Hybrid Brand: A Modern Approach To Brand Building

A hybrid brand is the blending of two types of brands: a business brand and a personal brand.  Why create a hybrid brand model?  You’d choose this brand type if you know that by putting you as an expert (or with your reputation) front and center, your products and services will have an even greater appeal.  

Adding a human element, a face to a brand, can help you connect with audiences in a deeper way.  It’s about relatability and if you do your job well building your personal brand, your business brand will reap the rewards.  When your audience trusts you, they trust what you recommend…they want your solutions.  They want an experience provided by you – in your way.

Imagine if BEATS launched all by itself and tried to carve a path in the market selling its premium headphones, earphones and speakers.  If they positioned themselves as premium sound entertainment, and began to build a brand based on the core value of bringing back the excitement of recording studio quality listening to consumers, it may have gained traction and taken off as consumers started sampling them.

But take the business idea and the business brand name, BEATS, and tie it in with well known rapper and music artist Dr. Dre and you immediately have credibility for the product, a cool factor you’d never have all on its own, and trust that Dr. Dre knows what he’s talking about when it comes to his beats.

BEATS BY DR DRE is a great example of a hybrid brand.  You don’t know BEATS without knowing it’s created by Dr. Dre, and you now don’t think of Dr. Dre without thinking about BEATS.

A hybrid brand takes the best qualities and advantages of a personal brand and a business brand and mixes them together for impact and success.  In the case of BEATS BY DR DRE, here are the advantages:

• The name includes both the brand name and the person’s name

• Dr. Dre’s reputation allows him to be positioned as the trusted expert and the products become his recommendation for how best to listen to music

• Dr. Dre is out front helping position the brand as the go-to music listening solution

• While Dr. Dre is always attached to and can be part of the business, he can easily sell it because the name of the product is BEATS (and after he and business partner Jimmy Iovine launched BEATS BY DR DRE in 2006, they sold it to Apple in 2014)

Other examples of hybrid brands – where a person and their reputation, knowledge and talent is inextricably linked to their business brand:

• Chip and Joanna Gaines & their MAGNOLIA brand

• Julianne Hough & her KINRGY brand

• Sarah Blakely & her SPANX brand

• Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley’s new BROTHERS BOND BOURBON brand

• Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard & their HELLO BELLO brand

Now, you’re probably thinking…great.  I’m not famous, so how do I leverage myself as a personal brand?

While some hybrid brands are tied to celebrity names, not all have started that way.  Sarah Blakely started from scratch cutting up pantyhose in her living room, nobody knowing who she was.  However, as SPANX grew, she simultaneously took on speaking engagements and made herself and her entrepreneurial story visible…thus, building her personal brand right alongside her business brand.

Now that she is a well known, successful entrepreneur, you can bet that if she decided to start a new brand, she would leverage the equity she has as a business expert with her audience to launch her brand.

You can do this, too.  On a smaller scale, if you are someone who people are drawn to, it means you have knowledge or expertise they desire.  Putting yourself front and center as the expert of your brand, is a great idea to help you grow.  Business growth is all about creating relationships with your audience.  It’s building a bridge, or a connection, that allows people to find your products / services / experiences relatable and accessible.  

The best part of a hybrid brand is being able to invent a brand name from scratch that resonates with your audience and what they desire, and at the same time, positioning yourself as the go-to expert that owns that brand.  It’s truly a win-win and can create massive success for your business.

Don’t know what type of brand you should build?  Take the quiz, “Personal Brand vs Business Brand: Which is right for you?” to get some quick clarity!