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| The Peabody Hotel brand is a Duck Theme |
The AICI Create Magic conference was held at The Peabody Hotel in Orlando Florida. The Peabody’s brand is ducks and it really is consistent with its branding, from the signage to the soap, bathmats and butter pats (yes, they’re shaped like a duck). Each room has at least 2 artworks depicting ducks, and each day, at 11am and 5pm the Peabody ducks walk the red carpet to and from the fountain in the hotel, where they spend their days.
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| Even the toilet paper has duck wrapping |
What does this have to do with personal style or fashion? The Peabody are very very consistent with their branding message and it flows through the entire hotel experience, you know that if there is going to be an animal motif, it’s a duck one, not a giraffe in one room and a lion in the next.
Consistency is really important when thinking about your personal brand. We all have a personal brand, it’s those 5 or 6 words that others tend to use to describe us (and it’s what I help you discover and enhance in a Style Recipe session). Luckily, to a certain extent we can control how we’re perceived as we choose the clothes we wear, the hairstyles we sport, the makeup application (think drag queen vs. natural girl next door etc.) and also we can control our behavioral and communication styles.
If I want to be perceived as lazy, all I have to do is wear clothes that are rumpled and crumpled. If I want to be perceived as in control I’ll make sure that I always do my hair and makeup and wear clothes that are well put-together rather than sometimes doing the grooming and other days not being bothered about it.
According to the Malcolm Gladwell in Blink, we make judgements about people, their worth and values in the blink of an eye. These assumptions can be difficult to change, and often we don’t get a chance to make a better impression than we made the first time round.
When you choose your clothing and grooming you are making a decision about how you want to be perceived and what your personal brand is. Countless studies have shown that those with great personal presentation earn more money, get jobs more easily and have more doors open to them. It’s worth taking the time to think about what you want to achieve, your goals in life, and aligning them with your appearance, behavior and communication so that you more easily achieve what you want out of life.
