"Branding is the Art of becoming Knowable, Likeable and Trustable."

-John Jantsch

Author, Speaker, and Marketing Consultant.

I have a question for you...

Let's say you are scrolling through a company's online platform, but you can't see what any of the employees look like? It may be that everything about what you are seeing is great, but it still leaves you missing something.

Now let's compare. This time, you are scrolling through another company's online presence, be it their website or social media, and you see images and clips of the staff, videos with messages from the owner, and by the time you leave the site, you are left with a sense of who built this company and why they have a true passion for what they do. 

Feel the difference? That is part of what business branding is about. You might have seen us talk about Todd Wheatland in our other posts, and we are mentioning him again because what Todd talks about is SO important when it comes to business branding and branding photography. Todd was quoted as saying. "Leverage the strength that you have. No one else can be YOU".

Why Should You Care?

In 2017, Stackla, the leading user-generated content platform, released the study, "Consumer Content Report: Influence in the Digital Age," in which they found that Millennials are more driven to brands that are authentic, prefer genuine organic content and authentic yet professional personal branding photography. Why should you care? Well, a 2021 article by Insider mentioned that millennials dominate consumer spending in the US, and they can spot inauthenticity in a split second. 

Cross Screen Media

This brings us to Michael's business branding photography session. Michael is the CEO of Cross Screen Media, a marketing analysis and technology company in Alexandria, VA, so he knows more than a little about the importance of personal branding. He initially reached out because he was in the process of creating a personal website and was looking for a mix of headshots and business branding photos. He had looked at our website and was really impressed with what he saw, so he booked a personal branding photography session with our Alexandria photographer!

Our goal?

To make Michael look like both the professional CEO that he is, and yet approachable at the same time. We planned for a mixture of studio headshots and environmental personal branding portraits. For his CEO professional headshot, we kept it business-like with his suit, but notice, no tie, so that he doesn't look stuffy. For the rest of his session, he added jeans to a suit jacket and white shirt. The company logo on the baseball cap added a subtle touch.