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Hugh Hefner: Playboy overlord an inspirational figure for job hunters? |
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Here’s a thought for the hordes of investment bankers twiddling their thumbs at home after the latest round of job cuts. How about spending a lovely spring day in the garden thumbing through a newly published book on personal brand development?
Managing Brand Me – written by Swedish branding experts (no, that isn’t a reference to some obscure Nordic S&M activity) Thomas Gad and Annette Rosencreutz – claims to pick up where American management guru Tom Peters left off with his concept of “Brand You”.
The book tells you how to build your personal brand – “your unique corporate DNA”, as the authors like to put it. It promises to help “to get you the job you want … and to have direction in where you’re going”.
Thomas and Annette may lack the media pulling power of their fellow Swedes, England national football coach Sven-Goran Eriksson and TV star Ulrika Jonsson, whose “are they, aren’t they?” antics kept UK newspaper readers on tenterhooks in April.
Indeed Eriksson features in the book, as one of 15 personal branding case studies – an eclectic collection including Princess Diana, Alfred Nobel, Coco Chanel, Tony Blair, Madonna and Hugh Hefner.
But they are a formidable team in the branding world. Between them they have worked on projects for Nokia, Ericsson, Procter&Gamble, Scandinavian Airlines and the Swedish foreign ministry.
The latest volume is a follow-up to Gad’s previous work on the apparently ‘holistic’ method of 4D-Branding – the foreword of which was penned by no less a master (or should that be slave?) of the branding world than Sir Richard Branson.
Among Gad’s claims to fame is creating Nokia’s slogan “Connecting People”. Well, here’s a branding idea of our own. How about “Disconnecting People”?
Anyone interested? Merrill, Goldman, CSFB (or even Ericsson for that matter, with a mere 17,000 staff about to lose both the job they want and their direction): it’s over to you.
