National Webinar “Corporate Brand and Personal Brand Alignment Strategy” via Zoom on Wednesday (16/3). Photo: Sanita Sitinjak

Semarang – The rapid development of the internet encourages society dynamism in communicating digitally. By the Department of Communication Studies at Diponegoro University (Ilkom Undip), this is seen as one of the phenomena that deserves to be studied more deeply through a national webinar entitled “Strategy for Alignment of Corporate Brands and Personal Brands”.

Yanuar Luqman as the moderator of the webinar explained that the personal branding webinar theme was chosen because digital activities such as internet use are growing among the public.

“Why choose this theme? Because this can not be separated from the internet and most people also use the internet. Communication by internet or by something in digital seems to be an unfinished issue and is getting more and more crowded because of the presence of the metaverse and so on,” said Yanuar.

This event was held on Wednesday (16/3) online via the Zoom platform. The webinar, which attracted the attention of 71 participants, also invited Hafni Alifahmi as Observer of Corporate Communications, Public Relations, Marketing Communications as well as Chair of the Master of Communication Studies Program, Sahid University, Jakarta.

The material that presented in this webinar includes reputation as the key to public relations, the concept of online branding, and multi-stakeholder engagement. In addition, the public relations issues that often occur, ranging from personal branding, corporate branding, and so on.

Brand and Reputation as Strengthening Corporate Product Brand

Hafni emphasized that brands exist to differentiate one product from another. “Brands are built and become the strength of the product,” he said.

In strengthening the corporate brand, the first step that must be strengthened in strengthening the alignment between the corporate brand and the classic brand as the initial foundation is to increase the product brand.

“Corporate brands with classic brands can be harmonized. To strengthen the corporate brand, it is necessary to increase the product brand. Based on my experience, in the past, Indofood was not well known. What is being done? Every time there is an advertisement for Indomie, (they) strengthen their corporate brand with ‘Indonomie presented by Indofood’,” explained Hafni.

Turning to the discussion on brand alignment, he also explained that corporate brands can be combined with product brands or personal brands by creating layers of brand alignment.

“An example of a six-layer brand alignment is Mandalika. The Mandalika Circuit can be said (as) a combination of destination brand, city brand, nation brand, corporate brand, product brand and personal brand,” said Hafni.

This is in line with the case of PT Sidomuncul which claims to be a pharmaceutical and herbal medicine company as a corporate brand.

“Sidomuncul introduces its various products through a campaign created by Rachmat Hidayat as CEO. The advertisement contains a lot of destinations in Indonesia,” he explained.

Four Steps to Authentic Personal Branding

According to Hafni, personal branding can be said as an effort to be yourself and not force yourself to be like other people. “If we are active people, don’t force yourself to be quiet,” he said.

He also explained what steps are included in authentic personal branding. The first point is the corporate brand and its alignment.

“For example, CT Corp unites personal and corporate brands. The property can raise a city brand, for example Trans Bandung. It is important to align the company’s vision with the vision of its employees, if you want employees to last a long time, use this alignment,” explained Hafni.

The next step is single and multi-attributes, followed by authentic personal brand to city brand identity and image.

“The use of the city brand can be seen from the nation branding carried out by Wonderful Indonesia. (They) can be raised into five layers of alignment, such as culture brand, nature brand, and people brand,” he continued.

Lastly, Hafni believes that the vision and mission that have been set by the company can be realized by focusing on the vision, mission, and values ​​that will be promoted.

 

Writer: Almira Khairunnisa

Reporter: Sanita Sitinjak

Editor: Langgeng Irma Salugiasih