Personal Branding is also different from other forms of self-promotion and image building in the sense that it is a consistent, integrated and well-thought-out process of promotion that takes into account a holistic analysis of the various elements of an individual's personality, strengths, weaknesses, environment as well as different stakeholders and the intended target audience. One of the most important elements that have become a source of influence on our daily life as well as a tool for enhancing our connectivity and opportunities in the media. The role, importance, influence and ability to stimulate the intended audience have changed dramatically during the course of history. The changing nature and width/depth of this media change is the key to Personal Branding. The advent of Social, Professional and other Focused Networking domains has created a new and unique environment that can help anyone achieve exceptional success in his/her life and in creating the desired personal and professional image of oneself. Hence Personal Branding can be defined as "A sum total of an individual's personality, character, competency, reliability, social standing and net worth, as perceived by the intended audience relative to their competitors."

The purpose of the study is to understand and propose methodologies to implement Personal Branding and to come up with a model that can help many professionals in branding their talents and personalities. Such research can be very helpful for aspiring professionals, students and professors. With Personal Branding strategies, the Professors and students of the universities can plan and manage their careers in a better manner, and this would also help the university to build and enhance its repute locally and internationally (Masood et al., 2021). Although Personal Branding is considered a relatively new term but several examples of individuals and leaders can be found throughout history who cultivated a certain personal image and maintained it through various strategies. These examples include political, religious leaders, artists and Academicians. These leaders and personalities cultivated their personalities by relying on various ideologies and by promoting their personal qualities.

The change in media and the advent of newspapers in the late 1700s opened up a new chapter in the era of Personal Branding and propaganda. One of the earliest examples of using media for Personal Branding can be found in the Napoleonic era when French emperor Napoleon I used newspapers to promote his victory at the battle of Austerlitz. The effectiveness of mass media was proven during the French revolution, and this time, this mass media immortalized Napoleon as the greatest and undefeatable military leader in all of Europe and a true hero o France. An image that remained frozen in the minds of the French people even by his later failures in campaigns of Egypt, Spain, Prussia and Russia. It was on the basis of this personal brand engraved in the minds of the French people that he was able to raise a new army of six hundred thousand French soldiers in a matter of weeks before his final defeat in the battle of Waterloo.

Some other examples of Cult celebrities

formed by people who promoted their ideologies to the right audience and acquired a celebrity status can be Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx. These individuals acquired widespread fame and support for their controversial ideas at the time, but they also promoted these ideas to the right people at the right time. As the 18th century progressed and commercialization strengthened its roots in a fast urbanizing capitalist society, the perceptions and general ideas about celebrity began to change from leaders in politics, great scientists and men of great achievements to simply somebody who was famous. Several factors contributed to this change in attitudes which are the decline of organized religion and the increased insatiable desire for success in individuals fed by the capitalist system.

One of the earliest examples of such branding was an English girl named Lilly Langtry (1853-1929), who used a strategy of getting her portraits made by famous artists as well as marketing her beauty through penny postcards. This strategy eventually led to her becoming a noted British celebrity, so much so that she gained entry to the royal household. Although her success based solely on her beauty was short-lived, her rise to prominence was perhaps one of the first indicators of massive change in cultural values. Later on, the title of celebrity and fame became synonymous with actors and actresses, etcetera.

Personal Branding is a relatively new subject that has been ignored for many years in various academic circles. The term itself is attributed to Tom Peters, who is first said to have used it in 1997 in one of his articles. However, Personal Branding is a vast subject that includes several elements of Media ecology, Media management, impression management, opinion management and Personality characteristics and dimensions. As this section sheds light on previous studies (Fatima, Ahmed, & Shafi, 2021), some of the major works on these subjects are mentioned below in this section.

Personality

Personality traits were classified into five factors: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. The five factors are generally referred to as the Big Five Model, which is extensively used nowadays (McCrae et al., 1986). Further research studies on brand personalities identified the five traits in a different manner. These five traits were; Sincerity with qualities like humbleness, ethical soundness, integrity and enthusiasm, Excitement being venturesome, vibrant, ingenious, and current, competence showing dependability, knowledge and success and displaying worldliness in mannerisms, toughness in difficult circumstances.

The concept of personality has also been studied in sociological aspects while assessing the dynamics of human interactions in society and everyday life. Erving Goffman used theatre as a metaphoric example to portray human interactions in social settings. He says that a human is like an actor who acts on a particular stage in accordance with the backstage and props available to him and in accordance to the audience that is viewing him while he himself is a viewer of the performance of the individuals and groups in the audience. Goffman stresses the actor's ability to select the role as well as the preferred stage and props, and he has the ability to act in the way that best suits his agenda of serving his interests. In every scenario, the actor's primary objective is to maintain consistency in his performance in every situation. This is the key reason for the development of certain social norms and mannerisms that have evolved in society and serve as a medium to bring relative simplicity to social interactions (Masood et al., 2020). Hence, Goffman (1959) shows that every human is infected engaged in the process of Personal Branding by acting in a socially acceptable way and getting the approval of everyone around him. This acting approach can be far more effective when systematic marketing and branding concepts are applied to this approach, as in the case of Personal Branding.

People as Brands

In many cases, we can see people as brand names themselves. Such people have such an effect that the companies associated with these certain names sometimes become obscure, or sometimes the name of the company becomes the same as the name of the individual in the mind of the consumer. Several such examples exist in the modern world, e.g. Bill Gates and Microsoft, Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. and Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Inc. Such is also true for many other celebrities and professions and often through a well-managed process of branding and marketing. Thus when used correctly, a particular personality can itself become a Brand name, and the name of the enterprise is then dependent on the personality instead of a personality being dependent on the name of a Company. Some prominent examples of such brand names are Walt Disney and Oprah Winfrey. In the case of Pakistan, one long-running show that has become a brand in itself is the name of Tariq Aziz Show. Many other anchors and program hosts themselves have become brands in modern Pakistani media. Some such names are Dr. Shahid Masood, Hamid Mir, Talat Husain, MubashirLuqman etc.

The research shows that consumer decisions are not always based on the ideal of a rational decision maker; hence emotional affect and classifying consumers according to their personalities and creating emotional affect is essential for today's consumer market (Matzler, Bidmon, Grabner-Krauter, 2006). Consumers generally select brands that are representative of their self-concept. However, they occasionally opt for brands that represent their ideal self or aspirations. Therefore, consumers demonstrate their own present and ideal personalities by opting for certain brands. (Kotler & Keller, 2005). In the light of the above-mentioned kinds of research, it can be deduced that the inclusion of an emotional element in the construction of a Brand Personality is critical. In the case of Personal Branding, the selected individual may be presented as a personality that the target audience can relate to due to the association with the personality, or the selected individual can be branded as someone that the audience would look forward to as an ideal personality in a specific field. In the second case, the personality would be dependent upon the specific profession, talent and/or the field of expertise of that specific individual and the main target audience would be aspirants of that field or the indirect audience of that particular field.

Media Effects

Media plays a vital role in present-day human psychology as well as in determining social values and trends. The changes in the medium of communication and technology affect the cognitive organization and, in turn, have a massive impact on the organization of society as well. McLuhan elaborated on this phenomenon by the example of movable type and argued that the invention of the moveable type greatly affected and intensified the process of cognitive and cultural variations that had constantly been evolving since the invention of the alphabet. He argues that the invention of the Gutenberg press greatly influenced society by shifting the predominance to visual senses instead of aural/oral senses (McLuhan, 1962). Moreover, McLuhan also argues that technology is morally ambiguous; it is merely a medium of expressing and shaping the perception of self and consciousness of an individual and, by extension, that of society.

He emphasizes this point by saying that "The Medium is the Message," thus arguing that the media used to deliver the message should be the focus of the study, not just the message itself. He suggests that every medium has its unique characteristics and thus affects people differently and thus plays a vital role in the understanding and perception of the message by the receiver. He also suggested that society was mostly affected by the medium of popular use and the content of the medium mattered little (McLuhan 1964). He uses the terms HOT and COOL Medium to differentiate the different natures of mediums. A hot medium is a medium that allows less perception by enhancing one sense in such a manner that a person does not need to exert much effort in filling in the details. Hubert suggested that movies can be considered a Hot medium since they only require one sense i.e. vision in order to be viewed and the person does not need much effort to fill in the details of the movie image. Conversely, a Cool medium is the one that requires more effort from the person receiving in order to fill in the details and understand the message. Newspaper and comic books are examples of the cool medium.

Therefore, the hot medium is the one that provides complete involvement without considerable stimulus, while the cool medium is the one that usually provides little involvement with substantial stimulus. This concept does not differentiate between media in binary terms; instead, different media are comparable and ratable against one another as a relatively hotter or cooler medium than other mediums.

McLuhan further enhanced these concepts while summarizing them in the Tetrad Model of media effects. This model observes the effect of new media on society by dividing it into four categories and analyzing them simultaneously. McLuhan also used the Gestalt psychological idea of Figure and Ground to elaborate on his concept. He used this concept to elaborate on how the form of communication technology or medium (figure) is operated through the context (ground). In other words, according to McLuhan, all technologies have their particular assumptions of time and space, and in order to understand the message clearly, on must understand the medium used to convey the message environment in which the message is delivered through a particular medium.

This study intends to analyze a set of variables related to development of Personal Branding in relationship with the findings in the literature review in which we described previous research done in the field of Branding.

The Hypotheses which will be tested are:

H1: Competence affects the development of a Personal Brand.

In this set of hypothesis, competence is the independent variable and Personal Brand is the dependent variable.

H2: Sociability affects the development of the Personal Brand.

In this set of hypothesis, Sociability is the independent variable and Personal Brand is the dependent variable.

H3: Charisma affects the development of the Personal Brand.

In this set of hypotheses, Charisma is the independent variable and Personal Brand is the dependent variable.

H4: Authenticity of brand attributes affects the formation of Personal Brand.

In this set of hypotheses, the Authenticity of brand

attributes are the independent variable, and Personal

Brand is a dependant variable.

This research was conducted in order to explore the topic of Personal Branding and how the selected variables i.e. Competence, Sociability, Charisma and Authenticity of brand attributes, affect the formation of Personal Brand. Personal Branding is a growing phenomenon and there is a growing trend among many professionals from varied fields like academicians, artists, CEOs etc., to calculatedly and purposely create their Personal Brands. This may help these individuals to differentiate themselves from their peers and thus gain a substantial competitive advantage.

Moreover, the questionnaire will ask questions related to a specific personality relating to the hypothesis and the findings of the literature review.

The personality selected for analysis in this thesis id Dr. Shahid Masood Khan. The selected personality is a Doctor by profession and Journalist by career. He has served as the Senior Executive Director of ARY One. Later he joined Geo News, where he conducted "MerayMutabiq". He also served as former Chairman and Managing Director of state-run Pakistan Television and advisor to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani. Later on, he rejoined ARY as president of ARY Network and currently hosts "Views on News" on ARY Network.

The selection of Dr. Shahid Masood would elaborate on the competence and qualification variables as well as other variables of the questionnaire and the Hypotheses. Moreover, his unique journalistic style and celebrity status due to his anchorship of "View on News" and "MerayMutabiq" will also be helpful in the analysis of the selected variables in the thesis.

In order to determine the effect of the above-stated variables in the light of the findings of the literature review, a questionnaire-based survey will be conducted on 100 individuals. The respondents would be selected randomly so as to eliminate researcher bias. The questionnaire structure is a combination of multiple choice questions, binary questions as well a semantic differential scale.

Moreover, qualitative information is also collected from published research papers etc. Therefore it can be stated that the inferences from the research would be mostly qualitative in nature.

Sampling Method

Considering the selected population size and configuration, it is most appropriate to use the Probability Sampling scheme. In this case, is Simple Random Sampling method which would produce a Self-Weighting Sample, will be used. Therefore, everyone in the selected population would have an equal opportunity to be selected, and hence maximum segments can be reached. Moreover, another advantage of this type of sampling methodology is that researcher and selection biases are also eliminated by this method of sampling. The disadvantage of this type of sampling is that it may lead to sampling error as, in some cases, the random samples may not be represented by the overall population.

Questionnaire Responses

Question 1: How Important do you Think an Individual’s Qualification is for him to become a Celebrity in any given Field?

Question 2: How Important do you Think an Individual’s Expertise are for him to Attain Celebrity Status in any given Field?

Question 3: How Important do you Think that those Networking abilities are Important in the Development of an Individual as a Personal Brand?

Question 4: What do you think is Important for a Celebrity to have? Rate the following Accordingly

Question 5: Do you Think Dr. Shahid Masood’s Expertises are Relevant to the Topics Discussed in the Questions above?

Question 6. Rate Dr. Shahid Masood on the following

Calculations of chi-square testing and Spearman's rank correlations were made in pursuance of testing the various hypotheses that had been formulated through a literature review as well as generalized observations. Analysis was done by comparison of Questions 1, 2 and 3 against Question 5 of the questionnaire and by comparison of Comprehensive Questions 4 and 6. The analysis will be discussed in correlation with the relevant Hypothesis as mentioned earlier.

The questionnaire was designed to assess the four variables selected during the hypothesis formulation process. The questions related to testing various variables are as under:

? Questions 1 and 2 asking the relation of an individual's qualification and expertise respectively to the attainment of celebrity status tested the Competence variable in Hypothesis 1.

? Question 3 asked about the importance of networking abilities in the development of a Personal Brand, hence catering to the Sociability variable in Hypothesis 2.

? Question 4 was a comprehensive question that asked respondents to rate the variables of Competence, Sociability, Charm and Authenticity.

? Question 5 asked about the relevance of Dr. Shahid Masood’s expertise to the topics discussed above

, keeping in view the difference between his education and profession as a medical doctor and his career as a journalist.

? Question 6 asked the respondents to rate Dr. Shahid Masood on the basis of the Four variables of the Hypothesis.

Comparison and Analysis of Questions

As stated above, each of the questions was related to the core Hypotheses selected for this research, and questions 1, 2, 3 and 4 were then tested against the results of questions 5 and 6 to test the validity of the hypotheses.

The comprehensive questions 4 and 6 were compared and analyzed separately in order to determine the factuality of the hypothesis. All the variables of the hypotheses, i.e. Competence, Sociability, Charm and Authenticity, were analyzed separately to ascertain their validity.

Hypothesis 1: Competence affects the Development of Personal Brand

In order to test this hypothesis, Question 1 and Question 2 were compared against Question 5, as explained earlier. (see Questionnaire; Appendix). Competence is the independent variable in this case to assess the effect on the development of the personal brand. Undertaking a cross tabulation analysis of each of the independent variable with the dependent one, the following results were obtained:

Table 6 shows the results of cross tabulation analysis of the relevance, Dr. Shahid Masood's expertise to the variable of individual's qualification which relates to the Competence variable in Hypothesis. The higher the response indicator of the respondents, the higher the relevance of this variable to Dr. Shahid Masood's case. Most of the respondents held that Qualification was only moderately important in this case as Dr. Shahid Masood is a doctor by profession and a journalist by career.