Love them or hate them, the Paris Hiltons of reality TV - famous for having a famous name - can teach us something about branding. Sure, they are clogging our news racks and cable networks with their ridiculous drama, but we must give them credit for staying top-of-mind and creating a recognizable brand. And when I say "brand," I mean face. For these celebrities in the business of being famous, their faces are their brand identity.

Advertising Age commented on how the E! network created stars from scratch with "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" in a February story: "E!'s highest-rated show in network history attracted 4 million viewers a week in its fourth season. It also banked $18.4 million in measured-ad spending during the first 11 months of 2009."

For many of the dental surgeons for whom we plan local advertising and perform local media buying, their name is their brand. Some dental clinicians feel uncomfortable with putting their own face on an advertisement, which is understandable. But they need to build brand awareness with some sort of consistency, like their logo and tag line.

Few dental clinicians who use our local advertising services understand the importance of branding in their media campaigns. They want to run advertisements that make the phone ring. Again, understandable. However, if we can learn anything from the Kardashians, it's that branding efforts provide the long-term benefits of name-awareness where lead gen can be short-sighted.

(Nobel Biocare taps into our local marketing automation software to provide a co-op advertising solution for their partner clinicians. Using our print ad builder, these clinicians tag their advertisements with their photos, logo and customize the messaging.)