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March 11, 2006
Nice guys finish last - Personal Branding - Branson vs Trump
I've been watching this the last couple of years and it seems that the arrogant rich guy gets noticed more than the nice rich guy. The Apprentice is still on the air, Branson's program is not. And I hear way more people talking about Trump than I do Branson.
Who would I rather be if I was as wealthy as those two guys? I'd like to be as nice a guy as Branson, but there are a lot of qualities about Trump I find are admirable i.e. decisive, takes charge, accepts responsibility, doesn't put up with crap, etc.
I think the essence of it is that people are attracted to power and Trump wields it in an obvious way and Branson doesn't (or doesn't appear to).
For whatever reason, a guy that plays the power up seems to be more interesting to most people. At least on TV.
Also, all of us would like to believe that the people who have that money are deserving of it. I think that's why most people aren't impressed by a guy like Mark Cuban - one good call on the stock market makes you rich but you still look like new money. Trump on the other hand, has the scars of what it takes to get that kind of wealth. I don't know much about Branson's story (and I should really), but if he is going to keep using himself as the brand icon for Virgin, he should get an ace PR/personal branding crew on board to develop a personal brand strategy for him and start executing on it. I don't know what the exact opportunity is (and I don't really feel like thinking about it right now) but it needs something it doesn't have right now.
Want an easy one? Do something that screws Trump. It would be a quick way to start repositioning the nice-guy image to something more maverick.
Posted by Derek Leverington at March 11, 2006 9:05 AM
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