Branding, And Thank You

So I’ve been thinking about this blog lately and how I treat it as more of a diary where I put anything and everything I’ve been thinking about in and how that approach doesn’t really help with branding.

It’s a somewhat of a douchey term, but a real one nonetheless, where a thing (or a brand) portrays a certain something that is consistent and people can get behind easily enough. Like, say, Levi’s. They brand themselves as a denim maker, and even though they might make other things such as wallets or shirts or whatever, a casual consumer would always associate Levi’s with jeans.

In terms of people, let’s take the brand of Zizan Razak. He’s most known to the general public as a comedian, and even though he does do other things (rapping, for instance), people will always tend to associate him with being someone you want to make you laugh. That’s just the way he has been branded, either on purpose or otherwise.

And I guess branding makes sense in the sense that it allows people to kind of know what to expect from a certain thing or person. It facilitates our need to put people in boxes and label them, because life’s easier like that. Nobody wants to go to a Sephora and suddenly see that they’re trying to sell bedsheets and only bedsheets for a whole week, right?

For myself as a consumer as well, I always go to The Needle Drop to get well thought out, well articulated music reviews from a person who has a good sense of humour but takes music very seriously when need be. If one day I go there and suddenly see that he’s trying to sell cupcakes, I’d click off that video rather quickly (unless it’s a joke lah).

But over here in this blog, there’s a lot going on. In this year alone, here is where I put my rap lyrics, my poor attempts at music reviewing, me expressing my feelings about not being an adequate writer, my insecurities as a primary school teacher, and my thoughts and reflections as a husband. Basically, a branding nightmare.

But I guess this blog doesn’t function as a place to brand myself. I guess this blog is a place where I can be myself, in my entirety. Where I don’t need to fit into any boxes except for the one labelled “Noor Anwar Hadi bin Noor Azman” and whatever that brings. I guess that’s the thing about being human. We’re not brands. We’re not simple beings. We’re complex. There are more than one or two sides to any person out there, and even though branding is convenient, it sure isn’t the best portrayal of people. 

So I guess a thank you is in order for anyone and everyone who has read whatever I’ve been writing here. You might not be interested in everything I have to talk about, but your insistence on reading anyway just goes to show that you are at least interested in me. Dull, incompetent, uninformative me. And for that, I show appreciation. Thank you.