Personal Branding Icons: David Beckham vs. Chad Ochocinco
Ever wondered what an NFL player would do during the off season?
Well, the Super Bowl took place two and a half weeks ago, so this is probably the most boring time of the year for football players. Time for them to go to concerts, tape a new advertising, look for girl friends or just be bored.
Did I make these activities up? No, I know it! I’m following Chad Ochocinco on Twitter.
All readers keen on football know him, but for those that don’t: Here are a few words on Chad:
Chad Ochocinco is a wide receiver at the Cincinnati Bengals, he’s one of the best in the game, Pro Bowler (all star). Ochocinco wears jersey #85 which is actually not because of his name – it’s the other way around. Originally named Chad Johnson, he officially changed his name to “Ochocinco” to have it match his jersey number.
This fact already tells you that he is unique. The 32-year-old shares his life with fans or people that are just curious: He twittered more than 14.000 tweets to roughly 800.000 followers, has over 200.000 fans on Facebook, offers live video journals and an iPhone app. It’s hard to escape, but why should you, because he is very entertaining, positive and fun. Okay, he has a huge ego (“I’m very interesting, very interesting, very different from the rest of the individuals that play this game, and you just never know what I’m going to say, you never know what I’m going to do next.”), but that is not really unusual for wide receivers.
Ochocinco is a brand. Chad discovered it, build the brand, communicates it and maintains it. That is personal branding 2.0 – at least if you believe in the advise given by Dan Schawbel, author of the Personal Branding Blog.
Chad Ochocinco is one of the NFL players with most advertising contracts and they probably earn him quite some money. Some of his Web 2.0 activities are sponsored by Motorola and when he mentions that he is to appear in a Reebok commercial, nearly one million people instantly are informed about the link between the company and Chad. Maybe one day he will start selling the mentioning of brands on his Twitter account, who knows (if you read this, Chad: I want my 10% for coming up with the idea!).
Would he be that successful if he hadn’t built his personal brand?
Well, there are a lot of wide receivers in the league, and even though Chad is a very good one he’s probably not the very best in the game. But does any of the others have better advertising deals? I doubt it.
Here’s another example: David Beckham.
No soccer player has earned more money by means of advertising than Becks, but has he ever been the greatest player alive? Hell no. He is / used to be very good, but others are and were better – except for scoring from free kicks and advertising deals. He lives the life of a movie star because he built his brand: Being handsome and changing looks over time, getting married to a Spice Girl, playing for Real Madrid and moving to L.A. – Beckham never got boring.
For Beckham and Ochocinco, building their personal brand lead to advertising contracts, lots of fans and a lot of attention. For you it may help you to score a good job or simply to be taken even more seriously.
Sounds good? Sure. Sounds easy? Yeah, but it’s not. Here comes the hard part:
1) No one will be interested in you if you don’t share information about you. Chad Ochocinco tells you all the details about his life and David Beckham and his wife have also never been afraid of cameras. A lot of people underestimate the impact of this.
2) Don’t be shy. David Beckham used to be, believe it or not. He got over it. Must be tough.
3) Building a personal brand is not the job. It only compliments your main job. If Chad and David weren’t great sportsman, who would care about what they write or do?
4) Building a personal brand is a lot of work. It costs resources, which may interfere with 3)
5) It takes a lot of time. Don’t expect a quick win.
Still prepared to go for it? Good. Start with subscribing to Dan Schawbel’s blog. And follow Chad Ochocinco on Twitter. And while you’re there: No, I don’t mind if you also follow me 
Good luck. Looking forward to hear from and about you!
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March 25th, 2010 at 10:05
[...] mentioned Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco before when talking about personal branding. The most recent step he took actually were multiple steps: He takes part in US TV show [...]
July 18th, 2010 at 23:55
i would say Chad Johnson was an exception in how quickly he built a franchise outside of the NFL. i’ve never seen a one-man franchise in professional athletics, rise so quickly to the extent he has outside of the game. he became recognizable, practically at lightspeed, in comparison to “traditional” business ventures (then again, he sells tangible products for large companies already established, whereas traditional business venture products and/or services — tangible and/or intangible — usually have a single focus to concentrate on).
he’s a bit on the “different” side, but he’s just different enough to be admirable and lovable all at once.
July 19th, 2010 at 00:42
Just read what you said about Chad, I have to say, he is an awesome person.I would love to chat with him.I am a fan, but am interesting in meeting with him. Just a fun day out in Cincy. I am not no crazy person lol, but would love to hang with him. He is not too far from me and I used to live in Dayton. What I like about Chad is he is a normal person and I like that.A great NFL star being normal and doing normal stuff.I work at Applebees in Danville, KY and we have Karaoke on Thursday nights.Would love to hear him sing. Its not long from Cincy. I travel all the time to Cincy and Dayton. We just had Jerry Springer there a few weeks ago. Applebees could even sign him up to advertise for him. Great business there. Any, would love for you and Chad both to follow me on Twitter. Phone number 859 209 4180