Off The Record

David F. D’Alessandro’s Career Warfare: 10 Rules for Building a Successful Personal Brand and Fighting to Keep It is a must read for anyone looking to build career success.  Written by D’Alessadro, along with journalist Michelle Owens, this is a personal Art of War for the modern corporate soldier.  It is particularly suitable for the Public Relations Officer (PRO) as that is where D’Alessandro started his career, climbing the corporate ladder to it’s ultimate height as Chairman and CEO of John Hancock Financial Services.  Indeed D’Alessandro was in large part responsible for John Hancock’s selection by the New York Times as one of the top 100 brands of the 20^th Century.

D’Alessandro knows brand building as his first book Brand Warfare: 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand attests.

Career Warfare is a masterful book, a compass for those looking to move ahead in their careers.  It is insightful and frank in its advice, drawing on D’Alessandro’s own experiences and observations of those around him, including the many who had the hard skills to get to the top but failed because they lacked the insight to work on positioning their personal brands for success.

The book is a compass more than a road map.  It points the direction.  It looks at what makes the difference as you reach the higher rungs on the ladder where everyone has the hard skills, where everyone excels in capability and accomplishment.  Career Warfare looks at the concept of personal brand and what builds the trust required for ultimate success.

Insightful chapters include:
      Try to look beyond your own navel;
      Like it or not, your boss is the coauthor of your brand;
      It’s always show time;
      Make the right enemies; and,
      Everybody coulda been a contender; make sure you stay one.

D’Alessandro offers the best advice you will get on how to build your personal brand and protect it.  If you only read one career improvement book in 2007, make it Career Warfare.  Then get back to the fray of battle.

* Uma Li is a human resources development consultant living in the United States.  She previously worked in public relations in China. 

While the majority ethnic Han Chinese revere the pig and consider it a symbol of prosperity, Muslims, comprised of several of China’s ethnic minority populations, abhor pigs as unclean animals and avoid eating pork meat.

The decision by CCTV has forced a number of foreign companies to cancel planned TV advertisements, some of which had completed production already and were due to commence airing next month.  The Year of the Pig commences on 18 February.

For Han Chinese 2007 will be the Year of the Golden Pig, which only occurs every 60 years.  This is considered especially propitious and many Chinese couples deferred having a child during 2006 so that their baby will be born in the special year.

Now that
China has decided to be more mindful of its multiculturalism, foreign companies will need to plan their PR and advertising campaigns more carefully, taking into account the sensitivities of the nation’s 56 ethnic minorities and numerous religions.

The latest outcry against inappropriate behaviour on a reality TV show sounds a long-overdue alarm bell for companies hoping to promote and profile brands through sponsorship of these programs.  Key sponsors deserted
Britain’s Celebrity Big Brother program aired on its Channel 4 following a wave of global protests at the racist outburst of British contestant Jade Goody against Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty.

Effigies of the shows producers were burned in Indian cities and Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, on a visit to New Delhi, denounced Goody for her comments.  Britain’s Culture Minister, Tessa Jowell, said the show was presenting racism “as entertainment” and called it “disgusting”.

This is not the first time a reality TV show has resulted in such a chorus of disapproval by the public.  An Australian version of the Big Brother franchise reality TV show fell into disrepute last year when a crude incident resulted in claims of sexual harassment against one of the contestants.  Although no charges were pressed, many were outraged by the vulgarity of the incident.

The problem with many of the reality TV shows shown around the world is that they play to the lowest common denominator in society.  The people watching most of these programs are not looking for uplifting entertainment.  And the shows producers are often trying to create conflict amongst the cast members to ensure controversy.  Contestants for the show are usually selected on the basis of how they will interact with each other – that is to say how they will interact negatively to provide the conflict that will pull in viewers.

Fortunately reality TV in China has not plummeted to the depths of distaste seen in the West.  Not yet anyway.

Companies choosing to sponsor reality TV shows need to consider the controversy factor that is used to drive ratings.  They cannot wander around after an appalling incident has occurred, Groucho Marx-like, uttering that they are “shocked and dismayed to find gambling in this casino”.
 

Casinos were built for gambling and reality TV is made for conflict that appeals to the lowest common denominator.  The best thing corporations can do to protect their hard earned reputations is eschew these shows from the outset.  Pull the sponsorship now and put those marketing dollars into responsible communications programs.

Even within the world of soccer, Becks doesn’t seem to be in the same league as some others – he is certainly left in the dust by legends of the past like Brazil’s Pele, Northern Ireland’s George Best and Argentina’s Maradona; but he’s also not quite in the same league as some of his own contemporaries like France’s Zinedine Zidane or Brazil’s Ronaldo.

So what is the L.A. Galaxy getting for its US$250 million?  No doubt the team coaches and managers know they are not getting a top-rated world player.  It has been some time since Becks was able to claim such honours.  Apart from one goal scored against the Greek team in the 2002 World Cup qualifying matches, Beckham’s performance was lacklustre.  Even his new team of Real Madrid has had him sitting on the bench during recent matches.  And, at 31, Becks is heading into his sunset playing years.  This hardly makes Becks the man to save L.A. Galaxy or invigorate American soccer.

The truth of the matter is base and far away from noble aspirations one may have about sport.  It is about money.  It is about the pulling power of Beckham and the money that L.A. Galaxy hopes to make from the merchandising that will follow.

Probably the best commentary about Becks’ move to Tinseltown is the one by the entertainment writer John Doyle of Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper.  Doyle argues that the Beckham move is more about celebrity than what Beckham will do for L.A. Galaxy or American soccer.  He says the news angle in the L.A. Times’ reporting of the Beckham move was not soccer but “fame and frivolity”.  The same can be said about most of the other reporting on the Beckhams’ move to L.A.  The media have simply gone ga-ga over the news, with female reporters acting like love-struck teenage girls (“he’s so handsome” commented one female TV anchor) while their male counterparts have focused on the size of Becks’ pay cheque – a case of pay packet envy perhaps.

Sadly, modern celebrity and even stardom is based on neither talent nor character.  Blond hair, good looks and a willingness to do anything in front of the camera seem to be all that is required; just consider the notorious air-head Paris Hilton and others of her ilk who all but grace our TV screens.  Now that the Beckhams are moving to La-la Land, expect to see them in unremarkable and even bizarre TV shows in the near future.  Who knows: There might even be a movie in the offing.

Thank the PR and marketing gurus behind the Beckham phenomenon.  They’ll be in for a cut of the $250 million.  Spin has been replaced by bending it like Beckham.

In the meantime the owners of the L.A. Galaxy soccer team should contemplate the words of baseball great, Babe Ruth:  “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success.  You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.”  It’ll be interesting to see how Becks fits in with his new team.

And Becks should reflect on some other words of Babe Ruth: “All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.”  Becks and wife Posh would do the world a big favour by retiring gracefully rather than continuing to inflict their lack of talent and intellect on the rest of us.

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* A version of this article by Alistair J. Nicholas, Managing Director of AC Capital Strategic Public Relations, was published by the online magazine Mercatornet.

Although very much Americano-centric, with the possible exception of the chapter on the cheating culture of top sumo wrestlers in Japan, the book has important lessons for Chinese professionals, particularly in the PR industry.

Freakonomics is nothing short of a fast-paced fun read, especially for those enamored of economics, such as this reviewer.  And the chapters on the poverty in which Chicago crack dealers live in the hope of one day being a gangland boss, on the economic incentives for sumo wrestlers and public school teachers to cheat, along with the way the anti-bigotry campaigner Stetson Kennedy infiltrated the racist Ku Klux Klan and lifted the shroud of secrecy on the organization, to turn it into a laughing stock of children’s games are brilliant.

For Chinese professionals the book has important insights such as Kennedy’s use of the mass media – a popular radio show for children – to destroy the Ku Klux Klan.  This was PR at its very best.

Another lesson for young Chinese professionals leaving university with an entitlement mentality is the value of hard work even for low wages just to gain valuable experience that will enable them to get the jobs of their dreams later.  This after all is what motivates Chicago crack dealers who have to live with their mothers to make ends meet in the hope of one day becoming a gangland king.  According to Levitt they are prepared to endure sub-minimum wages and high risks (one-in-four will die a violent death) to achieve their long-term career goals, much as aspiring actors and models do.  Instead of expecting the big bucks immediately, China’s new graduates should take this leaf from the book of Chicago crack dealers.  And at least PR in China is less risky.

But some of the rest of the book is very questionable both in terms of analysis and the morality of the conclusions reached.  For example a chapter arguing that legalized abortion in a number of American States has been instrumental in reducing crime rates has been questioned by other economists.  Christopher Foote and Christopher Goetz for example question the manipulation of data by Levitt and have said “there are no statistical grounds for believing that the hypothetical youths who were aborted as fetuses would have been more likely to commit crimes had they reached maturity than the actual youths who developed from fetuses and carried to term.”

The real problem with Levitt’s work on abortion and crimes rates, though, is that it could lend itself to an argument for the forced abortion of babies of women belonging to a certain socio-economic class in order to reduce crime rates in the future.  This is eugenics pure and simple.  While Levitt certainly doesn’t make the argument for it the fact is his wrong-headed statistical analysis could be come wrong-headed morality in the wrong hands, such as in the hands of those who see man as little more than an economic actor.

This chapter is not worth reading for the economic analysis as it has very little and does even less to further the study of economics.

The final chapter on name selection for babies and future academic and career success is interesting in that it asks the question of whether American blacks are discriminated against because they have “black names” or because the names their parents gave them are associated with lower IQ’s and education.  Chinese hoping to work at foreign companies and choosing what they think are popular names could do worse than consult Levitt’s list of most popular names for boys and girls among America’s elites.

Read Freakonomics for the sheer joy of seeing the study of economics applied to the mundane and even to the bizarre.  But feel free to skip the chapter on abortion as it doesn’t add very much to the sum of human knowledge.   

The article did not mention the impact of the wide availability of counterfeited luxury brands in the market as a possible cause for low sales of genuine product.

 

The article quotes spokesmen from luxury brands who say they are in China for the long haul and that they “are willing to lose money as long as [they] can keep learning about the Chinese market.”  If only companies would afford their executives such luxuries in other markets.