3 Personal Brands, 1 Battle : Trump vs Meghan and Harry

What can we learn about personal branding from the likes of Donald Trump and 'Meghan and Harry' - the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, England?

Which of these brands is doing a great job and which one needs some more work?

WATCHTIME is the LIVE, weekly, industry news and chat show, hosted by x-BBC Apprentice Candidate, Aleksandra King and Digital Agency Founder and CEO, Elliott King. Produced and sponsored by Digital Agency, MintTwist in the UK.

Transcript

Aleksandra (00:03):
The watch time show sponsored by digital agency mint twist. That's a watch time show.

Aleksandra (00:13):
Welcome to another episode of watch time. Today is going to be a very exciting episode as we are going to be discussing some of the most famous people in the world and how they market and brand themselves. I'm Aleksandra.

Elliott (00:27):
And I'm Elliot King, we are from MintTwist, the digital agency that produces this show.

Elliott (00:32):
Specifically today, we're going to be talking about one Donald Trump, and we're going to be talking about Harry and Meghan. We're going to be discussing how they manage their personal brands ...

Aleksandra (00:43):
And how they go about marketing themselves in a way that we think as the experts in the industry, whether they are doing a good job of it or not.

Elliott (00:52):
Okay, so love him or loath him. Donald Trump has been a very, very successful self promotional list. Now there've been lots of articles written about Tim, about his ability to market himself. We're going to be talking about one specifically that was written on medium.com and it talks about the three things that he does, you know, very, very best.

Aleksandra (01:16):
Yes. I mean, I think, I think, you know, yes, let's just state this really clearly. This is not an endorsement or anything against Donald Trump. This is purely looking at the tactics that he uses to.

Elliott (01:28):
Yeah. And so number one is, is a classic for marketers. It's know your audience now with Donald Trump's latest election slogan, which is make America great. Again, he's absolutely zoning in on his target audience. It might see very office, but then Americans,

Aleksandra (01:47):
Of course, they're Americans and they're very conservative Americans. And he very wisely speaks to their exact fears, which he knows, right?

Elliott (01:57):
He knows really well. And he knows his target audience. Well, which leads us to point number two. And that is, and that is consumers. And customers will respond to a greater extent to pain or to fear than they will to a positive message in a slightly controversial one. But the political tactician who broke down this, uh, these, these series of insights, reckons that Donald Trump speaks to people's fears as opposed to people's hopes

Aleksandra (02:28):
He must set me does. And I will read you some of these quotes from three politicians, what Trump included, Bernie Saunders and Hillary, just to show you the different styles of how they speak to their audience. Bernie Saunders, we can make public colleges and university tuition free. Hillary, the Cuban people deserve to have human rights respected and upheld Trump. When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best, they're bringing drugs, crime they're rapists. And again,

Elliott (03:00):
We hasten to add, we're not endorsing this message or going against this message, but the tactics clearly are very different between Donald Trump and some of his opponents

Aleksandra (03:09):
Bad news travels quickly. And the fear response is by far the strongest response.

Elliott (03:16):
Yeah. In 1997, there was a psychologist by the name of Jennifer Acker who did some research on personal brands. And she said that personal brands have to fit within one of five different categories. Okay. That's really hard

Aleksandra (03:34):
Personal brands into only five categories.

Elliott (03:37):
Her, her theory was that if you were going to be a personal brand, you had to stick so tightly on message. You had to fit yourself within one of these categories, if you want to be successful.

Aleksandra (03:47):
Yeah. I think that's good to stick tight to the message because then people really understand who you are and what you represent. But again, it's really, really tricky.

Elliott (03:56):
It's not easy, but do you want to hear what the five categories and let's look at some celebrity examples of, of each category. So first we've got sincerity sincerity, and this is a good example of what we're Morgan Freeman fits in as a personal brand.

Aleksandra (04:10):
Do you think he is a sincere person? I mean, I, I don't really know him well enough to,

Elliott (04:14):
I think the, the reason why he's used as an example, uh, by, you know, by this author, I think probably is more because of the characters that he put in his movies, I guess that he's an actor.

Aleksandra (04:26):
Awesome. Well, on sincerity, I would probably think Pope

Elliott (04:32):
Well, yeah. Yes. I don't think anyone could argue with that. Yeah. Sincerity Pope. So excitement except the excitable, uh, personal brands. So this might be lady Gaga and I guess lots of pop stars, Jim Carey. Yeah, for sure.

Aleksandra (04:50):
You see, but it's even, it's not that easy for us to even decide on this. I think they've got some work to do on their brands. Those ones.

Elliott (04:59):
Yeah. Maybe. Uh, so number three is competent. So a personal brand of competence and this would be Steve jobs and

Aleksandra (05:10):
A hundred percent I'm with you. I agree.

Elliott (05:12):
Yeah. I think if you're a CEO of any large company, you kind of need to try to fit in that brand. In other words, you might not be perceived correctly, which is what branding is all about. So number four is sophistication. And this, this an example of this would be Daniel Craig. So that bond is done below seven actor. Again, I thought you liked him

Aleksandra (05:38):
Really sophisticated.

Elliott (05:41):
Maybe it's more of an Elliot King thing possibly.

Aleksandra (05:48):
No, I, yeah, I wouldn't agree with that one, but okay.

Elliott (05:51):
So sincerity is number four and then the fifth one is ruggedness. And I think most people agree. This is where Donald Trump wants to position himself. And, and you know, I personally, I think he does quite a good job. So if you are going to be rugged, you have to be controversial. You have to be able to say things that are gonna annoy other people. And the reason why you might do this, or one of the reasons would be to, uh, you know, to mobilize and excite, I guess, your fan base and your supporters. You know, let's be honest. Trump supporters get really excited and happy when he abuses someone

Aleksandra (06:33):
He's certainly is rugged. There is no doubt. He's like a, uh, a really messy, muddy land Rover or range Rover going through like really hard terrain and getting battered. And then coming out the other side, he is 100% rugged

Elliott (06:51):
Rather than you guys

Aleksandra (06:53):
Perfect brand placement Kloss. He's extremely clear about who he is. He is not apologetic about it. Trump is rugged and that's that. And he will also fiercely defend that image. And if anyone comes against him, as we all know, he bounces back and, you know, defends and protects and nurtures that image and makes it even more of whatever it is that it is. So it's a really focused, uh, action against protecting his brand image. It's very, very interesting the way he goes about

Elliott (07:30):
When Donald Trump says something like I'd like to punch him in the face, you know, he might not just be doing it because he wants to annoy people. He might be doing it because he wants to mobilize his base. Yeah. They love it

Aleksandra (07:44):
When he says that they love it. They're like, yeah, come drop. It works. You know, love it or hated it. It works. It does the job, it got him elected. So you cannot argue with that. He speaks to his base and he is who he says he is. That, that is,

Elliott (08:03):
Yeah. So from a branding perspective, I think we're both on the same page here. Um, we might not be political fans, but from a branding perspective, he's, he's doing a good job and, you know, he knows what he's doing, that's it. We can, we can learn a lesson or two from Donald Trump. He would have thought it. Right. So to contrast Donald Trump

Aleksandra (08:23):
Who would have thought it, but I, he has been educated at the best business schools in the world. And he's learned business from about that high because businesses in the family. So all they talked about at the dinner table and all they've ever, you know, businesses, but basically their pleasure and what they do in their leisure. So imagine the education, the business education in marketing, branding, finance, everything that he has had from a really, really young age.

Elliott (08:51):
Well, I can remember it was 15 years ago when you and I first met and, you know, pre-children or anything like that. We used to lie in bed on Saturday evenings watching the American apprentice and watching someone's Donald Trump hiring the candidates. It was, you know, it was, it was brutal. It was some news

Aleksandra (09:13):
He's more brutal than, than sugar.

Elliott (09:16):
He's always way more, but brutal and sugar for sure.

Aleksandra (09:19):
And probably a lot sugar sitting there a little bit jealous that am Walmart not,

Elliott (09:23):
Oh, that's controversial in itself. It's it's true. Well, yeah, so, you know, we were watching them, you know, um, certainly very entertaining. Did I ever think you'd be, you know, the president of the United States, you know, absolutely not, but he's there, you know, from a branding perspective,

Aleksandra (09:42):
Never underestimate what a big personality can do and to be fair to him, he did have the business acumen right there with him, a lot of experience. And, you know, he had that, that portal, he had an audience, so he was already famous making it a lot easier. There's there was always the chance.

Elliott (10:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right. So let's contrast then Donald Trump with, with a different type of brand, the Harry and Meghan,

Aleksandra (10:12):
It's already apparently estimated at a cool $13 million and potentially set to grow. Do you agree with that?

Elliott (10:21):
Well, from a, from a valuation perspective, you know, Brandon's get valued on, on their ability to generate earnings into the future. I think from a cashflow perspective, they certainly need to bring the cash in because they have been officially cut off, obviously from the income that comes by the wall family, apparently Prince Charles or his father was lending him money, but he stopped doing that. Now that the message is coming out of the Harry and Meghan canvas, they're very, very happy earning their own way and, and moving.

Aleksandra (10:55):
Yeah, I have a feeling that Megan will be taking the lead on this. I don't know how much business experience Harry has. Megan at least has been in the acting field. She's learned a thing or two about marketing herself. She's had her take website, you know, she knows a thing or two about how to get her name out there. And, you know, Harry is not going to have the work done for him anymore. He's going to have to put something in

Elliott (11:19):
Just in this last week. So Megan and Harry have signed up, officially signed up with Netflix for three year deal. We believe the papers are, are reporting that it's worth between 1 million and 2 million pounds a year with, with, um, bonuses on top of that, depending on what they do equally importantly, they're looking to redefine their brand.

Aleksandra (11:44):
Yes they are. And they definitely need to work on their brands because at the moment I, well, definitely in the UK, they're not doing very well. They're not very popular. They're seen as hypocrites, especially as far as all this traveling and private jets and then preaching about, you know, do this, do that. It's just a bit that they've got so much.

Elliott (12:04):
And the TIG website you mentioned there actually was a relatively successful eCommerce site that she had a successful, well, it was up and running, but she had to shut it down when she joined the, and funny, which must have been a bit annoying. I mean, if you, if, when you married into my family, I demanded that you stop all external activity. She probably wouldn't have been too happy with,

Aleksandra (12:27):
But then, you know, she became part of the Royal family. So Ooh, take whole family, take Royal family. I'll take Royal family. Thank you. Use it while I wanted then

Elliott (12:40):
Controversial. Yeah. So when they were married into the Wolf family that had the brand Sussex Royal, since then, they've had to, they've had to relinquish, uh, access to that brand, to that trademark. And so they've created their own trademark.

Aleksandra (12:57):
Well, not sure how I feel about that. If you have to describe it, what it is and what, what is it, apparently it's strengthened a source of action and strength that's okay. But Sussex, Royal, everyone knows what Sussex role is. You don't need to explain it. So it's, as far as brand would, we're not being overly critical about Megan or Harry. This is purely branding.

Elliott (13:17):
I think they've got some work to do to position their brand, to be consistent with, with their objectives and their messages. And the most important thing is I think for any brand out there, personal or company you've got to that brand has to come out of a, of a source of truth. So it means your messages have to be consistent with your actions

Aleksandra (13:38):
At the moment. There's just too much, you know, they almost like sitting in a little bit of a hypocrisy bubble, especially as far as any preaching to do with the environment, you cannot go and fly in his private jets and then preach about, Oh, you need to be kinder to animals and do this and snake, you've got to practice what you preach and there's is a role where they would like to undertake the role of still continuing to preach about, Oh, do this and do that and don't do this. So they need to be very, very careful now about how they navigate this whole field

Elliott (14:08):
Practice, what you preach a key lesson for any brand, you must practice for you.

Aleksandra (14:15):
Yes. And, and, you know, we, we wish them well and it's not easy to, you know, find themselves in the position a and, and then trying to grow these business and then paying the huge mortgage that they've gotten. And dad has closed the tap off. It's not easy and I've got a young child, but you know, it's now you're in the real world. This is business. And, uh, go ahead. Good luck with your business, but do, try and remain authentic as much as you can because the world is watching you in a very big way. And you have more of a telescope on you compared to other businesses.

Elliott (14:52):
No, never, never easy, never easy for any brand working under the spotlight, but we do wish them well. And you know, let's see what the future holds for Harry and Megan and arch. Well, in conclusion, what do we think about Donald Trump and Harry and Meghan? He's got the stronger personal brand he's moving in the right direction. Who's, who's doing best.

Aleksandra (15:14):
He sued best of course, Trump a hundred percent isn't though. It's no competition.

Elliott (15:19):
I think I'll have to have to say I'm certainly not a Trump supporter politically, but from a brand positioning perspective, he's got it. Absolutely. Right. He knows the direction in which he's going and he's always on message

Aleksandra (15:31):
And no one can argue with that.

Elliott (15:33):
Okay. Thank you very much for watching. Please remember to share and let us know what you think in the comments below.

Aleksandra (15:40):
Yes. Let us know your thoughts. It's always really insightful to hear what other people have to say. So

Elliott (15:44):
We do, we love to hear it and until next week, have a great week.

Aleksandra (15:48):
Take care. Bye. Thank you for listening to the watch time podcast brought to you by digital agency MintTwist.