Sure you do. He's Gary Spangler, from DuPont. He spoke yesterday, beginning by pointing out the fact that he was wearing a shirt with stripes (horizontal, not vertical). He was an interesting example of branding: he did a simple thing - wore an unusual shirt and pointed it out - and made himself instantly recognizable.

Last night at the Chinese dinner feast, I wanted to say hello to Gary and talk to him more about his presentation, and thanks to his striped shirt I knew just where he was in the room. (Wouldn't it be nice if people could say that about your brand or your client's brand?). I had the luck of sitting with Gary at dinner, and heard more about his branding idea:

Gary began the whole striped shirt thing internally at DuPont. His colleagues always know, he said, when things are not going well for Gary, because he isn't wearing a striped shirt. When one of the shirts reappear, they know all is right with Gary's world. He began to be known within the company as "the guy with the striped shirt." People talked about him; they knew who he was.

So he decided at the last WOMMA conference to extend his brand externally, and made a point of referring to his striped shirt. By the end of the conference, most people knew who he was.

It seems to be working this time, too. At least the people with whom I shared dinner last night recognized Gary from his earlier talk. Perhaps more to the point, I had conversations about Gary with several of them. We talked about Gary, we talked about his brand, we talked about his presentation...

It seemed to me to be a perfect, and perfectly simple, example of a strong brand fueling word of mouth - and of word of mouth fueling a strong brand.

Posted by Jennifer Nastu, Fast Trike