest of the population. They just tend to be affected on a larger scale due to the added public pressures. Competition is fierce, and pressures mount daily. Knowing and feeling comfortable with an authentic brand tends to help combat these serious distractions. I have found a direct correlation between confidence levels and time and effort spent on branding. This book will help define your unique definition of success and provide focus to achieve your long-term goals.
An influencerâs brand is only as strong and as lasting as their grit, perseverance, and overall well-being. If the CEO of McDonaldâs becomes exhausted and burns out, the board will simply replace him or her, and the company will continue churning out Quarter Pounders. If, however, the CEO and the product are intertwined, the product tanks while the CEO is in recovery. The influencer succumbs to the stresses, a bad public narrative ensues, and the influencer fades away, along with the business they built.
Finally, most products donât have to change over time, but a human has no choice but to evolve. I often see fear in a clientâs eyes when I stress the importance of consistency in order to achieve brand loyalty. They feel stifled and pressured by the sudden need for long-term sustainability and wonder how they could possibly be the exact same person every single day for the rest of their lives. They assume consistency means the brand must be perfect at the onset and unchanging, which just happens to be impossible to achieve. Hereâs the key that will make all that undue stress evaporate: Evolution does not equal change.
When a brand evolves over time, the core brand remains constant. Since Nike launched the iconic Just Do It campaign in the 1980s, the core brand has not changed. They have maintained consistency. Yes, they have evolved alongside the consumer, modernized their product lines, and updated minor narratives, but their core brand has not changed.
BeyoncĂ© has evolved just like all the other macro-influencers discussed throughout this book. Her musical styling and image have matured, and the themes in her music have become more family oriented as she has become a mother and wife. But her core brand pillars have remained consistent since her first Destinyâs Child album. An influencer must find the delicate balance between consistency for the sake of brand loyalty and evolution for authenticity and sustainability. In Chapter 10 you will learn how to recognize which core elements can be viable for years to come and how to methodically evolve.
If an influencer is armed with an evolution strategy, they may avoid a complete rebrand, although sometimes evolv...