Why Personal Branding is a Sugar Crash (And Traditional Branding is a Full English)

Coca-Cola: The Power of Timeless Branding

Take Coca-Cola. Their Christmas truck – that scarlet behemoth trundling through British high streets – doesn’t need a teary-eyed CEO sobbing into a vlog about his first can of Coke. It’s a truck. It blares Holidays Are Coming. Parents drag their kids to see it. Sorted.

No LinkedIn humblebrags. No cringe TikToks. Just decades of simple, sticky branding that survives scandals, leadership changes, and the Great Irn-Bru Recipe Debacle of 2018. Compare that to your average “personal brand,” which crumbles faster than a Greggs vegan sausage roll in the rain.

John Lewis: Nostalgia Over Ego

Or look at John Lewis. Their Christmas ads don’t star the CEO doing the Milly Rock next to an overpriced wreath. They tell stories – whimsical, warm, human stories – that have sod-all to do with individual egos. The result? Yearly queues at their stores, not because their MD went viral, but because they sell nostalgia in a John Lewis bag.

Paid Ads: Less Sob Stories, More Bacon Rolls

Why Paid Ads Work

Let’s talk about paid ads – the unsung heroes of actual marketing. Why grovel for scraps of organic reach when you can:

• Plaster your message on a billboard near the M6
• Sneak into Google searches like a Wetherspoons ad at 2 AM
• Target commuters doomscrolling Instagram on the Central Line

No trauma-dumping required. No staged “relatability.” Just honest, unapologetic shouting into the void – except this time, the void might actually buy your product.

BrewDog’s Lesson in Branding

Take BrewDog. Say what you want about their tactics, their “Beer for Punks” billboards work because they’re loud, simple, and not tied to some CEO’s cringey LinkedIn poetry. The beer sells. The brand endures. The lesson? Your product isn’t your personality.

The Local Chippy Test: Marketing Without Selling Your Soul

Two Choices for Small Businesses

Picture a local chippy. The owner has two choices:

1. Spend weekends filming “authentic” Reels of battering cod, crying over cold chips, and screeching “YASS QUEEN” at a deep fryer.
2. Invest in a neon “Open” sign, a Google listing, and a few Facebook ads targeting pissed-up students after a night out.

Option 2 wins. Every. Bloody. Time.

Why? Because no one gives a toss about your cod’s backstory. They care if your chips are crispy and your curry sauce doesn’t taste like dishwater.

How to Escape the Cult of Personal Branding

Ditch the Ego Trip

Your business isn’t you. It’s your product, your team, your actual work. Stop confusing LinkedIn posts with productivity.

Embrace Traditional Methods

Billboards, radio jingles, and proper websites may lack TikTok glamor but deliver something better: paying customers.

Let Paid Ads Do the Heavy Lifting

A single Google Ad beats 1,000 “authentic” posts every time.

WMDP UK: Real Branding for Businesses That Want to Last

What WMDP Offers

If you’re after proper branding – the kind that doesn’t evaporate when the LinkedIn algorithm farts – WMDP UK gets it. This Black Country-based agency specialises in no-bullshit marketing: logos that don’t look like clipart, print ads that don’t double as firelighters, and social campaigns that target actual humans, not bot farms.

• Brand identities: that survive CEO midlife crises
• Paid ad strategies: that don’t rely on begging strangers to “double-tap”
• Print and digital work: that looks like it wasn’t cobbled together during a Wetherspoons breakfast

The Final Nail

In a world where “influencers” hawk detox tea and “gurus” recycle platitudes, being the boring brand that just works is the ultimate flex. Ditch the pressure to perform. Build something that outlasts your next viral post.

The best “personal brand” is one that quietly dies – so your actual work can live.