2020-12-08
In this debut manual, a marketing expert explores the process of creating an authentic brand and becoming a powerful influencer.
Bull spent a decade in the marketing and artist development department of Sony Music before leaving to help independent artists build their own brand identities. Drawing on her experience collaborating with musicians like Carrie Underwood and Johnny Cash, she shows readers in this guide how to use positive psychology principles as well as tried-and-true branding strategies to become strong influencers. While she worked primarily with musicians, this book will be useful for politicians, social media influencers, authors, and even entrepreneurs trying to build followings for their brick-and-mortar businesses. Using “macro-influencers” like Ellen DeGeneres, Martha Stewart, and Beyoncé as case studies, Bull walks readers through these “brands” and how they became so dominant. There is a wealth of helpful information here, like the “Five Ps of Successful Influencers”: passion, perseverance, positivity, purpose, and power. The author shares a “brand matrix” and tells readers how to employ it, utilizing Taylor Swift and Kanye West as examples. The author also discusses brands that tried to transfer consumers’ feelings about a product to another item with disastrous results. For instance, when Sarah Jessica Parker entered into an advertising campaign with Gap in the early 2000s when she was known for the daring outfits her character Carrie Bradshaw wore on Sex and the City, sales tanked. Bull mostly cites macro-influencers with huge followings like Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon in her examples. The inclusion of a few case studies of artists who have built successful brands on the micro-influencer level would have improved the book. Still, readers who are interested in expanding their influence will discover something valuable in this manual. Helpful exercises provided at the end of some chapters ask readers to define and clearly articulate their brands.
An indispensable guide to building an authoritative brand for budding influencers.
