Bad for the Brand
If you haven’t heard about Jonathan Fitzgarrald’s new blog, Bad for the Brand, check it out.
This blog post, however, isn’t about Jonathan’s new blog, it’s about how you wear your personal and corporate brands, and the impact our every day actions have on them.
Driving into work this morning I hit a bad traffic jam, and not in the usual traffic jam spots along my commute. It was bad. Dead stop. Watching the signals go green-yellow-red, and then green-yellow-red again with no movement type of bad.
When I finally got to the source of the disruption, this is what I saw:
Seriously. In the middle of the morning rush hour traffic, this Alta Dena truck was parked perpendicular, sticking its caboose across two lanes of Olive Street in downtown Los Angeles.
Not only was the traffic backed up several blocks on Olive Street, but the cross streets of 6th and 7th Streets were backing up as well.
I don’t believe “Pure. Wholesome. Good.” Alta Dena wants to be known as “Self-Absorbed.” “Rude.” “A*******.” Which is what I was thinking as I snapped this picture this morning. Too bad Alta Dena doesn’t have a Facebook page, because I was ready to splash it on there.
Which brings me to the “bad for the brand.”
When you splash your brand across your truck, or license plate, or briefcase, you are representing your firm.
If you park like this truck, cut people off while driving on the 405, or treat people rudely at Starbucks, it’s often times your firm or company that takes the hit, not the individual.
When you are speaking at a conference, and come unprepared, most of the attendees won’t remember the person who spoke, but the company they were representing.
When you are impatient when going through the metal detectors at a courthouse, perhaps sharing a few choice words with those making $12 an hour, you are representing your firm.
When you are invited to a beauty contest for, let’s say “Levi’s” and show up wearing “Gap” jeans (not that this has ever happened 
to my knowledge), they won’t remember which associate did this … but they will remember the firm.
In this day and age of social media, social networking, iPhones with cameras, Flip videos, it is important to remember that what we do is easily captured and shared with the world.
There is no anonymity for a******s.
Always be on your best behavior!
Peter Shankman told a story at an LMA-MN conference about how he video-recorded a man on a subway bad-mouthing a named client over the phone to someone else. That video, of course, went viral. A good reminder that, at all times, you should be aware of your surroundings and how that could potentially impact your business or your “personal brand.”
Not naming names either, but the law firms — yes, more than one! — whose RFP responses to UPS some years ago were rejected because they arrived in FedEx packages weren’t very brand conscious. Rather than distinguish themselves from others, rather than focus on the client’s needs — or brand for that matter — the partners in at least one losing firm determined that they lost business because their competition used lowball pricing!
Tim, I am ashamed to admit that I was actually at one of those firms. <> That was BAD for the brand BIG TIME.