Tag: famous

A year or so back, one of the Marketing Eye interns set up an Instagram account for the office dog, Pippa Smith. As interns do, they didn't give us the password and possibly had their own email address attached to it, so we were never able to retrieve it again.

Then a staff member decided that everyone loved her so much, that they wanted to set up an instagram account - and not give me the passwords. It was quite funny at the time, as they dressed her up and took the most adorable pictures. Like a true professional, Pippa Smith just stood there and looked at the camera.

And I totally agree. When I first started Marketing Eye, I built it from a perspective that there was no global player in SMB marketing. While this makes perfect sense, it didn't reach the pit of what I really wanted to achieve as a business person, or a leader for that matter. I also had not thought it through.

"I was doing something from a very real, a very honest place, so I think that's why I was able to build an audience," said Gwyneth Paltrow to Fast Company in a recent interview posted on Facebook.

A few years back, I heard of a character called Hannah Montana from one of my nieces who desperately wanted her album. I couldn't be bothered going out to buy it, so I simply gave her money so she could do it herself. Sitting in the car, she sang songs from Hannah Montana, mimicking her teenage idol.

All fairly harmless stuff - after all, Hannah Montana was a Disney brand, wholesome and pure that teenage girls the world-over could relate to.

Then something happened. She grew up. From teen idol to woman and that's where it all began.

Like Madonna before her, and Kylie Minogue for that matter, Miley Cyrus, the former sweet teenage girl that played Hannah Montana wanted to evolve her brand image and take it to the next level. If she would have kept up the wholesome image, it probably would have ensured that her brand diminish over time. Instead, she reinvented her brand. First it started with a number of selfies in proactive poses creating headlines. Then it was the picture of her smoking pot which  I would imagine was not by accident - instead just part of a brand evolution.