When brand me is bigger than brand us!

As usual I was reading through our state daily newspaper and was shocked to read about the allegations made against some of our favourite Olympic swimmers ... http://www.smh.com.au/sport/swimming/pranks-plague-mens-swim-team-as-bully-claims-emerge-20120912-25r7o.html

This is a clear issue with behaviour and how some people have such a strong personal brand that they forget about the team brand (or the companies). While in most cases this is a positive thing and can generally enhance the success of the team, this is not one of these cases.

If these swimmers used their personal brands in a positive way to lift the team, mentor the younger swimmers and generally behaved in a way that befitted their role - then we would be congratulating them ... but instead they thought themselves bigger and more important than the team brand! (although we must remember that these are only allegations and not proven fact).

Let's look to the past for a comparison - the brands of Thorpe and Hackett were very strong and yet their personal brands only enhanced the Australian Swimming brand. I would hesitate to say that our current swimmers' personal brands aren't as strong and yet can have a greater detrimental effect!

I personally experienced this through another sport - AFL - one of the top players had such a strong personal brand people could hardly remember what team he played for. At first he was really good about it and used it to help charities and junior clubs... but then he started to believe his own publicity and it all went downhill very fast!!

I think it is very important for everyone to develop their own personal brand but this will at times come at a cost to the person ... they may take a little while to find a company that matches them, people may have a go at them but if their brand is built on their values then it should withstand anything ... wonder how strong these swimmers' brands are??

In summary, these guys are only young and maybe haven't had the guidance required to help them make wise decisions... and in the end they could be completely innocent of these allegations... just thought it was interesting to reflect on the power of brands, both personal and company!