William Arruda, called the personal branding guru by Entrepreneur magazine, is the founder of Reach Personal Branding. He shares his personal-branding wisdom through his public speaking and his bestselling book, Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand.

But he is also passionate about TV commercials. In fact, William has an enormous collection of advertisements dating back to the 1970s. Sadly, he says, most of his TV ads are on VHS. But thanks to the Internet and YouTube, he nonetheless has access to most of the commercials he has collected over the decades.

Here, William shares some of his favorite ads. And true to his style, he offers up a lesson for how the ad relates to your personal brand—after all, it's all about personal branding... at least, in his world.

Client: M&M
Ad: Blue
Year: 1995

We love this commercial because...

M&Ms took a candy that was at the end of its product cycle and completely revitalized the brand with a little blue dye (Blue #4 to be exact). It held a contest so we could choose the new color—involving customers and building community way, way before Web 2.0.

This ad and YOUR personal brand:

"What color is your brand?" asks Arruda. "Do you know how to translate your brand attributes into a personal brand identity system—including a signature color? Do you even know what your brand attributes are?" Learn what other people think about you by visiting 360Reach (15-day passwords are free).

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