PERSONAL BRAND MANAGEMENT

Waller presents a comprehensive look at assessing the nature and value of personal brands.

Right at the outset, the author notes that her book is intended for marketers—and that in the present historical moment, that term describes virtually everybody. “The demand for personal branding has grown dramatically in the past few decades,” she writes, “and, with that increase in demand, the complexity, confusion, and flurry of information surrounding it has multiplied as well.” Waller draws on her own experiences as a personal brand strategy consultant, a number of interviews with other expert practitioners, and an impressive array of secondary sources to break down the topics of marketing and branding into three sections: “Strategy” (about the initial rollout of one’s brand), “Implementation” (which addresses the promotion and monetization of one’s brand), and “Management” (about tracking brand value and protecting its integrity). During these elaborations, the author effectively offers specific examples that will be familiar to anyone who follows the news, as the question of marketing and branding has become a familiar aspect of business culture. An obvious case in point is Tesla and Twitter head Elon Musk, and Waller addresses how he crafts his public image for shareholders, the government, and the general public: “In order for his brands to continue to be successful, he must have a strategy for managing all of these audiences because they are stakeholders of his brands,” she notes. The author’s overall approach is effectively designed for maximum utility: Each section ends with a long list of citations that invite further reading, and there are plenty of bulleted objectives and discussion questions. At every point in Waller’s discussion of this pervasive but imperfectly understood subject, she’s careful to make her points with easily recognizable examples, whether they involve large corporations or political campaigns.

A learned and useful marketing study.