How 'brand you' came to be

…a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language. Dale Carnegie’s line from his bestseller book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ rings especially true in the retail sector. From packets of Tim Tams and jars of Vegemite to luxury hand bags, today’s marketing is stamping our names on the things we buy, setting us out as unique individuals. To get to this point, marketing has moved from a focus on the product itself to the consumer, who they are and finally, how they think. The power of personalisation can been seen in Coke’s successful, ‘Share a Coke’ campaign. Soft drink manufacturers have been experiencing declining sales, but Coca-Cola was able to break the downward trend. By printing individual names on cans, the company saw a 2.5% increase in total sales and soft-drink volume went up by 0.4%. Even luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Mont Blanc have begun to personalise their products