Celebs who are rocking their personal brands

Celebrities who are rocking their personal brands.

Who they are, what they’re doing and why it keeps their audience hooked 🤩

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:02

Welcome to Dauntless PR Unfiltered. Today we're going to be talking about celebrities who are absolutely rocking it with their personal brands.

Speaker 0:13

This is something I've been itching to talk about because I love I love a showbiz section. I love chatting about celebrities. And I think there's just there's so many great examples of what works, what doesn't work that we can see in the celebrity world. So the first person I want to speak about is actually Luana has written a great article on LinkedIn about this person. So I'm going to steal her idea here and talk about Victoria Beckham. So she is a great example of someone who has built, she's been successful for a long time, but her personal brand, as in what people feel about her, what people's opinion of her, hasn't always been as successful as her businesses. So people have typically seen her as maybe being a bit aloof, a bit inaccessible. I think partly this goes back, those of you, I hope most of you know who Victoria Beckham is, but if you go back to the Spice Girls days and she was posh spice, that was like the least relatable Spice Girl, wasn't it? It was like, oh, she's the posh one. Everyone else has like got these fun personas. And she's kind of quietly got on with, I mean, she's uh been a mum, she's built businesses, she's done all those amazing things, but we hadn't really seen the real her. And I think she's absolutely smashing it recently because she's done a Netflix documentary, which I think was probably inspired that her husband, see David Beckham, did a Netflix series which did well, and she was featured in that and she showed us some glimpses of her. And I think people really got to sort of see, oh, okay, she's got a real sense of humour, she's quite funny. She's she's not who I thought she was, she's actually someone I can get on board with, and then she's done her own show, and I just I love it when celebrities and people who have built up a really big name for themselves. I love it when they let us peek behind the curtain and they let us actually see what they really like. I think it's so easy for people when they reach a certain level of fame to think, oh, I have to keep this perfect veneer up all the time. But people just don't love that. People love seeing who you really are, they love authenticity, and I think it's a mistake for everything to be like Instagram perfect all the time. And when people actually let us see the kind of funny moments and the bits that behind the scenes stuff, the stuff that is a little bit not as polished, I think that's when people really get on board and really love people. So I think she is a great example of someone who has like turned it around at a time when there's lots of stuff in the news about is she talking to her elder son, is she not? There's all this sort of stuff that we don't know the truth of it, stuff in the background. But because she's just being herself, showing us who she is, I just think that's phenomenal. And I love to see it. You know, she's not the only celebrity who's done that, but she's a really great example of someone who's like, let us see the real her.

Speaker 1 3:39

I love it. Like, I am just all for the real over like fake perfect, and you know, she has built her brand initially in a way like she's been so consistent. What she something that she does that she's done that I think is really smart is that even after the Spice Girls split up, she capitalized on Posh Spice, she kept up that character, like she was absolutely consistent, and what that meant is that it really built trust in what she was doing and her things, like because people knew what to expect. And then what she's done now is she hasn't turned her back on any of that, like so she's not gonna alienate her existing audience, you know. Her existing audience aren't gonna go, oh my god, I don't like you now because you're all so funny. It just adds another layer to her, like, and it adds this warmth and and oh she oh, it's brilliant.

Speaker 4:46

I love it. What is funny is she's somebody that so journalists we I mean, we obviously it will come as no surprise to anybody that journalists love a gossip. It's kind of obvious that we're gonna love so among journalists that I know, there's always a really popular like chat among journalists behind the scenes is who's a nice person to interview and who's a terrible person to interview. And I'd heard before the world got to see, I had heard that she was so much funnier and nicer in real life, and I think she even made a joke herself about how she basically was never seen smiling, and she sort of acknowledged that herself, like, oh yeah, pictures were never, but it was always, you know, it wasn't a deliberate choice necessarily, it's just that the pictures of her were always her looking very serious. But I had heard that she was completely different, you know, when you actually spoke to her face to face. So I think you know, there's a lot of you know, people tend to focus on the negative. Oh, this person's terrible. But I love it when I hear about, oh no, they're actually a really great person to interview and they're better than you expect. I think that's the thing. People have preconceptions often, don't they, of what somebody's going to be like. And if you can sort of shape that in a positive way and actually show that you're not what they assume you to be, then that's really powerful.

Speaker 1 6:18

That's a great point as well, because it really demonstrates, you know, the the people who do really well with PR, aren't they? Are the people who do have a sense of humor, they are warm, they do have humility, um, and they like they're willing to start anywhere. Like they don't have this ego and this I'm better than you vibe. Because some people do, don't they, when they go into PR, they have this vibe of like and people that can be quite surprising as well.

Speaker 6:54

Like, some of the most unpleasant people that I have interviewed haven't been the most famous, they've been the people that have felt that it was bel beneath them, and that just it makes you so it's a mistake in so many ways, but it's a massive PR mistake because if a journalist comes out of an interview feeling like that celebrity or that big name or that expert that they're talking to thinks they're beneath them, thinks it was a waste of their time, or they're doing it because they have to, and often on these like crest junkets, you know, when people have got a film out or a book out and they're doing back-to-back interviews, and I get that that is probably very exhausting and they're done. But the people who do really well are the people who make every journalist feel like they're the first person they've spoken to and they're excited and they're enjoying the conversation. Whenever I have had an interview with someone where it has been obvious that this is tedious for them, they really don't want to speak, they're not even giving it a chance, they're straight away like, oh, I've done 10 of these already today. I'm you know, you don't want to write great things about them, you don't want to hype up the project, you don't want to, you don't want to do a good job for them because it makes you feel like, oh well, you didn't value our conversation at all.

Speaker 1 8:27

So I don't tell you what you're doing. Like, is that a conversation that then carries on behind the scenes? Like, do the journalists then talk about that?

Speaker 8:36

So absolutely, and there are I won't I won't be mean and say some of the worst people get talked about, but among these conversations that are going on, there are recurring names that always come up among journalists where they are like, these people are terrible, and everybody will join in and go, Yes, I've had that experience. It's very, very rare, occasionally, someone will come and say someone's terrible, and other people will be like, Oh, I had a really good experience. And then you can tell that they just had a bad day because everyone's allowed a bad day, you know, everyone's allowed to have a rubbish day where they maybe didn't behave in the best way that they could. And you normally can root them out because everyone else goes, Oh no, I had a really great experience with them. The ones where everybody agrees and goes they're a nightmare, that's it's not a good thing, you know. And some of these people have built really big names for themselves, but everybody in the media just doesn't like them, and that is never gonna help your brand if you're not, and it goes back to what we've said before, isn't it? That if you're not a nice person, that is a really you are that's a form of self-sabotage to not just be a nice person in in the world of PR, but you can't expect other people to cheerlead for you if you treat them like rubbish, and I think this partly comes from an idea that sometimes people have when they get a certain level of success that things are beneath them. Yeah, and this is a massive form of self-sabotage, and it is something that people do not just in the celebrity world, they do it in the business world, they do it all over the place where they they have an image of themselves at a certain level, and they think I'm not I don't want to work my way up, I don't want to do things like that, and it's it ends up being something that holds them back. And I think to like flip it on its head of people that we can see that don't do that, and it's been really successful. Look at some of the really huge stars that when they started out, they did their dues, they like supported acts, they weren't the headliners, they were the opening acts. They they were happy to do that to build their brand up, to build their visibility. Lady Gaga. Yeah, exactly. I mean, we've got you know, Rihanna supported Gwen Stefani. You could argue now that she's completely overtaken her in fame and and success, you know. I think Lady Gaga supported someone like New Kids on the Block. That's a good blast from the past. New kids on the block for people of a similar age to us. But like the the it's that sort of having an element of okay, I'm gonna have to build this. You don't get an amazing personal brand overnight, and I think that's a really important thing for everybody to like acknowledge, and you know, people listening, you'll know that yourself. You know, your business didn't become a huge success day one, you had to work at it, and it's the same with building visibility, you don't get that straight away, it's a process, and you get it from doing the stuff, taking the opportunities, and not looking down on things. I mean, you can look back later and go, Oh my goodness, I can't believe I had to do that. That might be something, or like, oh, I'm glad that now I get to be the headline act and not the opening act. Like you can look back and see how far you've come, but you need to have that process and that journey. And and I think some of the really, really successful stars that we can see, you they've really been through that kind of building up gradually and and bringing us with them on that journey. And that's why we cheer them on because we've seen them, they didn't just pop up fully, fully made as they are now. We've seen them grow and we've seen them develop. And it's people we like as well.

Speaker 1 12:51

Like it's somebody who's coming to my mind, and I I adore this guy, right? Youngblood. So, Dominic, I don't know what his last name is, but Youngblood. So, what I've seen from his journey is that he appealed a lot to the younger crowd, but over the past few years, he's really reinvented himself and he hasn't put off that crowd. What he's done is opened himself up to a whole new market, you know, of people who loved like rock in the in the 80s, because he's becoming, he's seen a gap in the market, he's seen that that wasn't really that style wasn't really happening anymore. And he has become that person. But the reason he came to mind just then is because of everything that you were saying about basically people being nice and people being warm. Like, if you watch the way that Youngblood is like in his interviews, how he engages with his audience in his gigs, like crowds while they're waiting for him. He is so nice. Like he makes everybody feel like they're the only person on earth. Like he's known for his eye contact, like he is just he he is somebody who started quite small and then recently, or more like he just keeps getting bigger and bigger, but he is somebody who's never lost that humility and never and never started to think he was above anything. Of course, there's some things that he can't do anymore that he used to, just because there's only one of him, but his attitude is absolutely second to none, and that's what makes it people so attracted to him.

Speaker 14:45

Yeah. And I think one thing I would say as well is that there really is no level of fame you can get to where there is an excuse to not be nice and approachable. Never if you can think about some of the most famous people in the world, like think about Kate Middleton, so or Prince Catherine the Princess of Wales, as we should call her, but we all still call her Kate Middleton. Like she is hugely famous, you know, she is understandably very private in that she's not going to tell you all her deepest, darkest secrets because of her position in the royal family. But the one thing that she does manage to do really well is she still manages to seem, even though she's a princess now, even though she's part of this big institution of the royal family in the UK, she has a kind of an approachable girl next door vibe about her. She is still when she talks, and you see her meeting people, and she'll be meeting people from all different uh parts of the country, all different types of things, and she always meets them on their level and uh seem and is very uh friendly, very approachable, very uh willing to listen to what they've got to say. By no means she's completely the opposite to the idea that people have of kind of like what a royal person would be like being all sort of snooty, and because when she's in that room with people and she must meet, or particularly when she's I know she's had to take time off for health issues, but she must have met so many people since taking on that role, and yet she always manages to make the person she's meeting feel like they are the most important person at that moment. She never makes it seem like, oh, hurry, hurry, like get lost. I I need to move on, I'm too important. And yet you she has a huge level of fame and status. So there is no there's no kind of point, I think, that people get to where it suddenly becomes okay to be like, oh my god, I'm done with being nice.

Speaker 1 17:14

I'm done with no way friendly. Like, why would anybody want to feel inferior? Like nobody does.

Speaker 17:21

And the whatever you do, whether it's in business, whether it's in showbiz, any of that you're relying on people's goodwill of like wanting to buy from you, wanting to get on board with you as a person and your brand. And people who put themselves on a pedestal, people want to knock them down. That's the gut reaction is if somebody seems like they think they're too good for everybody else, people's instinct is to find a floor, to pull them down, to counsel them, to like whereas if people come with an element of approachability, they maybe they talk about their life before and they they make it obvious that they haven't forgotten the journeys that they've been on. People want you to succeed, people have the opposite, they will they root for you. I mean, a great example of somebody who is huge, huge, hugely famous, and everyone will have heard of her, is Oprah Winfrey. Whether you like her currently or not, it is indisputable that she came from very humble beginnings. She walked through fire, like we were talking about on our last podcast, like people who went on a heck of a journey and went through some shit to get to where she was. And she has built a brand that about empowering others. You know, her talk show was about helping other people share their stories, highlighting them. It was being a listening ear. She is, I don't know if she's actually the richest woman in the world, she's certainly one of the richest women in the world, but you people feel like they know her. They feel like they're not calling her, you know, Mrs. Winfrey. They, you know, everyone will say Oprah, they know her. If you ask people, what who would you love to be interviewed by? Nine times out of ten, people will say Oprah. That will be their answer. She's instantly front of mind in people's. But she didn't get there, she wasn't born in that position, and she has shared very openly about difficult times in her life. She's not sort of forgotten that she may not be in that situation now. I'm sure she's got multiple beautiful homes all over the world, but she acknowledges her journey and she still manages to seem quite relatable. And I think that's the thing, isn't it? It's the being able to powerfully show up, but without alienating other people and seeming too good for them.

Speaker 1 20:15

Yeah, it's having confidence without arrogance, isn't it? Yeah.

Speaker 20:20

That's the thing, I think. And there is slight cultural things. I think, you know, in the UK, we can be quite self-deprecating, which can to some other cultures, they can be like, oh, they make fun of themselves, they laugh at themselves, and it seems like it's a lack of confidence, and it's not really, it's a kind of a humour thing. But I think however confident you are, you can do it in a way that includes rather than excludes, that kind of brings people on board with your confidence and gets them excited. I feel like arrogance is in some ways the opposite in that it's quite excluding, isn't it? It's like I'm totally.

Speaker 1 21:01

Yeah, I'd say the difference is like confidence is I'm good, arrogance is I'm better than you. That that's the way that I would see it.

Speaker 21:12

And like celebrating, I think you can be at the top of your game and still celebrate others in the same game. Oh, totally. Whereas those that I think a big mistake people make is when they have these celebrity feuds where they go for other people and they will criticize. And don't get me wrong, we I love a celebrity feud as an onlooker, as someone who is sitting there with the popcorn, but it doesn't do their brand any good, it's no unless it's the other person, unless they're kind of the innocent party in the feud and they're like taking it well and just responding to what's thrown at them. But if you're going on the attack of other people, like competitors, yeah, because that's really what celebrities are. Like if you sort of think about them in business terms, they're like it's like attacking someone else in your niche, isn't it? But it's just that they are celebrities. So when you know, famous singers go for other famous singers, it just you know, there's space for everybody, and I think that's something to remember, isn't it? That there's space for everybody, and by celebrating and empowering and uplifting each other, people see that and people appreciate it more than you think they do. Often the people you feel really warm to, you don't even know why you feel really warm to them until you sit and break it down. And often it is just that you see them consistently and powerfully show up with a great energy, they're not over-sharing every little detail of the life, they're not they are telling you their stories in a powerful and reflective way rather than dragging you into every little drama that might be happening at the time, and they are not attacking other people in their space, they are in the wings for other people and celebrating what they're doing, yeah.

Speaker 1 23:23

And just to finish here, I think a really good thing to think about as you know, as personal brands, is to ask ourselves like every time we show up, like, are we doing so with intention? And how do we make people feel? Like in this moment, saying what I'm about to say, doing what I'm about to do, how is that going to make other people feel? And I think that's a really important question to be asking ourselves every time we show up. So, on that note, we will end there and we will see you next time. If you're interested in PR, email hello at dauntlesspr.com. I'll see you soon.