Tom Peters is an American management consultant and writer on innovation and creativity in the corporate world .He is best known for the book ”In Search of Excellence” which he co-authored. He is considered a guru among consultants and the father of modern product branding. More recently he has asserted that branding begins with the individual who must define what they see as success as a point of departure in addressing their own individualism. Its called ”Brand You” where the individual is encouraged to think of themselves as a company, a necessary process for undertaking a journey of self discovery and self awareness.
Peter’s theory is that in the age of the individual you have to be your own brand. The power of technology forces an imperative need to reinvent ourselves, akin to the wave of industrialization that led people from agriculture and rural pursuits to urbanization and later white collar employment.To articulate the value an individual has to offer there is a scrambling process to redesign ourselves and add value in a meaningful way.Or as he phrases it to ”enhance the promise of the value received”. We live in a project world and our talents must be focused on developing ourselves through projects and thus being our brand, our own company and having our own mission statement to define what is important to us.A bit like the old adage ” its not that intelligent people do something different, they just do things differently”.
Salvador Dali
In a sense, Peters is a cultural abberation; more storied fables about accumulation, chasing false flags and digging for smaller bones in a globalized economy. Its a literary and public contribution to fundamental collective insanity. Tom Peters is himself a brand, a phenomenon that is detached from the actual product. His own unique way of marketing himself is the message, the content is basically irrelevent. Its a Marshall McCluhan analogy how a management consultant acting like a high school cheerleader can reap millions in fees when the entire substance can be squeezed into a Readers Digest condensed article. Condensed like the Campbell Soup Brand. Its a horse and pony show with the sincerity of the traveling soapbox preacher.Sacrifice and Give to the Church of Latter Day Marketing Guru’s.
The Peter’s path is in contrast to Naomi Klein and her book ”No Logo” which ran on an anti-market ideology rooted on the intellectual experiences and philosophies behind the May 68 uprising in France. Branding has become a medium in itself and the message of the brand is widely seen as more important than the product’s intrinsic value. An abstract world where we have a ”market” based on the trade and trafficking of illusion, delusion,confusion perception and deception.
There is merit in Peter’s view of rewarding excellent failures and punishing mediocre success, though for many attaining mediocre is an achievement. Peter’s idea that incrementalism is bad, especially of the declining variety is very valid though his mantra of providing an experience to clients and not just products and services seems evident and another motherhood statement.. Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso did not need to buy the tomes or attend the lectures of Tom Peters to realize how to ”brand” themselves. Dali understood that much of what is considered good art is essentially a normative value that is largely socially constructed within certain limits. The branding of art would create its own market value and Dali embellished his own colorful and imposing presence with the realization that personal gestures of unusual grandiose would ultimately increase the value of the ”Dali” brand.
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