This year’s Super Bowl was quite the event from the heart-racing game play to the 34-minute power outage. One thing that also stood out were the ads–or lake thereof.
Don’t get me wrong…I definitely think there were some winners. Anheuser-Busch’s Clydessdale ad was a sweet addition and Jeep hit it out of the park with their tribute to military service members. But other ads like the now-infamous Kate Upton piece (I cringed and wondered how many takes she had to do) and even the Volkswagen ad made me wonder what the brands were trying to do. Were they trying to convey their brand or simply spark controversy?
Think about that when you consider your personal branding. Sometimes it’s easy to get “likes” or hits for posting something controversial online, or for making some other sort of statement. But not all press is good press, and you may wind up taking a lot of heat for the message you put out there. Will it convey who you are–in the case of Jeep, a brand that knows how to connect with Americans as American as its all-American SUVs–or could what you do create a negative association with your brand? Do you care if that happens?
What personal branding lessons did you take away from the Super Bowl?
Author:
Kristen is a copywriter and author who enjoys what she does for a living. Kristen is also a Certified Professional Resume Writer. Kristen writes regularly for MediaBistro, SheKnows and FreelanceSwitch. She is a panelist on the biweekly, award-winning podcast FreelanceRadio. Kristen is the author of Ramen Noodles, Rent and Resumes: An After-College Guide to Life and her new book, It Takes More than Talent: Business Basics for the Creatively Inclined is due out in January 2013. She has been featured on NPR, CNN, MSNBC, and CareerBuilder; and also in the Boston Herald, the New Jersey Star-Ledger and in the Asbury Park Press.
