Looking at Myself as a Brand (Part 1)

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During my Social Media Marketing class in undergrad, one of the first things my professor emphasized on was how everyone is their own brand and what they post on social media portraits who they are to others. Of course, that was a lesson about how we shouldn’t post things we don’t want our prospective employers to see on any social media platforms. The old saying “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” is not longer valid in our digital world today.

Being a marketing major meaning almost everyday there is at least one discussion on branding. What makes a brand different, what makes a brand attractive, and what make a brand having more values than its competitors.

In my last Marketing Strategy class, Professor Maltz said that,

“A brand is not the logo or the packaging, but a set of associations.”

When you think of a brand, what do you associated it with? What emotions does the brand strike you? What categories would you put the brand in? Answers to these questions are what marketers are seeking for, because as marketers we are not only selling the tangible products and services, but also the intangibles that are associated with the brand.

Looking at ourselves as brands. Are we being categorized by others? Are we being associated with certain emotions when others think of us? Are we being evaluated base on our personalities? Can we change our “brand” by changing our associations? Is the image we are portraying the same as others receiving?

Lately I have been experiencing identity crisis, and possibly that’s the reason why I started thinking about the similarities between people and brands. My crisis isn’t about not knowing what I’m doing with my life, but more about how I define myself and how others identify me.

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Everyone has at least one changing point in their life that changed who they were, and mine was at the age of 16. If you have looked at my CV, you probably noticed that 2009 was the year I’ve decided to come to US alone for my senior year of high school as an exchange student. I was 16-year-old, half-an-earth away from my parents, and was about to start school in a completely different environment. That was my first time experiencing completely being out of my comfort zone.

In that year, I knew my identity: An exchange student from China who spoke broken English with a weird Chinese-British accent.

Being in high school almost meant that you would definitely be made fun of for being anything that’s not “mainstream”. And the identity I had was clearly not in the normal parameter. At age 16 I was well aware that my accent and my classic Chinese girl look was not the definition of cool, but quite the opposite. That was the year I’ve decided to change my identity by changing my “logo and packaging” – my appearance and accent.

In my head, I still knew my identity as a Chinese, but at the same time the pressure from the “high school society” had made it clear to me that being a stereotypical Chinese was not the most ideal identity.

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(I didn’t expect this to be such a long post until I started typing. Thank you for being patient, and I will update the rest as soon as I can)