ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the complete process of building and growing a successful personal brand. Brands, as people know them today, have existed only since the 19th century, when mass production changed the way people shopped for and bought things. The earliest brands served fairly broad customer bases. Ivory soap was one of the world's first universally known brands, and it remains a known name to this day. As a brand more than a century old, Ivory has household recognition, yet its age and its product category prevent it from generating much excitement among consumers. Successful branding is pervasive. It extends far beyond the products themselves, tapping into human psychology to create intense associations with and loyalties for specific brand names. Coca-Cola provides what may be the most extreme example of proprietary branding on the planet. Google has so successfully branded itself that it has become a verb.
