What Does It Take for Brands to Deteriorate? Tips on Using Your Name to Build Your Brand, and Scott’s Bucket List

Summary

The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway: Episode Summary

Episode Title: What Does It Take for Brands to Deteriorate? Tips on Using Your Name to Build Your Brand, and Scott’s Bucket List
Release Date: November 13, 2024

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Episode Overview

In this insightful episode of The Prof G Pod, Scott Galloway delves into the nuances of brand deterioration, the importance of personal branding, and offers valuable advice on setting personal milestones through bucket lists. Hosted by the Vox Media Podcast Network, this episode features Scott answering listener questions during the Office Hours segment, providing expert analysis and actionable strategies for businesses and individuals alike.

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Office Hours Segment

1. Understanding Brand Deterioration

Listener Question:
Ben from Chicago, a consultant at a well-respected firm, inquires about the factors contributing to brand deterioration and seeks understanding on how long it takes for a brand to decline.

Scott's Analysis:
Scott begins by referencing the 2024 Axios Harris Poll 100 Reputation Rankings, highlighting that Meta ranks poorly at number 97 with a score of 59.6, just above The Trump Organization, X, and Spirit Airlines. He emphasizes that a strong brand is built on differentiation and trust.

• Differentiation Equals Margin:
  Scott uses the analogy of different brands of Frosted Flakes to illustrate how brands differentiate themselves to command higher margins.

• Trust as a Core Component:
  He underscores that trust is fundamental; consumers must believe that a brand will deliver on its promises. Negative perceptions, such as those held towards Spirit Airlines or X, stem from a lack of trust.

Notable Quotes:

• "Brands are synonymous with differentiation. If you can't differentiate, you can't command a premium." [03:45]
• "Trust is everything. Without it, your brand can quickly deteriorate, regardless of your market position." [04:20]

Successful Brands:
Scott cites Nvidia, 3M, and Fidelity as examples of brands maintaining strong reputations. He attributes Nvidia's success to its consistent excellence and innovation, 3M's reputation to its history of paternal care and American values, and Fidelity's trustworthiness in handling finances.

• Relevance Over Saturation:
  He notes that while brands are hard to kill, they can become less relevant. The shift from broadcast television to fragmented media consumption has made brand building more challenging yet still essential for awareness.

Key Takeaways:

• Maintaining differentiation and trust is crucial for brand longevity.
• Success and consistent performance can bolster a brand's reputation.
• Brands must adapt to changing media landscapes to stay relevant.

2. Personal Branding and Name Overlap Issues

Listener Question:
Naomi from Sydney, Australia, shares her predicament of sharing her name with a popular adult film star, which is negatively impacting her personal brand as a finance professional. She seeks advice on managing this overlap and considerations for a potential name change.

Scott's Response:
Scott empathizes with Naomi's situation, sharing his own experience of having a public name overlap with an Australian football player. He advises that over time, quality work will overshadow less relevant associations.

• Building a Strong Personal Brand:
  "If you're good at what you do, eventually, your brand will outshine others sharing your name." [07:15]

• Practical Tips:

  • Differentiation Through Titles:
    Adding descriptors like "Prof. G" helps distinguish his personal brand.
  • Consistent Excellence:
    Continuously delivering exceptional work ensures that positive brand associations prevail.

Ben's Input:
Ben shares his personal struggle with sharing the same name as a more famous individual and reinforces Scott's advice by highlighting the importance of sustained excellence and strategic self-description.

Notable Quotes:

• "Nothing builds your brand like excellence and continuing to do good work." [07:45]
• "If you were to go through the hassle of a name change, make sure it's easy to spell and distinct." [08:10]

Key Takeaways:

• Personal branding can effectively mitigate challenges posed by name overlaps.
• Utilizing titles and consistent high performance are effective strategies.
• A name change, while not recommended, should focus on uniqueness and simplicity if pursued.

3. Creating a Bucket List for Personal Fulfillment

Listener Question:
Glenn from Brooklyn, New York, recently turned 39 and is contemplating creating a pre-40 bucket list to inspire himself as he approaches middle age. As a senior software engineer and musician with a solid financial plan, Glenn seeks advice on setting meaningful goals that ensure happiness beyond professional success.

Scott's Advice:
Scott shares his reflections on milestone bucket lists, drawing from his personal experiences and philosophical outlook.

• Focus on Economic Security and Personal Fulfillment:
  He emphasizes the importance of economic stability as a foundation for pursuing personal goals.

• Meaningful Contributions:
  "Planting trees, the shade of which I will never sit under, represents making a lasting impact beyond personal gains." [14:50]

• Limiting Goals for Clarity:
  He recommends focusing on two or three significant goals to maintain clarity and commitment.

Ben's Reflection:
Ben discusses his personal aspirations, highlighting the significance of economic security, meaningful relationships, and contributing to societal good. He advises Glenn to assess personal blessings and prioritize impactful goals.

Notable Quotes:

• "Having a strong social footprint and doing good work constantly builds your personal brand over the long term." [09:30]
• "Planting trees for future generations gives profound gratification beyond immediate rewards." [15:20]

Key Takeaways:

• A bucket list should balance personal ambitions with contributions to the broader community.
• Focused and meaningful goals enhance long-term happiness and fulfillment.
• Economic security serves as a crucial underpinning for pursuing and achieving personal milestones.

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Conclusions and Final Thoughts

In this episode, Scott Galloway provides a comprehensive analysis of brand deterioration, emphasizing the roles of differentiation and trust in maintaining a strong brand. He offers practical strategies for individuals grappling with personal branding challenges, particularly when dealing with name overlaps. Additionally, Scott imparts thoughtful advice on crafting meaningful personal goals through bucket lists, highlighting the importance of economic security and impactful contributions.

Listeners gain valuable insights into:

• Brand Management: Understanding the factors that lead to a brand's decline and the importance of consistent excellence.
• Personal Branding: Strategies to overcome challenges in personal brand development through titles and sustained performance.
• Personal Fulfillment: Crafting bucket lists that balance professional success with personal and societal contributions.

Scott's expertise and relatable anecdotes provide actionable guidance for both businesses and individuals aiming to build and sustain strong, reputable brands while pursuing personal happiness and fulfillment.

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Additional Resources:

• Submit Your Questions: Listeners are encouraged to submit their questions via voice recordings to officehoursoftropte.com.
• Follow the Podcast: Stay updated by following the Prof G Markets pod on your preferred podcast platform for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.

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Thank you for tuning into The Prof G Pod. Join us next Saturday for the No Mercy / No Malice newsletter as read by George Hahn.

Transcript

[Scott Galloway]

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[Ben]

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[Scott Galloway]

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[Ben]

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[Scott Galloway]

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[Ben]

Show comes from Intuit. Successfully reaching the right small businesses can be challenging. Intuit SMB Media Labs gives you the power to do more by connecting you with the small businesses that need you more most. Connect with an audience of 36 million, unlock growth opportunities and expand your reach with tailored insights from Intuit SMB Media Labs. Learn [e-mail] welcome to the Profg Pods Office Hours. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehoursoftropte.com Again, that's officehoursoftropgmedia.com I have not seen these questions so numero uno. Hi Propgy, this is Ben from Chicago.

[Naomi]

I work in consulting for a well.

[Ben]

Respected firm and want to get your perspective on brand deterioration, specifically how long and what needs to occur.

[Naomi]

Thanks for the great work and advice every week.

[Ben]

So who ranks poorly in terms of brand reputation According to the 2024 Axios Harris Poll 100 Reputation Rankings Meta ranks number 97 in overall reputation with a very poor score of 59.6. That's just three spots above the Trump Organization and two spots above X and one spot above Spirit Airlines. So what do these companies all have in common, brand is synonymous with differentiation. I got five different brands of Frosted Flakes. Which one is different from the other and why am I going to pay? Kind of unearned margin, if you will, or differentiation equals margin. In addition, a brand is sort of trust and that is you have to trust it's going to deliver against its promise. And the end user wants to feel like they can trust the brand. And the thing that all of these companies have in common is that people don't trust Spirit Airlines to kind of not to deliver. People I think are worried when they got on Spirit Airlines that they're just going to have a shitty experience. The Trump Organization, I think has developed a reputation for its vendors and people not being able to trust the organization. X has been in the news for destroying a lot of shareholder value, lack of safety standards and just overall vitriol. So it kind of comes down to trust how you handle crises, whether you're seen as treating your customers well, whether you're seen as being honest, all that kind of good stuff. Who's doing it? Well, right now it's Nvidia followed by 3M and Fidelity. That's interesting. I wouldn't have guessed Fidelity. So Nvidia, nothing helps a brand light success. And I guess people trust Nvidia because of its success and beating expectations always. And I think Jensen is seen as a fairly good person and the firm feels future forward. So I think a lot of that just comes down to success. 3M is seen as somewhat of a paternal company that's good to its employees and constant history of innovation. Very, very sort of American, if you will. I think people feel good. It's. I think their headquarters is in Minnesota and people just like those Minnesotans, Fidelity. I don't know why. I guess Fidelity handles money and people feel pretty good that they're good fiduciaries. Look, brands are hard to kill. They're just becoming what I'd call less relevant. What do I mean by that? Algorithm for printing cash was to come up with a mediocre car shoe, salty snack, sugary drink and wrap it in amazing brand codes using this incredibly cheap and efficient brand building infrastructure called broadcast television, where 60% of America was watching one of three channels every night. Then broadcast media became very splintered, very expensive and people started cutting out the middleman and going to content that didn't where they wouldn't be pelted by commercial telling them they had restless legs. And their social graphics and their new weapons of mass diligence, including Google, their social graph tripadvisor said, you don't need to always defer to the mass diligence or the shorthand of a brand as often. Now having said that, it's very rare that an individual purchase anything they haven't heard of before. Think about your inclination to return an email from someone you've never heard of before and someone you have heard of. Right. It's exponentially greater likelihood you'll respond to the to the latter. And the same is true of brand. So just a general level of awareness is really meaningful. And then you infuse it with associations. Hopefully has self expressive benefit. Probably the best brand attribute after trust would be scarcity and that is this notion that it's of limited supply. So now let's talk a little bit about B2B. I think right away you need to identify what the culture is going to be and to a certain extent the culture is your brand. When my first firm in business school, I started a company called Profit when I was 26, I used to say we have a passion for brand attention to detail and a sense of camaraderie and give people a sense of what those core associations are. But at the top, these firms are delivering across the two points of a brand and that is the promise. And then the performance has to match the promise. So when we say we're proud of our progress, as Cheryl Sandberg said at Facebook, we found out that she was lying over and over and over. Thanks for the question. Question number two.

[Glenn]

Hey, Prof. G. Naomi here from Sydney, Australia. I'm in my late 20s working in finance and I just made the big move to New York City this year. Taking your advice to get to a big city. Now here's the thing. In the midst of meeting all these new people, both personally and professionally, I've hit an unexpected and rather awkward problem. My name. I share it with a very popular adult film star who is very, very famous for her book fetish content. And while I doubt that any reasonable person would confuse my accomplishments with her accomplishments, it's reeking absolutely havoc on my personal brand. I realize of course, that I can't win an SEO battle against the adult entertainment industry. But before my name becomes collateral damage in the pursuit of a rebrand, I'd love to get your take. Given how seamlessly you have integrated your name into your personal brand, what would you do in my shoes? And more broadly, how would anyone approach a name change? Whether it's from marriage or divorce or immigrants simplifying non Anglo names, how should they think about this? Anyway, I'M really looking forward to hearing your thoughts and thank you, Scott, for all the work that you do.

[Ben]

Gotta be honest, wasn't expecting this one. Okay. I had sort of a similar issue when I first developed a bit of a public footprint, if you will. Initially, being the narcissist I am, I'd always google my name and what came up first. About 10, 12 years ago, a gentleman named Scott Galloway who played for the West Marine Mariners or the New Wales Mariners of football, a soccer player in Australia and he was just more famous than me. So he came up and I thought, ah, fuck, there's someone else named Scott Galloway that's more famous than me. But over time, if you're good at what you do, eventually especially I would imagine an adult film star, that career wanes. I imagine feet age better than most parts of your body. But the thing about being an athlete, a musician, a model, all the vanity industries, and I would imagine being a porn star is the reason these industries suck, is you get worse at them as you get older. If you're in accounting in 98% industries, you get better as you get older. I would imagine this adult film stars brand is going to wane. And if you're good at what you do and you have a strong social footprint and you keep at it, and this is what happened to me. Now, if you do a search, you know Scott Galloway, the Australian football player comes up way, way down the list because nothing builds your brand like excellence and continuing to do good work. Now, in terms of practically what you might want to do on your social media handles is maybe even jokingly say your name and then open paren. Not the foot fetish woman or not the adult star. Or always make sure, you know, like add something. I say Prof. G so people know I'm a professor. Professor has a really nice, really nice connotation to it. And at the end of the day, I think of myself as a teacher, so it fits well. It's easy to say if you were to go through the hassle of a name change, which I don't recommend, what you want is something that is easy to spell and that there aren't that many other people with the same name. And those two are in contradiction with each other. Again though, the key to anything is just having doing good work constantly. That's over the long term. What builds brands anyways? Interesting question. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us.

[Scott Galloway]

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[Scott Galloway]

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[Ben]

Welcome back. Question number three hey there Prof. G.

[Naomi]

This is Glenn calling from beautiful Brooklyn, New York. I recently turned 39 and decided to create a pre 40 bucket list as a way to challenge and inspire myself heading into middle age. I'm a senior software engineer and musician, have a decent financial plan fully in motion, and I'm unmarried, although I have a lovely partner and neither of us are interested in having children. My question for you, Scott, is have you ever created bucket lists either for specific milestone like age or simply before death? And do you have any advice for someone like me to set myself up for happiness after 40 that isn't just work and play hard? Love the pods and thank you for taking my question.

[Ben]

Jesus, Glenn. I immediately started searching for something more profound and the reality is my only bucket list was really just to be like rich and awesome in that order. When I was your age, I grew up not with a ton of stress because I don't. I was never in poverty, but my mom, I was raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died as secretary and money was a real issue for us. We were never hungry or anything like that, but it was just, I don't know, I just, I just. From a very early age I connected the dots in a capitalist economy. So my only goal, quite frankly was to have economic security. I did have a goal around meeting somebody I wanted. I always thought I'd be a really good boyfriend. And I was younger, I didn't have a lot of experience with women. I caught up fast after. I was kind of a late bloomer sexually and romantically, but I, I was tall, skinny, with bad skin, so I didn't get a lot of opportunity. And then my skin cleared up, I joined crew, I got ripped, started making some money and all of a sudden like, I'm like, wow, this whole, this whole mating thing, or at least practicing to mate is a lot of fun. And I really enjoyed that through my 20s. But I never really had a really solid Relationship like you have until I was older. This is kind of an existential question that I think you want to talk to some of your friends about. If you have economic security and you're with a family or you have a good partner, then the question becomes more of a. All right, time is going to go really fast, and I'm going to be. You're going to be at the end sooner than you think. I just had a big birthday. I just turned 50, 60, and I was your age. What felt 40 to 60 just flies by. And the question is, what will you have wanted to accomplish? Will you want a set of experiences that are extraordinary? Will you want to have established domain expertise around something? Will you want to have helped others? Will you want to be the best in the world at something? Will you want to have, at that point, your parents will probably be old or towards the end, have a better relationship with them. Do you really want to explore having a very deep and meaningful relationship with your spouse and your partner? Do you want to give back? I mean, just sort of sit down and say work backwards, but it sounds to me like you're tracking. I mean, I'm just. I'm trying to squeeze the shit out of this lime called life. And for me, getting to a certain level of economic security, I saw as paramount in that. And that that's probably a bit of an overstatement. You can still have an exceptional life without having a crazy amount of money, but you do need a certain level of economic security, and it feels like it's there. And then the thing I love and has finally kicked in for me, and it did until later in life. But something I get tremendous gratification from is planting trees, the shade of which I will never sit under. And that is getting involved in nonprofits and trying to help and provide time, treasure, and talent to affect change and improve the lives of people who I will never meet. That makes me feel very strong. But these are deeply personal issues I'd work through, and I'd try and limit it to two or three things, because once you get beyond two or three things, you forget the first one. And also maybe even work with somebody around this stuff. But my brother, this is the mother of all good problems. The fact that you were thinking this way. 99% of the world's population is trying to figure out how to keep the lights on, pay the rent, make sure their kids are safe, have decent health care, put food on the table. So just take stock of your blessings as indicated by that. This is a quote, unquote. Really, really good problem. Glenn. I appreciate the question. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehoursoftrovetymedia.com Again, that's officehoursoftroptomedia.com.

[Scott Galloway]

This episode was produced.

[Ben]

By Jennifer Sanchez and Caroline Chagrin and Drew Burroughs is our Technical Director. Thank you for Listen to the Propgy Pod from the Voxer Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for no Mercy, no Malice as read by George Hahn. And please follow our Prop G Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.

[Jennifer Sanchez]

Successfully reaching the right small businesses can be challenging. Intuit SMB Media Labs gives you the power to do more by connecting you with the small businesses that need you most. Connect with an audience of 36 million, unlock growth opportunities and expand your reach with tailored insights from Intuit SMB Media Labs. Learn [e-mail] support for this podcast comes from Klaviyo. You know that feeling when your favorite brand really gets you? Deliver that feeling to your customers every time. Klaviyo turns your customer data into real time connections across AI powered email, SMS and more. Making every moment count over 100,000 brands trust Klaviyo's unified data and marketing platform to build smarter digital relationships with their customers during Black Friday, Cyber Monday and beyond. Make every moment count with Klaviyo. Learn more at Klab.