Have you had your 15 minutes of fame?
I was referencing the cultural idiom, “In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,” which is related to short-lived media or social networking celebrity or publicity an individual or a brand receives.
The expression is attributed to Andy Warhol. Except he didn’t say it. The director of a museum in Stockholm used the phrase for a Warhol program exhibit based on the director’s justification, “If he didn’t say it, he could very well have said it!” So, Warhol got the credit. But as good researchers always give proper attribution, it was first used in an 1879 French article with a long French name, that included the phrase, “quart-d’heure de célébrité.” 
Anyway, with the internet, the democratization of the internet, the proliferation of media channels, the invention of the smartphone, and the ephemerality of fame in the age of social networking, the idiom has become part of common parlance. So, I ask again. Have you had your 15 minutes of fame?
I’ve had mine. Probably more than 15 minutes. I’m not bragging. Like everything else fame has been susceptible to inflation. It’s never been clear if the “15 minutes” (or more) of fame are supposed to be measured in one fell swoop or in dribs and drabs. Mine came minutes at a time and over my career as a branding research consultant. When you have insights into categories and brands like we do at Brand Keys (the kind that play out in the marketplace), you get called by a lot of reporters looking for comments. I recently found out, I picked up another minute (give or take a few seconds) in the new Netflix documentary Martha.
That’s the new film about Martha Stewart’s rise from teen age model to stockbroker to lifestyle mogul, influencer, felon, ex-con, and now grand dame of entertaining and good taste. Ms. Stewart opened her personal archives to share photos, letters, and diary entries with the film’s producers. According to Netflix, while Stewart is the only interview subject featured on camera, she’s not the only one speaking to her story. “The voices of many of the most significant people from all different stages of her life add insight and context to the narrative,” including archive clips from TV news reports and interviews. And they used a clip from a PBS interview I did about the Martha Stewart brand.
I want to point out that while I’m flattered my cameo was included among the “most significant people from all different stages of her life” in the film, the reason our company got so much attention about Ms. Stewart was, at that particular moment in time, we were the only research company that had tracking data about her brand. And we had been tracking her for nearly a decade. We had identified Ms. Stewart when we were developing our Commodity-to-Human Brand Continuum®.)
The continuum was a way – via consumer assessments – to identify the degree of “brandness” imbued in different products and services. On one end of the continuum was “commodities” and on the other end was “Human Brands,” a nomenclature Brand Keys had created in 1991, as a designation for living human beings who represented 100% of the values of the branded products or services to which their names were attached. It was the highest level of imbued meaning and differentiation for a brand. If it helps, think of them as living embodiments of specific value sets (“owned” by the human being), which could be seamlessly, successfully, and profitably transferred to products and services.
Back in 1991 (and again, according to consumer research) only five real, Human Brands were acknowledged: Ralph Lauren, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Donald Trump (yes, that Donald Trump), and Martha Stewart.
(“What about all those famous people who were/are on TV and all over the internet? They’re human. Aren’t they brands?” I hear you ask. And the answer is, “No, they’re celebrities.” Being a celebrity does not QED a “brand” make, particularly a Human Brand. Models in cosmetic ads are not brands but a subset of celebrities who are there to impart imagery. Eminent businessmen are not brands. They’re entrepreneurs or founders who created a brand. The differences are discussed in greater detail here, in another column: Commodity-to-Human Brand Continuum®.)
The reason for all the fame we reaped was in 2004 a grand jury indicted Martha Stewart on federal charges of securities fraud and obstruction of justice in an insider stock trading scandal. And what the press wanted to know was how the brand was being affected by all the negative press and the indictment. And we had all the answers and the numbers.
So, we ended up doing a lot of interviews. Also, keep in mind I’m a brand guy, not a securities fraud guy, so no judgment there on our part. The Martha Stewart brand assessments were all based on independently validated, consumer loyalty metrics. Two years earlier (2002) the Martha Stewart brand had been one of the strongest in its category. Hell, it was one of the strongest brands we had ever seen. That was the part of the quote they included in the film. But what happened to the brand was a perfect example of the fragility of brands that are totally invested in human beings.
Ms. Stewart, reasonably frustrated by the accusations and media feeding-frenzy called her legal problems a “small personal matter.” Oops! When you’re a “Human Brand” nothing in your life is small, and nothing is personal! It’s all part of being the brand. That part of my quote got left on the cutting room floor. About how Human Brands must avoid disappointing their customers – and, hopefully, not being indicted and sent to prison, even Club Fed.
Because if brand history and the concept of “brandness” has taught us anything, it’s how impermanent the bonds with Human Brands can be. Any change in public perception that a “Human Brand” has disappointed its customer base, and has lost its trust, will have an immediate – and potentially devastating – effects on the brand’s equity, the customers’ loyalties, and soon after, the company’s profitability. As it did in the case of Martha Stewart.
But watch the film and judge for yourself. You need to pay attention, but I’m there. The film is in Netflix’s top 10 and received 93% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and is, perhaps, the perfect reminder to those Human Brands out there that while fame is fleeting, infamy lasts a lot longer than 15 minutes!
