Only the Brave and the Brand Experience

Can a person be a brand?

Bobbie Atkinson March 2016

This blog will be focusing on brand experience, and how a person themselves can be a brand. It is going to be written in first person, as I have recently attended an event where the event manager has created a brand for themselves through continuously running events within their home town.

A brand is not just a logo, or combination of colour that is visually attractive, every experience we have with a brand gives us insight into that company or person (YouTech&Associates, 2015). Consumers can be overwhelmed by choices when it comes to different brands, this is why it is important to use your imagination in order to compete with the competition ( YouTech&Associates, 2015). The individual who I will be discussing today has asked to remain anonymous, I will be referring to him as Mr X throughout this blog. Mr X is very well known in a small town called Scarborough, for his community spirit and outdoor music events that he has been putting on for the past six years. His first event that he held was called Beach Jam, which was a festival on the beach where anyone could join for free, listen to music, sit round the camp fire and socialise.

Mr X purely started these events for the social aspect, however he did not realise what a success they would become. Beach Jam was held many times throughout the year, everyone attended without fail and became very loyal to Mr X's free and non profitable events. A brand promises to achieve certain results or to deliver a certain experience and that is just what Mr X did, and this is why people kept attending and looking forward to these events. The main reason I believe Mr X has made a brand of himself is the amount I hear people speaking highly of his events, you can see how loyal they are to him and how much support he has no matter how small or large the event is. The impact he has on social media is fantastic, even when people cannot attend the event they show their support massively over social media and you can see how much they wanted to attend the event if it was possible.

Recently Mr X has tried to make his brand grow, and put on different types of events instead of events only located on the beach. I myself have never attended Beach Jam, but when I heard about Only the Brave, his most recent event I wanted to give it a try and see what everyone had been

speaking about. Only the Brave was a rave in the woods, with professional DJ's, illuminated lights in the trees and a large camp fire where everyone was able to camp out for the entire evening. My expectations for this event where very high as I have only heard fantastic things about the events that have been put on in the past. The event page on Facebook was filled with excited people, many of which are my friends. When initially arriving at the venue, I was in ore with the beautiful lights and loud music I could hear without actually seeing any people. There are many different sensations a brand can stimulate, I could hear the music, smell the camp fire and see the bright lights in the trees and already I couldn't wait to get to the event.

The event was a massive success, it was everything I expected. Throughout the whole event you could see how loyal everyone was, shaking Mr X's hand, telling him how fantastic the event was, and also people helping control the music, gather wood, all wanting to make the event as successful as possible. After the event everyone shared their experiences on Facebook, posting photos and videos on the page. Mr X thanked everyone for making the night special, and already everyone was working together to plan the next event they could share with the brand. Before leaving the event attendees even helped clean up the venue to show their appreciation of Mr X and his hard work.

Brand equity is " a measure of the brands ability to capture consumer preference and loyalty", this can include brand quality, brand awareness, brand image,  brand trust, brand reliability and brand loyalty. People may usually associate these things with large brands such as Coca Cola or Adidas, however Mr X has achieved all of these things by using every interaction with his consumers as a chance to promote his events, and to find out what they are expecting so that the expectations can be exceeded ( YouTech&Associates, 2015). All of his events have been at the highest of quality, as he is the brand himself, therefore it gives him the chance to show off his personality and make not only his attendees proud but also himself proud. Since running these events his awareness has grown, as everyone knows that these events are ran by him without his name being promoted in any way.

He attracts the same audiences, knows exactly how to put on these events single handed, meets everyone expectations and has the most loyal consumers you could imagine. It is much easier for a person to become a brand than a company, as people find it easier to become emotionally connected to a person rather than a logo. Mr X needs to be very careful as if one event is not successful this could break up the consumer-brand relationship, however as the loyalty is so strong they may still stick by him.

Here is a quote from one of Mr X's loyal fans Jazzminn
who I spoke to after the event:

"I love all Mr X's events, they really don't ever fail to deliver. Always such a wonderful atmosphere and I have been going to them for years. So much so that I travel hundreds of miles to attend them and I have recently made a vlog on the event for my YouTube channel ChillingwithPJz".

Jazzminn has kindly given Rating Marketing a shout out on her vlog as she enjoyed reading "Only the Brave and the Brand Experience" so much, the link is below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRyDDd5HWmg&feature=youtu.be

I am now going to end with a quote from Mr X, explaining his expectations and how successful he thinks Only the Brave was:

"Only the Brave was my first time running an event out of town, in a location that was difficult to get to, I have ran hundreds of events on the beach each year, however getting people to be loyal enough to show up in the middle of nowhere was always a gamble. At 20:00 I was worried that no one would show up as a result of the change in location, by 21:00 the place was jumping, a complete success and it has paved the way for future events just like it".

This rating has been chosen as Mr X has done a fantastic job at becoming a brand however there is still room for improvement to become even more well known and to be recognised in other towns and cities.

References used

YouTech&Associates . (2015). The Importance of Brand Experience . Retrieved from http://youtechassociates.com/the-importance-of-brand-experience/.
All photos were given by Mr X for this blog.