BYOB—that’s Be Your Own Brand— is a business show that explores issues at the forefront of branding and management in the wake of social media. Analysis of current branding, social media and organizational leadership trends make up the content of the program’s talk-show style format. The hosts interview noted experts, roundtable about technosocial trends, and take questions from listeners on topics ranging from brand strategy to social media management and organizational culture development.
The BYOB concept was hatched by the show’s creator and co-host, Ryan Wynia:
Design is only a pixel deep: it’s just a container.
Marketing tactics are a dime a dozen.
But there’s no substitute for your story.
It can’t be photocopied, downloaded, copied and pasted..
The only option is to BYOB: Be Your Own Brand
Organizations are a collection of people. People, organized = a company! Allow me to ask you this: Are the messages you’re pumping out over-hyped and contrived, or do the collection of people standing behind the messages deliver on the promises and authentically live your brand?
Ultimately, an automobile is only as powerful as the number of horses under the hood. No matter how beautiful the exterior—the shell or the container—it’s performance is determined by its source of power. And the engine doesn’t mean anything unless the drivetrain can successfully deliver power to the gears that move the wheels. And if the engine revs and the power is delivered but the alignment is horribly wrong, the individual at the helm is sure to have a terrible time directing the vehicle’s direction. Does your organization accurately source the core brand concept, successfully share it with employees—top-to-bottom—in a way that energizes, motivates and informs the whole team about the direction of the company? Now, of course, we can do things with aero dynamics and design to build aesthetic and aid in forward motion, but at the end of the day an engineless car is no car at all. Your power lies in your people. It’s vital that your organization excavate the collective promise sitting at the core of the organization’s reason for existence. How the company lives and how it [be]haves deliver the torque to the drivetrain to propel you forward.
By the way, who’s driving this car anyway? Is the dashboard fully equipped with gauges and indicators that provide the driver with accurate information needed to make great decisions and respond to market conditions?
A brand is more than it’s logo, its ads, any of its other visual assets or its nifty swag. Successful brands communicate in ways far more meaningful than their product’s features or benefits. A brand begins and ends with people. Brands are fully dependent on the ability of the organization or corporation’s people to consistently deliver the brand promise in a dynamic and engaging experience. But before predictable behaviors create a unique experience that builds brand affinity in the minds of customers, a brand must be fully defined and resolved—the internal culture cohesively aligned with the brand position.
In the end, it’s about creating a preference for one brand over the other. And in the end, brand affinity is a process that only grows inside relationship. BeYOB.com is dedicated to the art of creating brand alignment and the science of executing its promise.