In my book, The New Brand You, I talk about ten personal branding strategies. Arguably the most powerful is number 10, “Own a Cause,” because it’s not about you and how wonderful you are, but about your quest to make the world better in some way
Celebrity chef Jose Andreas is a case in point.
The occupation of chef once tended to be rather mundane. Chefs were closer to working stiffs than sought after celebrities. That is, until some chefs hopped on the branding wagon and the celebrity chef was born. Think of Julie Child, Doug Ramsey, Ina Garten, James Beard, Wolfgang Puck and “Naked Chef” Jamie Oliver.
And no chef is more of the moment today than Andres and his World Central Kitchen. We’ve all been traumatized by the war in Gaza, a war ignited by Hamas militants who killed some twelve hundred Israelis and took more than two hundred hostages. And Israel has killed over thirty-two thousand people.
But it was Israel’s fatal attack on seven aid workers in Gaza, all part of Jose Andres’ WCK that grabbed the media’s attention and world outrage. Outside of one Palestinian, all were aid workers from various countries around the world, including a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen. It was an event so heinous it compelled President Biden to issue a strong rebuke to Israel.
Andres, a Spanish-American chef, was first known for creating popular restaurants in Washington D.C., that is until an earthquake struck Haiti in 2010. Since then he has put together an amazingly high visibility relief organization, which specializes in preparing local food for people in areas torn apart by natural disasters and war. Andres, in a recent
interview with Reuters, urged the U.S. to do more to end the war, saying that it is “complicated to understand” how the U.S. could send the “military to do humanitarian work, while weapons it provides “are killing civilians.”
Andres says he is not giving up hope even in a war that he sees as a war against humanity. In such a war, “humanity eventually will always prevail.”
Andreas and his cause is an example of personal branding at its best.
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