Preparing Your Brand for the Stage

photo credit: fertilegroundportlan

Have you ever stopped to think about how often your is on stage in the public eye? It’s ALWAYS on stage. It never takes a break, it never retreats to the dressing room, and it certainly never blends into the audience. It’s always displayed alone on the stage under the glaring unforgiving spotlight. Your brand needs the deference you would pay to a star on the stage. It needs a good publicist, and equally importantly, a well-meaning bodyguard.

As your brand’s publicist, your job is to make sure that it’s always presented in the best possible light: appropriately dressed, well groomed, and displaying good manners. You need to proactively find venues that will allow you to put your brand in the best possible light. Sometimes it’s your job to create those moments in order to gain publicity and sell the brand to expand it’s audience. Publicist Sofia Gian talks about creating red carpet moments for celebrities on the DailyActor.com this way:

I also am a big believer in branding a client on the red carpet at special events because that’s where the actor is seen by producers, directors and others who potentially might hire them. Also, the media covering the event will highlight clients if it fits their story and the event publicist has included them on the tip sheet. The more actors are seen, the more they’re remembered.

Your job is to have your brand both seen and remembered for being outstanding in the spotlight on the stage. Remembered for the great work it does, and beloved for the authenticity with which it meets life.

The other side of the coin is your responsibility to be your brand’s bodyguard. As your brand’s bodyguard, your job is to make sure that it’s never allowed to be taken advantage of, never presented in a way that is detrimental to the position you’ve built. It’s your job to ensure that well-meaning individuals don’t inadvertently hurt your brand by putting your logo in places that it doesn’t belong. Or carelessly changing the shape of your logo to smush, skew, or stretch it. Certainly never changing the colors to match their personal taste, rather what your brand has defined. As a bodyguard, your job is about keeping the brand intact, safe, and true to itself.

The duality of both being a publicist and bodyguard is what makes a marketing professional such a special individual, and why the marketing job is amazingly complex. You get to prepare your brand for the stage and to help it to shine in the spotlight.