Why The Brand In The Mirror Is The Truest One

Personal branding works only when you stay true to your own persona. AI-driven personal branding apps, which know you very well, will soon be your ablest guides

- HARISH BIJOOR

We live in the midst of a brand clutter. Look around. Nothing is unbranded anymore. Literally everything you and I use are branded items. Some more aggressively than others. Nevertheless, nothing remains pristine without the sacred or not-so-sacred touch—depending on what you believe—of branding.

There are daily-use products and, equally, service brands that many of us recognize by the labels they sport. Every category has a hierarchy of brands that spans the category of the popular, the premium and the luxury. Every breath you take and every step you take are dictated by a brand in some way or another. This newspaper in your hand is a brand, just as the toothpaste you used to brush your teeth with this morning is one. The book you will read later is a brand—as are all the people you meet today.

That brings us to the human brand—the persona brand each one of us is. If you have a name all your own, you are a brand. So am I. And there begins the journey of the human brand: a name given to distinguish one from the other. You and I are, therefore, brands in our own right, each with a distinct identity. When your parents gave you your name, the journey of your brand label began. We are wedded to our names till death. And, interestingly, beyond.

Human brands are really valuable offerings in the great marketplace of brands. While every one of our cricketers is wildly aware of the potential of their personal brand, many of us are blissfully unaware of the true-blue potential of our own.