Branding People

For those of you who watch entourage, if you can recall the last episode of this past season, branding was a theme that was sort of made fun of.

The main character, Vince Chase, is an actor who fired his PR agent and met with multiple other agencies to find one that would best fit him. He was looking for an agency that would be down to earth and honest with him yet everyone he met with showed him the same presentations. They displayed an image of Apple, of McDonalds, and then of Vincent Chase and said that he would be more than a person, they would make him a brand. He decided to give his former PR agent another chance and meet with him, but that agent made the same mistake of showing him the same sort of presentation.

While we can personify brands to strengthen the associations people have with them, do famous people run the risk of objectifying themselves by branding who they are? Clearly Vincent Chase was not appealed by this idea.

-Shauny Lamba