A personal brand? No thanks, I think I’ll pass.

By Simon Billing

The most interesting thing about McKim Advertising was that Anson McKim, the founder, was killed by a train owned by Canadian Pacific, his largest client.

What was then Canada’s oldest agency was where I started in the business.

The owners were a spectral group of very old, very grey and very rich men who ensconced themselves on one deep carpeted and dark paneled floor, inaccessible to the plebs who kept their coffers from falling below the ‘fill’ line.

McKim was a significant contributor of cash and cannon fodder to the Progressive Conservative Party and it was made clear to me early on that it would be a serious mistake to balk at the opportunity to do my bit should I be called upon come election time. Conformity was the sine qua non for success in those hallowed halls. I never did get a chance to regale them with my very particular views on the Progressive Conservative Party.

I think all agencies should be stuffed with creative thinkers, impassioned people, iconoclasts and social misfits. All departments, not just accounts receivable. Long before email, smart phones and call display, the best account executive I ever worked with was able to seamlessly manage one of the largest accounts in the country from a payphone in the bar where most of the senior players on the account whiled away most afternoons. He was a very resourceful suit. He became a writer and opened his own agency.

These days, there’s a lot of chatter among the conversational classes about personal branding. Because everything you do on the internet has the half life of a spent nuclear fuel rod. This video discussion by the (very smart) chaps at Thornley Fallis examines the issue of the responsibility of employees to manage their personal brands whenever they are online to ensure that it will always reflect well on the company.

It’s an unfortunately valid issue. Unfortunate because I’m not sure the idea of personal branding holds much interest for the type of people so perfectly captured in one of the most beloved of ad campaigns:

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine…

You get the picture.

Via Grumpy Brit

Posted via email from Flatacre