Hello all,
I want to know your opinion on being the face of your brand, what are the pros and cons? Also what happens to the face of the brand once they get to an older age and need to be replaced? Is it easy to replace the face of the brand?
I wouldn’t personally. I feel like customers like to target business owners when they know who it is. Keeping a bit of distance/anonymity is not a bad thing. You can still be the face but pick and choose the spots to be it.
It’s hard to scale and strategically reposition a personal identity when compared to a corporate identity. It’s also almost impossible to sell down the road. The handful of successful examples I can think of still have living proprietors (like Air Jordan brand Bike shoes, for example).
Having said that, if your aspirations are to be an influencer, or a celebrity, or some other thing that only functions as an individual identity, then you really only have one choice.
I dont think KFC, Wendy’s, or Papa Johns have had too hard of a time. It makes it even easier since they also operate in the franchise space.
It’s not impossible. It’s hard. When you look at the history of brand position and strategy, identities separate from those of the founder are substantially easier to grow and scale. In fact, two of the three businesses you cited did exactly that. The third - Papa John’s - famously suffered a number of very public business setbacks because of the public image of the founder. He has since been replaced by Shaquille O’Neal.
Those examples are mascots. That’s way different than a current CEO sharing content on social.