👑 Last year, The Express reported that: Queen’s brand is “greater than Nike, Ferrari and Pepsi”
Bigger than the Beckhams, bigger than Bieber, bigger than Barack.
Because there isn’t anyone on this planet that hasn’t heard of Queen Elizabeth II, she’s iconic, and she’s immortalised even though she isn’t still living.
She has a strong, statement personal brand.
But before we understand the Queen’s personal branding. Let’s understand what personal brand is?
What is personal branding?
Personal branding is the process of creating a brand identity for a person or a company. As the name suggests, this is a brand for you!
Essentially, it is how you project your brand and its values to the world and ensure that your target audience knows who you are, what you stand for, and why it’s worth choosing you over your competitors.
How did the Queen build her personal brand?
A few facts first.
The Queen herself is deemed much more powerful than Oprah Winfrey — who conducted the infamous and explosive tell-all interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — Beyoncé, Kim Kardashian and even Bill Gates.
In fact, the Queen’s “personal brand” is regarded as 16 times bigger than Beyoncé’s, six times the size of Kim Kardashian and Bill Gates, three times bigger than Oprah’s, and 23 times bigger than that of the Beckhams! Beat that.
👑 Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook come in at number four, at number five the Queen. 👑 The Queen is a huge global brand. 👑 In terms of brand recognition and in terms of brand value, the Queen beats everybody.
Her brand was born in a time of turmoil, between two world wars, inheriting a crown at tender age of just 25. Hard to believe today that a 25 year old would be capable of taking on such a role, and encouraging to know that you can start to develop your personal brand and deal with whatever life throws at you from any age.
So what did the Queen do to build her brand?
Brand immunity
The Queen has done precisely that to become “unbreakable” or “invincible,” as her documentary is titled. Despite the controversies surrounding the royal family, including Meghan and Harry’s exit from the UK and Prince Andrew’s scandal, the Queen’s image remains firmly intact.
Public perception is key to keeping this brand value high, experts attest, and Alastair Campbell, former director of communications for Prime Minister Tony Blair, praised the Queen’s recent public response to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Oprah interview as an example of how she sustained the public’s high favour.
What is Brand Immunity? Brands sell immunity with a strong market/brand position based on a clear distinctive point of view, backed up by evidence, stand to win. The position should be distinctive and position the brand as a thought leader, a differentiator. It should also be easily understood and recognisable.
An example of this is the Netflix series The Crown fortunately and befittingly cast her in the most positive light and kept her legacy intact, for an even wider global audience. In January 2020, a total of 73 million households worldwide had watched The Crown since it began in 2016.
Cultural currency
Sure, the Queen’s face is on postage stamps and currency worldwide, so she’s had a bit of a head start. But her brand continues to be talked about and referenced within culture. It remains relevant. The Queen shows up in street art courtesy of Banksy and others, and on bus stops. Her name and image are used in all sorts of iconography, etc.
What is cultural branding? This is a more powerful form of branding, because by engaging with culture more directly, brands in effect can become a part of that culture, thereby deepening their relevance and connection with customers. And that has never been more prescient or necessary. Thats why both brands and culture are shaped by stories.
Nothing gets people engaged with a brand like a real conversation, and when you have a human face in your marketing strategy, people feel like they already know who they’re talking to. Having a human face that creates an identity for your brand and forms a connection with your audience will set you apart from your competitors who don’t – even if their product is reliable and has a great story.
Halo effect
The Queen benefits from a serious halo effect from brand Britain, brand Royal, and the Royal family at large. Halo effects play on the “cognitive bias” of your consumer. You want to chase the halo effect because it’s known to establish brand loyalty.
The image of Queen Elizabeth II was mostly favourable throughout her years as a reigning monarch. Conservative in dress, she was well known for her solid-colour overcoats and matching hats, which allowed her to be seen easily in a crowd.
What is Halo Effect? We develop a bias toward certain products because of our favourable experiences with other products made by the same brand.
Most famously, Apple used the halo effect strategy to establish itself as a technology leader with just the iPod. They knew they could win in that product market and the positive perspective then spilled over onto its other products. They then started winning in the other more crowded product spaces.
Her Majesty’s brand builds an empire for Brits
A research gathered in a survey also highlights how large the Royal Family corporate brand is compared to multinational corporations.
Brand and business experts interviewed in the programme ‘Elizabeth at 95: The Invincible Queen’ by True Royalty TV estimate that the Royal Family’s brand value stands at around £71 billion.
The Queen’s personal brand is worth an additional £35 billion, which puts her on a similar step with corporate giants such as Coca Cola.
The monarchy’s brand is eternally valuable to the UK, with some estimates putting its annual contribution to the UK economy at around £1.7bn.
Brand Britain, with Her Majesty at the helm is the driver of exports including Gold, Cars, Turbo-jets, Medical mixes, Crude oil, Platinum, Aircrafts, Processed petroleum oils, Alcohol, Blood fractions and Automobile parts.
Queen Elizabeth II was a powerful global representative. Association with her image lent allure to countless British products, often literally: 800 British companies derived kudos from supplying their products “by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen”.
What can we learn from the Queen’s personal branding?
1. You can start to develop your personal brand and deal with whatever life throws at you from any age.
Her brand has stayed consistent throughout incredible environmental change, she’s seen so many worldwide events in her 63 year reign, participating as a young woman in World War 2 war efforts, Rock n Roll, Elvis, Beatles and ABBA, Cuba, Watergate and the Vietnam war, the collapse of communism and the Berlin wall, open heart surgery and man on the moon.
Throughout it all, her brand has remained ceremonial, resisting any urges to get entangled in politics. The lesson here is to be focused on your purpose, never letting external change or bureaucracy tempt you to change your values.
2. How can your personal brand become instantly recognised? Whatever colour, symbol or identifier you choose it needs to become established as your tradition.
Her personal brand sells the British brand. The royals are a huge benefit to tourism, culture and tradition, championing and supporting everything about the British way of life. How can you endorse a culture, movement or way of thinking to build your brand presence beyond yourself?
She is immediately identified from her voice, posture and dress. It is an interesting fact that the colour purple was once only to be worn by royals, it’s a particular difficult colour to manufacture therefore kept only for the best. Purple to this day still conveys a sense of quality, luxury and service.
3. Does your personal brand truly connect and engage with your prospects in a way that creates a lasting and emotional relationship?
The Queens brand has endured the presence of many rival brands, 12 prime ministers including her first, Winston Churchill, 11 Russian Leaders and 12 US Presidents, globally recognised brands Fidel Castro, De Gaulle, Ayatollah Khomeini and Nelson Mandela, proving that longevity and consistency can beat any competition.
Her brand stretches across 54 members of the commonwealth including Canada, Australia & New Zealand, many thousand of kilometres from her home.
4. What goals do you have for your brand, are you thinking too small, how could you positively inspire thousands of people around the globe?
Scarcity creates demand. If we knew everything about the Queen, we wouldn’t be that interested.
The Queens private life is a mystery, teaching us another lesson in what it takes to produce an enduring personal brand. We do know some aspects of her private life. Her love of the highlands, corgis, hunting, racing, crosswords and gin.
But most of her innermost brand is guarded and therefore respected. It would be downright rude to even think of trying to pry into her personal life, and extremely odd if the Queen decided to air her dirty laundry in public. In order to become a respected brand, you don’t need to share everything about yourself.
Why is personal branding important?
1. To increase your visibility
If your audience doesn’t see you regularly, they forget you. People need solutions to their problems, and you provide the solutions. But your audience doesn’t think of you if you aren’t visible. This doesn’t mean though that you need to be on every social media platform, but you do need to be where your potential customers are.
2. To stay top of mind
This goes hand in hand with your visibility. This is why big corporations spend billions of dollars on advertising to stay top of mind. But you don’t have to spend tons of money on advertising. A strong and intentional brand will get you there. If you’re in a very competitive niche, having a personal brand can be the difference between getting the business or watching it go to someone who’s more recognised in your industry.
3. To increase your authority
It’s important to be seen, but it’s not enough. Authority is the reason why people choose you instead of another person that offers the same services. A personal brand defines your authority in your niche, and authority differentiates you from the rest. Having authority gives you more power not only in bringing in more revenue, but by allowing you the ability to demand premium pricing.
4. To grow your audience
The size of your audience doesn’t define your revenue. You may have a small audience but earn more revenue. Or you can exemplify the opposite: have a large following with very little income.
Whether you have a small or big audience, you need some kind of audience. If you build your personal brand, you position yourself as the solution to their problems. Everywhere you show up (offline or online) is an opportunity to grow your audience and build a thriving community of raving fans.
5. To increase your relevance
Being visible and relevant are two different things. Just because you’re on every social media platform doesn’t mean anything if your audience doesn’t relate to your message.
A strong personal brand can help you be relevant and relatable. These are important factors in developing that “know, like and trust” factor. People do business with people. Being relevant means that people see how you could fit into their life and business to achieve their goals.
6. To build relationships and attract opportunities
People like people who are similar to them. If you have a good and reputable brand, you will attract like minds. This is good for business because you’ll see referrals and recommendations come your way. And the good thing is, you can also recommend other businesses that you trust. It won’t only be you receiving opportunities; you can also become a channel of opportunities for others.
Building lasting relationships in life and business is important. When you form strategic relationships with colleagues and business partners, running a business will be more meaningful (and not so lonely).
7. To build your influence (and shape the buying decisions of people)
Having some level of omnipresence means people see you, but having influence means you can persuade them to do something. It’s a superpower.
A strong personal brand establishes trust which is the number one factor in sales. All the eyeballs in the world mean nothing if they’re not converted to revenue. Without conversions, you have no business, and that’s why it’s so important to develop influence. With influence, you can shape the buying decisions of others.
How can you build a personal brand?
A personal brand exists whether you create it for yourself or not. It’s a culmination of all your online and offline behaviour. However, you can adjust your brand with a few careful steps.
- Set goals for personal branding: Decide what you want to be known for and what you’ll need to do to establish your identity.
- Audit your existing brand: Search for yourself online and find out what people are already saying about you. This will show you how much you need to change.
- Create a consistent strategy: Determine how you’re going to showcase your identity (blogging, interviews, social media) and stick to a regular schedule.
What can we learn on personal branding?
👇🏻 ⭐️ We have one mantra for you.
Write/Speak/Appear with the aim to be known in your industry.
Not to be liked.
Likes don’t pay the bills.
Getting known is.
Did You Know?
Everything Design is an agency that not just designs and develops your website but also helps build your personal branding, marketing communication, content writing, product design and so much more (yep, that one stop solution)! Get on the phone/drop us an email today to ensure your business matches its vision!
