No. Brand Persona alone can’t get you clients or a job. Here’s why: I just saw a viral Millennial job application video where the young lady in question SANG (yes, you read that right!) her application in a video and posted it to LinkedIn. It got tons of shares and comments but mostly negative and I agree that it missed the mark. Not because it doesn’t communicate anything-oh it says a lot about the candidate’s brand persona but is that really enough?

What Is This Thing You Speak Of

All successful brands have a set of human traits associated with them to make them more likeable and memorable to their target audience. For example, Nike is the athlete and Apple is the tech-savvy imaginative young person. Abercrombie and Fitch is the popular athlete in high school. Virgin is the anti-establishment guy who is crazy. I can go on. In the singing job applicant’s case, she’s a creative, confident young beauty. Her brand persona is an out of the box, brave thinker. Is that enough? Sadly, no.

What Buyers Really Want

The real reason why her admittedly fabulous brand persona isn’t flying is because of the exact same reasons that so many businesses’ marketing plans aren’t working. First, their message isn’t targeted. I have no idea what industry or even type of job the applicant is applying for. Then, she’s not even talking about what she can do to help her audience. Her message (similar to a lot of companies) is all about herself. I’m glad she’s easy on the eyes (and ears) and know how to take chances but unless there’s context around what problem she will solve for me, the buyer of her services (or employer giving her a job), is not interested.

Pain Pain Pain

Sadly 70% of humans buy to solve a problem. Only 30% buy to make something better. So out of the box or not, when a message doesn’t convey what pain is being solved, it’s dead air. Even if it’s delivered by a compelling spokesperson or medium.
So if I had a chance to give this very cute Millennial an idea of what to sing about, I’d tell her the same thing that I tell all my clients. First, figure out who you want to help specifically, then position yourself as an expert in the solution to that problem. Easy peasy!
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