The Jekyll and Hyde Personal Brand

Bernard Madoff — the guy who “made off” with so many people’s money — is a dramatic example of a personal brand turned topsy-turvy. Once a trusted, even beloved, advisor, Madoff now has been dubbed “The Swindler of the Century” and “The Most Hated Man in America.”

His personal brand promise turned out to be a monstrous and hideous lie.

What’s fascinating and disturbing is just how diametrically opposed his new personal brand is from his old one. The perpetrator of a $50 billion Ponzi Scheme was a man who had been highly respected and well-connected, a rock of respectability. Talk about Jekyll-and-Hyde! How could a man undergo such a transformation?

But I’ll leave the psychological analysis of Bernie Madoff to the psychiatrists. What I see here is something more akin to mythology than anything else. I see an archetype known to all of us — the fallen angel. The downfall of someone powerful. The story of wretched excess. The classic fall from grace. It’s the Garden of Eden. It’s The Godfather. It’s Apocalypse Now.

Bernie Madoff’s personal brand is the stuff of legend. He is in a sense already larger than life and his story will be told for generations — a dark tale of power and corruption and greed. It's the journey of man into moral abyss. A cautionary tale for all of us.