Another in the series of commercial break personal branding videos.

I love this commercial because: I worked for Lotus (the best company I ever worked for – thanks to Kevin Powers – the head of Advertising for hiring me) when we created this ad. We learned from focus groups that one of the most valuable aspects of our software was that it made end-users feel powerful and successful – yet we rarely talked about it. We developed an ad to highlight this and simultaneously tout how globally pervasive our software was. It was aimed at the end-user – not the IT executive who normally makes the purchasing decision. The ad was developed as a part of a multi-element campaign. All of us (Lotus employees with offices facing the Charles River) had ‘I Am’ posters in our windows. Before the term social media existed, we involved the customer community in the advertisement. We invited customers to take photos of themselves holding ‘I Am’ posters and we posted them on our web site. It was truly a marketing program and not just an advertisement.

This ad and YOUR personal brand: Two important things: 1. Know your influencers. Who needs to know about you so they can convince purchasers that they should buy from you/hire you? 2. Don’t just market or advertise your brand, build entire programs that get your brand community involved. For every communications activity you build, think of five other ways to engage your brand community.