What's your signature brand?

I was thinking about this topic the other day while at Target, as I signed my name on the credit card machine at checkout. You can kind of tell what the "J" and the "F" are, and the rest of my scrawled name is anyone's guess. Someone once told me that it's tougher to forge a neat signature, as there are far more nuances to re-create. But beyond out own signatures, what else distinguishes us from others?


I have a friend (you know who you are!) who wears his own custom Nikes four days out of five, and I bet he doesn't repeat his selection during a given month. Yet another has multiple pairs of custom Chuck Taylor Converse high tops, and he's a CEO! With this motivation, I actually found myself checking out the Mi Adidas site this morning. 


There are tons of examples of personal style, some of which are branded and some are not. From Bono's red shades to Roy Orbison's blackout shades, from the fictional Miranda Priestley's white Hermès scarf to Queen Elizabeth's Launer handbag (I'm still dying to know what she keeps in there--take a look here and let me know what you think!), each of us has brands that we are perhaps known for wearing/using or at the very least would never, ever substitute with another. Please note that I'm not simply talking about brands with badge value here--that is a subject for another day.


This, I think, is the core of what makes a brand a brand. A brand has a certain quality, or set of qualities, that we can depend on, time after time, with very little chance of failing us. In the early days of branded products, it was their physical attributes or functional performance that not only distinguished them from their competitors, but also often become their advertising slogan or tagline. "So pure, it floats" (Ivory soap), "Good to the last drop" (Maxwell House coffee), "You can trust your car to the man who wears the star" (Texaco gasoline/auto service).


My own signature brands? Kinda dull: Bass Weejuns tassle loafers (in black and cordovan), Boston Red Sox gear (that's a brand, isn't it?), Levenger rollerball pen and Rudy Project sunglasses.


What about you?