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Old-fashioned personal brands

I love mystery novels, and I’m just finishing up a series written by Rhys Bowen that’s set in Northern Wales. These cozy mysteries feature not only a main character, Evan Evans, but a town and citizens with real character.

Evan Evans MysteriesI don’t know if this is a widespread practice in Wales, but in the town of Llanfair, people are known by their first name and their profession. So there’s Evans-the-Meat (butcher), Evans-the-Law (the constable), Evans-the-Post (letter carrier), and more. This town has lots of Evans living there.

This is really cute, and I’ve enjoyed meeting these characters. But it occurred to me tonight that these are actually brands! Think of it, active branding in communities that don’t even have the Internet (is that possible??).

Maybe we should start branding people this way in the US. Oh, I could think of a few great ones for politicians. And for some of the high-tech founders I’ve worked with. Too bad so many of them would end with “the fool.” And of course, most of the Wall Street types would end with “the crook.”

On second thought, I don’t think we could get away with this. It probably doesn’t scale.

Posted in Management thoughts, Personal branding.

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