Sunday, December 25, 2022

Five Personal Branding Lessons from Santa


Santa Claus is, without a doubt, the most well-known personal brand when it comes to holidays. He is the embodiment of the Christmas holiday with his merry demeanor and important task of delivering gifts while flying through the sky with his reindeer and climbing down chimneys.

To quote LoveToKnow: “When you hear a ho, ho, ho, it takes you back to the enchanting memories of Santa Claus during your childhood. Santa is more than magic, he's a tradition.”

Here are five personal branding lessons Santa teaches us:

MESSAGE CLARITY
For generations, the message of Santa Claus has been love, family, and goodness. How about you? What is your personal brand’s message? Is it easy to explain? Is it easy to understand?

MESSAGE CONSISTENCY
For generations, Santa has embodied the same message. How about you? Has your personal brand been consistent over time? Has it been shared in the same way with the same word choice in the current social media age? Do employers and colleagues know at a quick glance what your personal brand story is?

COLOR CHOICE
Santa is immediately recognizable by his red suit. His color choice embodies love, life, strength, power, and attention. What about you? Do you have a color that you wear often? Is there a color that best represents you or your accomplishments?

REPRESENT A CAUSE
Santa’s tradition is that he delivers gifts to good little children during his Christmas eve travels around the world. This encourages children to behave during the year, or at the very least, during the days leading up to the December holiday. However, Santa is also the embodiment of good, which can be seen by this inspiring story from 2013.

“With a touch of Christmas magic, Mr. Claus and his gang of Santa’s saw their red suits drained to a brilliant white after they rolled up their sleeves to give blood at a central London clinic. December is a bad time for blood stocks with potential donors being too busy partying and Christmas shopping…Some young patients need Santa to bring them something far more important than the latest gadget or toy for Christmas, they need the gift of blood to stay alive,” explained Jon Latham of NHS Blood and Transport.

What about you? Are you involved in philanthropy? Do you volunteer for a nonprofit? Do you serve on a nonprofit board or committee? Does your personal brand show your community service?

PARTNERSHIP ALIGNMENT
Over the years, Santa has appeared in ads for a variety of products including Coca-Cola, Mercedes, Kodak pocket camera, Quaker sugar cookies, and M&M’s. These products and countless more have capitalized on the positive attributes of Santa’s personal brand. What about you? Have you partnered with product or service brands to enhance your personal brand storytelling? If yes, how has the combined story impacted your personal brand?

Perhaps, Santa’s most well-known technology partnership is with NORAD. According to Wikipedia, “NORAD Tracks Santa is an annual Christmas-themed program in which North American Aerospace Defense Command simulates the tracking of Santa Claus, who is said to leave the North Pole to travel around the world on his mission to deliver presents to children every year on Christmas Eve. The program starts on December 1, but the actual Santa-tracking simulation starts at midnight annually on December 23. It is a community outreach function and has been held annually since 1955. Here’s the link: www.noradsanta.org.”

Happy personal branding – and Merry Christmas!


Image Credit: NHS Blood and Transport (@GiveBloodNHS on Twitter with hashtags #GiveBlood and #KeepDonating)

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