Your logo is not your brand

Thank you for having me.

Well, I'm Ayo Kuyanu, British-born Nigerian American, grew up in New Jersey, right outside of Princeton. moved to Texas, Houston, Texas, about six years ago. before moving here, spent about 15 years working in brand and marketing across some pretty big companies, Target, Proctor Gamble, Deloitte. when I started AOK consulting, I said I wanted to focus on brands and help CEOs bring their brand visions to life. And Bring great brands to market.

People think brands are just logos and taglines, but brands are actually tied to the business. A brand is an extension of the business. A brand is the voice of the business. A the brand is what connects the customer to the business. So people look at brands of in terms of just the colors and what it looks like and what it stands for, but what is the actual business behind the brand and how does it actually make money?

Well well think about it, when people buy something, they're not necessarily just buying the product, they're buying the person behind the product, they're buying the vision behind the product, they're buying the actual promised and brand brand brand strength of that product. So before you actually get to the product, there are multiple steps and multiple things that occur before you actually get there. So most of the times what are you actually buying? You're buying a story, you're buying the story of a founder, you're buying the end product of what somebody thought up. So you have to buy into that vision and what that is before you actually get to the end product.

Well, a lot of times, you know, in this world, everyone therapy and goes to therapy and one of the first things you have to really realize is, okay, are what is the problem, right? And are you really able to get to the root of what that problem is? So a lot of times with a founder, they might have an idea of what they think their brand stands for and who their audio who their target is and the messages they should be speaking to that audience. But similar to therapy when you have a problem and you're trying to understand it, sometimes just talking through it. And having someone who can understand it and show you ways and show you things in a different light, then you're able to get to breakthroughs or different understandings that maybe you didn't have before. So a lot of times a founder might have an idea or a CEO might say, this is our key audience, this is our key service, this is what we believe in. But after talking to them and then even having a transcript of what you've said to them, you essentially could hold up a mirror to that founder saying, This is actually what you stand for. This is where an opportunity potentially could exist. And this is what success could look like. So a lot of times being there as a objective person who can actually speak to that CEO or person in a way that someone has not been able to speak to them before or show them things that they weren't able to see or understand before.

initially I I would say a lot of people when you ask them who is your customer, who are you trying to serve? Everyone, right? I we're trying to serve everyone. Our customer can be pretty much anyone in a population. And I always tell founders who was your key customer, who would know that person, in and out, what motivates them. Why they're shopping you, maybe why they're not shopping you. So there's a space where just really having that understanding of who your customer is. And then on top of that, what is the product that you actually make? And does that product always serve the customer? So you might have your product, but is it serving the customer? By understanding the customer, is your product always serving that what the customer needs? And you always have to be understanding that. So Just making this great product or having this great brand is one thing, but it always has to be com always has to be connected to the customer and the customer needs.

A lot of time it's just talking to somebody. If you just give people the opportunity to talk and really get to the essence of why they do what they want to do, what they're looking to do, I think a lot of times I'm able to provide surprises, think things that you didn't understand or things that were beneath the surface. That's where the magic happens, right? Like everything's going on around you, but those things that you don't notice or those things that someone hasn't been able to see or show you, that's where the I find that the magic happens.

Mm, I'd say it's most of the larger brands that we interact with are obsessed with the customer and knowing everything you possibly can about the customer. But more of just not just you know demographics and how old and where they live, but really understanding the motivations behind customers, why people do the things they do, what makes them do the things they do, where they do the things they do. I find bigger brands. c know more about the customer almost than the customer knows themselves. And that's when you can pull on certain levers. That's where you know as trends are changing or as attitudes or even as user behavior's changing, large corporations are able to see that and know that. But what's great now is between all of the tools we have and if you even want to, you know, get into AI, the the gap is not that far anymore. You know, you have access to a lot of that research. There's stuff that, you know, access you don't have to have but for the most part that gap is not as far as what it was before. So that's where it's that's really that's where it's really, really interesting.

So I always look at AI as the ability to really capture knowledge. So think of, you know, everything you know about brand identity, I'm able to now capture it and keep it in a space and always refer to it. So I almost look at AI as the as the ability to have a bunch of capsules that I can pull from, right? And I'm able to control that knowledge. And it's only as strong and is only as good as I teach it or as good as I can make it. Right. So before I haven't even put a prompt in. I'm now figuring out how to make what I'm going to put into the prompt as smart as possible. Right? So I'm I think that way, and I'm really good at building that thought and building even judgment. So from there, you know, you're building a gem or an agent. Now I'm now able to make your brand into an agent or a gem. So now we're now being able to hard code a brand. So an idea that was once up here. You can take a brand and now make it into a compartment. So from there, I'm now able to use AI more as a tool to keep a brand consistent or as a tool to free up capacity because now all of your marketing will be the same, all of the proposals will be the same, all of your founder judgment can be the same. So AI for me, yes, people think of it as content creation, but I use it as the ability to create reasoning, create understanding. being able to put things together that weren't before. So I always say, you know, think of being able to smash a couple conversations together and see what comes out. With AI, you're able to do that. You're able to look at multiple things at the same time and see what comes out. So for me, it's more of like I said, creating understanding, looking at being able to tie out insights and get things that maybe you weren't able to find before, and just It's endless. It just keeps changing. One day you're using a tool, the next day the tool does something else. So I mean like you said, you're always learning, right? And now as you're learning, you're able to learn and put that use and exper experience to action super, super fast. And that's what's cool.

I enjoy so sometimes I've had clients that have come to me with just a trademark of a word and being able to talk to somebody through brand therapy and turn a word into a color, into a logo, into the whole brand, just from talking. And then if someone sends me inspiration of their Pinterest board, right, being able to take that. And then compare that with their conversation and their inspiration and things they like and being able to visualize that. So that's where it gets really cool. Before you weren't able to turn, you know, what I think you weren't able to turn my motivation into a color. You weren't able to turn my feelings into a sound. Right? So now you're able to really visualize or make something. If you can think it, you can make it. So that's where I find. Well, a lot of my clients, clients who have just a an idea or a word, but you can now make that into something that's tangible. It might it might look a little weird, but then you at least know that's what you don't want to do. So I always find when people say AI can hallucinate or do weird things, then if it does that, you at least know what you don't want to do. So now you can fix it. You can teach it. You didn't know how to ride the bike the first time you rode it, right?

Well it's it's you know, I always tied brands to business and I have found that I would start off and speak to somebody, do brand therapy and by the time the person comes out I say, you know, you have your brand identity, your positioning and your messaging. But then when I would hand over that brand book, a lot of my clients would say, Wait, how do we actually make this into a business? So then they would have me there. How do we now make this into a a Valuable commercial strategy, right? The pricing, the promotion. And now the person who gave you a brand book is now helping you put the actual business together and what this what this brand is that now makes money. So I'm now with you in that journey. Okay, I've handed you your brand book. Here's the business. Now the clients are now saying, wait, let's bring this to market. So now I've now gone with you from your idea now to the actual business, and now the we're going to market. So now I've gone through the whole journey. And now from that execution, people are now even asking, okay, you've taken me from idea to market, maintain it. And now that's me with AI tools, with people virtual agents, and now it's a full functioning, full functioning agency or full functioning firm that just started from talking and brand therapy and is now all the way in go to market.

I would say for me, you always know like what you're good at, like what your area of expertise is. I one of the books that I read when I first started was The Business of Expertise and really getting to the core of what you're good at. And if you know what you're good at, someone will pay you for it. That level of knowledge and what you understand, if it's expertise, you can use that and someone will see that's valuable. If it's really valuable, someone will pay you for it. So you find what your level of expertise is and find people out there that would need your level of expertise. You have your expertise. Who has a problem? Who has the problem that would require your level of expertise? And if you can't find that, then maybe you shouldn't be starting. If your expertise is something that not that many people need, then you know. So that that's the thing. A lot of times people have an idea, but then really dig down and say what is this idea and is it good enough that someone will want to pay for it?

My mind is I was gonna say my mind is always thinking kind of a step ahead. So when we're talking about the brand, I'm always saying, Okay, I've given you the brand, but how is this the business? So there's a space by always thinking a step ahead or what the future would look like. Then you're able to anticipate those steps. And if you're not sure, you're now able to start from a plan of okay, this is what the next step looks like, this is what we need to do to get

Well, a lot of times when come when going through the brand and going through the brand strategy, I'm tying every element of the brand strategy to the business. So if this is your target audience, well, your target audience could drive this amount of revenue for the business. If work were if if this is your core product, if you want to expand revenue, how can we understand the product to make another product? So again, you're tying every element of the brand to a business outcome. So, me being that brand person who could tie your brand to business and actually understand the levers to drive that business, that's where there's the special understanding. So I'm not, even if I'm talking about your logo, I could be talking about how your logo could have brand equity or IP that could turn into something down the line, right? So it's not just, your logo or how your colors can be represented and have some sort of attachment to a sentiment that could. You know, so there's parts of branding that could tie to the business and being able to show that to a CEO or a founder.

I see right now I'm finding a lot of interest and passion in really taking founder judgment, being able to get what's in someone's head and capsulate it, right? So almost like the digital twins of people, right? And in being able to build a digital twin or being able to capture founder judgment. You're going to be able to just make things much more efficient, save time. You know, if there's a gap in an if there's a gap in an executive team and you can build a digital twin of that person, you're fulfilling a gap. If if you build a good enough digital twin of somebody and so you're onboarding somebody, someone has now left, or you have a a gap during someone, now you have a digital twin of that person. If you onboard somebody, Now you don't even spend as much time. You now could have the person learn learning from there. If there's a digital twin of, say a CEO, and people are spending a lot of time going back and forth with the CEO, there's less time of the back and forth. If you have that digital twin, people can interact with that person, saving time, efficiency, and things like that. And then with transferring judgment, you're now giving autonomy, you're giving, you're being able to delegate and now having a intermediary be between you, now you're also giving power and strength to your executive team. So just kind of being able to take things that were once abstract, capsulating, making people be able to understand it. And by doing that, freeing up time and making things more efficient for everybody involved.

I would say people should really focus on understanding their level of expertise. In this world now with AI, you can find what you're good at. You can find a gap that's potentially out there or a need that's unmet. And if you have expertise that can do it, you can find a way to turn that into a business that can be successful, that people will pay you for.

you can check out my website, www.consultaok dot com. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn or send me an email at Io A Y O at Consultaok.com. So those are the places.

Thanks for having me.