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What do you call a Skoda with a sun roof? A skip! (dumpster, if you’re a US reader)

Such jokes, unthinkable about Skoda cars now, were testament to the failure of a company to manage its appalling brand image. Certainly, the product didn’t help. But as Spencer mused on Twitter, Skoda moved from “embarrassing purchase to surprisingly good cars” - a “transformational brand”.

But “brand” - that word is everywhere. “So what, dummy?” you might say, and rightly so; working in PR, the concept should be a given.

But now that brands and branding seem to have entered the common vernacular - Top20 Coolest Brands reported in the Daily Star, a compendium of wise words from the experts in the Sunday Times’ business section, and even mid-evening radio programmes devoted to it on BBC Radio 4 - has the concept lost something? Is the alchemy of branding devalued by the possibility that Joe Public is “in on it”?

A useful definition from an unlikely source, legal news site Lawdit Reading Room, says “Many decisions about brands are made by customers emotionally or intuitively rather than rationally”. I never bought into that, reckoning my buying decisions were driven by the head (or, more often, the stomach), not heart. But recalling a trip to the USA, I realised that a brand journey was pure, unbridled emotion:

1. Book Florida/Disney/beach holiday with Virgin in one easy transaction: LOVE Virgin!

2. Arrived to find hotel atrocious - actually fearing for life - and Virgin reps couldn’t give a hoot: HATE HATE HATE Virgin!

3. Pour out heart to waiter at Hard Rock Cafe who vows to help us out: LOVE Hard Rock Cafe!

4. Move to Disney resort hotel. Previously HATE Disney because of prolonged exposure to son’s favourite Lion King soundtrack. Now, LOVE fabulous Disney hotel, even with Inca-themed restaurant.

5. Return flight to UK on same day as discovery of international liquid bomb plot. But, Virgin allows  me onto plane with contact lens fluids. LOVE LOVE LOVE Virgin!

I suppose that whether punters grasp a product’s “brand essence” or not, if you can get hold of their heart strings their purse strings will follow.

Personal Branding on the Social Web

Why, I wondered does Neville Hobson hold his hand in front of his face in the picture on his blog…and on Twitter…and on…hang on a minute.

Is this a subtle form of personal branding?  Social networks; Facebook, Linked-In and microblogs like Twitter are growing fast and individuals are, if not clamouring for our attention, at least aware that there is a lot of noise out there.  If we are going to build an individual online presence it makes sense to follow some of the tradional rules of branding.  Consistency is one, which means using the same image across a range of networks.  Using a strong, stand out and easy to remember image is another.  Pr 2.0 gurus Todd Defren  and Brian Solis  both do this - Todd has a cartoon style image on his Twitter feed and Brian uses an arresting image with his specs in the foreground on his blog.  

Chris Brogan has just published an ebook on personal online branding so it’s a hot topic.  It’s an interesting read and looks at personal branding from a broad prespective.  What particularly fascinates me is the way in which people apply the iconographic rules that have histrically been used by brands totheir own images of themselves.  

This world has created some rules of its own.  Take a look at the picture above of some of the people I follow on Twitter.  These images are tiny, smaller than thumbnails, so making something work at this scale becomes part of the art.  Colin Byrne  CEO of Weber Shandwick and Deirdre Breakenridge author of the book PR 2.0 both use strong purple colours in their backgrounds to make them stand out.  Aleks Krotoski , presenter of The Guardian’s Tech Weekly podcast uses a close up of her fire red locks as her Twitter image (fifth row, left of middle).

I have no proof that any of these individuals have done anything other than post the first image they came across but whether by luck or good judgement they all stand out.  I have to confess I have toyed with the technique myself.  There is a deliberate use of colour in my profile pic and it seemed to me that if social networks use small images an extreme close up might be a good idea.  Charles Arthur Technology Editor of The Guardian didn’t agree.  He thinks I’m trying to hide a dodgy moustache.