ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the question of why people do branding and how they personalize it. Personal branding for professionals is a fairly new concept. No longer directly connected to the huge, well-recognized brands that employed their predecessors, today's creative professionals must create and even be their own brands. Since the rise of Web-based journalism and the new competition it has brought, journalists, like other creatives, face increasing pressure to make a personal impression, to risk becoming part of the story. However, unlike Coca-Cola or Target, one's brand is most likely relatively new, and it is almost certainly not as well known. In business school, one of the core concepts taught in the marketing and entrepreneurship classes is product positioning. Personal branding logos may not seem like logos at all. They are often as simple as artful type. Branding taglines, or slogans, are often associated with slick marketing campaigns, and are not as commonly used as they once were.
