The great personal branding could be a branding crisis. The phrase of personal branding. That kind of word choice often sounds narcissistic and feels unrelatable. But, a brand could change the word ‘personal’ to self-branding or professional profile. Before judging too early whether our self-branding or us, is the center point of people’s trust. Let’s check out these examples of branding crises that happened not so long ago.
First Branding Crisis with What About Me Syndrome
The image of Serena Van Der Woodsen as an American Sweetheart seems to be fading with the release of It Ends with Us. Blake Lively’s portrayal as a supportive family figure no longer includes making inappropriate sarcastic jokes. However, her response to questions about domestic violence in interviews—by providing personal contact details instead of a helpline or at least consultation—raises concerns. Not to mention, the way she said inappropriate sarcastic jokes without find out first the background of an interviewer, then another sexist responses which people were assuming.
Additionally, the film’s release was delayed from Valentine’s Day to August, coinciding with the launch of Blake’s hair care products and the promotion of her new Betty Buzz menus, such as Ryle You Wait and It Ends with Buzz. Suggesting a rushed marketing strategy that may romanticize domestic violence, which conflicts with Blake’s–more or less–seventeen years long of her family-supportive image.
Second Branding Crisis with The Hunger of Attention
Known as Jimmy Donaldson, MrBeast is fixated on going viral and will go to great lengths to achieve that goal, from giving away money to strangers and creating game apps to collaborating with brands like Feastables and launching MrBeast Burgers, which have received poor reviews for quality. Besides creating game apps, he also made this survival game for his Youtube channel based on Squid Game TV show. However, according to sportskeeda.com, some of the contestants are an actor and a secret employee at MrBeast.
His sensationalist tactics include exploiting people in survival games and poverty porn, alongside one of his employees with questionable behavior online which is defined as child grooming, considering many of his followers are children. It may be time for MrBeast to shift his focus from seeking fame to producing educational and enjoyable content for kids in a safe manner, as he is already well-known. According to Polygon, although MrBeast contents were made for a sake of his fame, his method for uploading videos still suits YouTube’s algorithm well.
Third Branding Crisis with Another Poverty Porn
In the U.S., MrBeast is a prominent YouTuber, while in Indonesia, Willie Salim is gaining similar attention by emulating MrBeast’s style. Willie has stated his goal to inspire Indonesian youth and surpass MrBeast’s subscriber count, but his approach—calling people beggars and mentally poor on TikTok—is far from motivating. Instead of flaunting money on camera, Willie could make a more positive impact by focusing on volunteer work, such as providing education in lack-of-access areas. Although he promotes his online class and uses his platform to leverage his subscriber base, his previous money-throwing contents might be contributing to the poor mindsets of those who still crave money, obviously. However, his recent attempt with the WDXTRAGAME hopefully could inspire others because it shows the definition of real hard work to get wealth.
Speaking of branding, it is essential to first identify what your brand represents, why people should care about it, then both of those would consistently align all marketing efforts with that brand identity. A brand could start from the history of their journey or core values that shape your point of view. Looking at the interview from enterpreneur.com, the authenticity and integrity are the core values that most entrepreneurs have for their branding.