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Why Personality Matters
February 28, 2012
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. Sammy Smith dives down into personality.
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I have written in the past about Daniel Tosh, who I believe is an excellent case study in what the modern day personality should be.
In expanding around that idea, let me also introduce you to comedian Louis C.K.
What’s interesting about “Louie,” for me, is that I have not only followed him as a funny man, and as someone who seems to be integrating his brand in an intelligent, effective way over the past couple of years; but he happens to have children who attend school with my boys in New York.
I only share that last part because it has given me an opportunity to see him on a somewhat consistent basis, when he isn’t simply “on” for the camera or an audience. It’s important because of everything I want to share with you next.
He was just placed on Ad Age Digital’s A-List because they define him as someone who, “Has Shown Power of a Smart Web Presence.”
The biggest reason for this digital notoriety is due to his online comedy special, “Live At The Beacon,” which sold over a million dollars in downloads since he debuted it on his website last year. Louis self-financed, self-edited and self-distributed the stand-up special, which has been declared by Ad Age, “The most audacious artist-led media disruption since Radiohead's spend-what-you-will gambit for the album, ‘In Rainbows,’ in 2007.”
However, if you look even deeper, you will find what I believe is the true secret sauce for his success … a strong mission/passion/purpose.
It was about.com who wrote this biography of the comedian. A 20-plus-year veteran of the stand-up comedy scene, Louis C.K., is also an accomplished filmmaker and award-winning writer. Influenced by comics like George Carlin and Richard Pryor, C.K. is a master of black humor and a perpetual victim of his own life. He is primarily an observational comic, but directs most of his observations towards his own life -- often mining his marriage and his children as sources for his comedy.
Louis C.K. = A master of black humor and a perpetual victim of his own life.
Now, if you look at his stand-up, his television series, his comedy specials, his jokes, his interaction with fans, and so on, the success is no real surprise because he understands the depth, simplicity, flexibility and discipline of staying focused on his passion (who he is), and what he represents for others to connect in a meaningful way, as a perpetual victim of his own life.
It’s unique to him and while others will try to copy his efforts, they can never duplicate his unique personality. It’s the difference that will break through the noise as the message is integrated across all the various touch points, and use each of the platform strengths, to uncover another piece of the full story.
Marketing today has to add meaning, be in the moment and alive! The old days of simply using it to manipulate someone to generate an automated action is done.
Louie gets it, and has figured out that it’s easier to use the tools to simply be yourself and not simply try to force something to happen, as most do. He is the same, whether seen walking around our school, or walking around on the Beacon stage. The tools simply help him to connect that unique personality to each moment so fans and friends are now in anticipation of “what’s next.”
This is why personality matters, and how knowing your own (brand or person) is what will ultimately separate you from having people want to discover what you’ll do next vs. simply laughing at you … or worse, doing nothing at all.
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