I was at a dinner last night that Simon Francis, CEO for EMEA at Saatchi & Saatchi, spoke at. His topic was branding and, specifically, the concept of lovemarks that Saatchi & Saatchi has developed (brands that have “love” as well as respect and “inspire loyalty beyond reason”).

Saatchi’s approach to building a lovemark is to engage people emotionally; rather than rationally, and create good feelings about a brand. He gave a lot of examples such as Apple doing this with the iPod compared to Sony’s Walkman (“Apple just get how people can feel moved by music”), etc.

I asked a question about Simon’s take on the idea of personal branding and here is his response:

Simon was aware of various moves people are making to cultivate a personal brand (and mentioned some topical examples such as Tiger Woods!) and how it can all go horribly wrong if you’re exposed as something different to the brand you portray.

He made the point that the technology and social media we all have at our disposal is so powerful, it would be pointless trying to position yourself as something that a quick Google search will reveal as untrue.

So it came down to integrity – and that presenting yourself honestly as who you really are is the only way to go. Sound advice.

Essentially, Simon saw people’s efforts at personal branding to be no different to conventional means of self-marketing, such as a good CV, being appropriately dressed for the roles you aspire to, etc. – just that people were using new tools to do this and it has been given a new name.

In an earlier part of his presentation about how his teams put together the makings of a lovemark, Simon talked about starting with “a new idea” for the brand – an organising thought around which the whole campaign rotates. The example he featured was Saatchi’s work for T-Mobile and the ‘Life is for sharing’ idea that started with the ‘impromptu’ dance at Liverpool Street station.

This is a useful concept for personal branding too – what’s your ‘organising thought’? The one big idea about YOU that stands out.

He concluded by talking about how they get ideas for this ‘new idea’ – they ask questions of consumers and listen really carefully for emotions – ‘How do you feel about this brand?’, ‘What would it take for you to really love this kind of product?’ The same approach can apply with creating your personal brand – ask colleagues, former bosses, references, etc about how they feel about working with you – what do they love about working with you?

Then use these emotions when crafting a brand for yourself.