Understanding Branding – How Education Made Me Interview With Bolutife Awakan

Please tell us a little about yourself and your background.

Well there is going to be a lot of me…Lol, as I’ve never been shy to put myself out there. So, my name is Bolutife Awakan and I hail from Abeokuta in Ogun State. Growing up, my sibling and I were brought up by my mum alone. Fairly early in my life, I realized how much this woman was willing to do and sacrifice just to give us a decent life – to eat well, to attend good schools and so on. I also observed that she was very optimistic that we were going to turn out great. See me now, right? And this woman, she rebuked me a lot! I mean, there was no room for behaving anyhow. So to be honest, I didn’t used to like her, because I was like, cut me some slack! But now I’m grateful for a lot of those principles that she instilled in me. Then later, we had a fire incident that raised the entire house down. We lost the little we had. We lost everything. I couldn’t even take anything out, just the clothes I was wearing. At the time, I was working as a sales rep in Idumota in Lagos Island, just after my secondary school. And I just received that call on my way home. It was only my brother that was at home so he couldn’t even carry anything out when he saw the fire start. So we just carried ourselves like that and found relatives to stay with. Eventually, we ended up with our foster family who are just amazing people. People couldn’t even tell us apart because we did everything together, so it was a perfect match for us. And the way God works is incredible because the flow of the discipline and principles that my mum instilled in us was evident, and then coupled with the father figure, everything just balanced out. It was smooth. However, I had a lot of challenges as well at the beginning. Like with trying to fit in. I would misbehave and they would put me in my place. But everything is great now. When I tell people I have five siblings, they will comment that I have such a big family. There is no separating us and this is what I call family. At some point, I went to Yaba College of Technology and I felt God orchestrated that too as I never wanted to go to the University of Lagos. I can tell you that I ascribe a lot of success to going to Yaba Tech. I found design from there, branding from there, a lot of my confidence was built while at that school, because you had to do a lot of practicals and presentations. So there are a lot of things that help me now that I learned from there, such as public speaking, putting documentation together and writing reports. There are a lot of things that I learned there. Though all these things I learned were in the sciences, it was easy to just adapt them to what I do now. At one point, I even went to a low cadre private school in Ikorodu but couldn’t afford the fees after some time. So I just told my mum, let me come back to Yaba. She was still staying in Ikorodu so I had to move in with another foster family. I was just moving around, trying to find a fill-in, somewhere I could call home and find comfort in. Somewhere I knew I could thrive.

So a brand strategist. Why a brand strategist and what does it take to be a brand strategist?

Right, I’d say the first thing you need as a brand strategist is to be curious. I ask a lot of questions, or at least that is what I’ve been told. And I think that comes from a place of trying to find out why things are the way they are. So, if you are a brand strategist, you always have to figure out why. They taught us something in problem solving, which is that it’s one thing for you to discover that water is dripping. It’s another thing to find out why the water is dripping. So, you’re trying to get to the source. Where is this water dripping from? You’re asking different questions just to get to the root of the problem. So when you know where the water is dripping from, you can block it. If you know why the water is dripping – maybe the rain is falling or the water tank is full, then you will know how to remedy the situation. And that’s literally what you do as a brand strategist. You’re looking for patterns in the way people behave, businesses behave, who they are and so on. You’re trying to get clarity on what kind of brand this is. And when you get clarity in all the very different things, you then try to find out the who, the where, who they serve and why they even exist. You’re also trying to also find out where they should be in terms of positioning the brand in a place where the audience will appreciate it. So, as you’re trying to figure out all these things, you will eventually get to a point where a lot of things just won’t make sense because you’re getting clarity on who, where, what and all of those things. So, the next step for the brand strategist is to find patterns. So where do all these things connect?

All these answers that I have picked from this brand or from the marketing strategy that this company is trying to do, what has been working? What has not been working? Then you sieve out and filter out until you get to the tip of the funnel and say yes, this is where this brand is going to be number one. You then position them there. Next is to tell them how to behave to remain number one. That then trickles down to marketing. How do you go to market? How do you do your messaging and communication? How do you say the things you say and why should the audience care?

That’s so cool but it sounds like a lot of work. Did you know this amount of work was going to be involved before you chose this career path ?
Oh no, no, nobody warns you…Lol.

So they kept that away from you…Lol?
Well, the challenge is that it’s not so much of a staple in Nigeria. When you want to gain knowledge, you often have to go abroad, find courses in the U .S. etc and they don’t come cheap. So, I mean, a lot of these learnings are fragmented. We don’t have a proper educational structure for strategy in Nigeria. A lot of people will get into learning on the job. I did a lot of learning on the job. I got some fragmented learnings along the way too, or at least what I thought was important. But when you start to apply, you realize it’s a different ballgame. I mean, as you figure out how you work, you find that you’ve done one strategy and it was successful. It gives you more confidence to push on and push forward anytime an opportunity presents itself.

So why did you pick this career for yourself?

Ah, funny story. I read an article, I think in 2019. I’ve been hearing branding, branding, branding for the longest time. In fact, my dad, my foster dad, he’s been someone who takes branding seriously, but he calls it marketing. A lot of people like to interchange those words, but they don’t exactly mean the same thing. So he opened my eyes. I know what it means to present yourself in a certain way and how people will see you consistently over some time but I didn’t understand the full concept until I started to learn. But there was a turning point that actually prompted me to say, let me go to school. Let me try this. It was really fascinating to me. I read an article where two pairs of sneakers or bags were sold. I can’t remember which one exactly. One was sold for $20 and another for $3000 but the two looked exactly the same. By the time the writer broke it down and dissected it, you discovered the reason why people actually bought a $3000 bag or a $3000 pair of sneakers and left out the other one that looks exactly the same and even feels the same is simply because of branding. And not just because of the way it’s being packaged or sold. People like to be associated with something, to an idea. So it’s not just the fact that Apple has an Apple logo that makes it sell. There is a way in which they as a brand speak to you and you just find yourself aspiring. And you feel that you are not there yet until you have an Apple device. So that idea, that social status that people chase, is why they go for some things, no matter how expensive they are. So I’m just like, sorry, is this not ‘Juju’ or something? This has to be manipulation of the highest order! This pushed me to want to know more. What is it that is making it happen like this? So the more I learned, the more I knew I still had to learn. And the more I learned, the more I’ve done and the results show this. Now I know better that it’s not manipulation. It’s you presenting an idea to people that makes them feel good. So it’s a win-win situation, to be honest. You’re winning in sales as a brand and as a business. And they are also winning in terms of the satisfaction that they enjoy and the sense of fulfillment that they get from using the brand.

True, very true. So how long have you been a brand strategist?

I started my design career in 2015 and decided to gain more mastery on the business and brand strategy side of things in 2019. So I’ve had 9 good years of experience.

What are the challenges that you have faced? How have you overcome them? Tell us, what have you done?

Well, there will always be challenges when you’re dealing with strategy. This is aside from the design part which feels like it can take my head off sometimes…Lol. Truth is that every project has its own layer of challenges. There are times that the challenges are the same across board and then there are times when you will have these very very complicated projects that have like 100 -1000 things they’re offering and you’re trying to distill what communication to put out. What will make this brand appeal to a Fortune and a Tijani? What would make sense to you? So I have to find out what appeals to you and every other profile within your audience and try to sell something different to everybody but then at the point of trying to put everything together and then just going all out on the website, you cannot sell different things to people because you have to make one message. So there is often that challenge but every time you scale through, you get an extra layer of confidence that if I can do this, then I can do more. But every project is new. I mean, you can’t use a cheat code in strategy. It has to be based on the information that you got from the business or the person. Whether it’s a business brand or a personal brand, you have to get the information. And most of the information will be unique to that person or business. So you cannot just use the idea that you used for somebody else and bring it in. It’s going to be a mess and a repetition.

We hear your industry is very male dominated. Have you experienced intimidating situations where you have felt like these men were trying to take this job away from you because they are men? Or is there anything they do to make you feel uncomfortable when you work with them?

Okay, yes I’m not going to pretend to be oblivious to the fact that there are sharks out there but I think I’ve been fortunate with the kind of people that I have been attracting to my space. I would also attribute a lot of it to my personality because you often attract who you are and this depends on the way people see you. So, I think I’ve attracted kind people. And yes, you’re right. It’s a male dominated industry where you hardly find women. But I mean, I’ve had this situation before. I did a project two or three years ago and that project is actually why lots of people now know me. It was one of my best selling projects but for some reason, a lot of people thought it was done by a man. And I’m even like, I’m right here in the room. I just told you I did it. But they just don’t want to believe.

And I hear women are actually more creative.

Yes, we just have that intuition. Our instincts give us an added layer of advantage but we don’t get to speak about it enough, to be honest. I’ve also been on calls with clients and because my voice can be husky at times, they have mistaken me to be a man. Even when we communicate via email and I have shared my portfolio with them, they just assume that I’m male, which is so wrong, you know? But I’ve grown to also learn what I call power skills – relational intelligence, emotional intelligence and cultural intelligence. Those things might seem small but I was exposed to them a lot earlier than most. I started working while still in school and was quickly exposed to things like workplace training and all that. I picked a lot of things up from there and so by the time that I graduated, I just skyrocketed. I realised that the sky was only my starting point and it was easy for me to thrive in workplaces. So I saw such people with such biases as individuals who just didn’t know better and quickly learned how to navigate such things, so they don’t really get to me anymore.

For people who want to go into brand strategy just like this award winner before me here, can you give them some advice on what they should know before taking that career path?

That’s a good question. Well, all the things that I have said so far would help but I guess for someone starting afresh, I would advise reading a lot. You need to consume a lot of knowledge and information. I have my core interests but to be honest, there are times when I read about things that I know nothing about, just so I can be vast in knowledge. This is because you could get jobs with clients who operate in an area that you may not be familiar with, so you must be prepared. It could be as varied as crypto, web3, sports, music, business, business intelligence, strategy and so many other areas. So, I just try to find material and be a good reader. If you’re not someone who can read books then you can read articles and other short form content instead of deceiving yourself by buying books that you won’t read. Just make sure you consume content, however, it should be in a form that you are comfortable with. For instance, I have less books but there’s some knowledge or wisdom that I may want to get from books. Maybe one chapter just sticks out or there’s a case study perspective of the author that’s particularly useful. Try to be knowledgeable about a lot of things so people won’t just brush you aside when it matters. It was one of the reasons why I pursued my MBA. I wanted to be confident. I knew that I already had a lot of knowledge and when I speak, business owners usually listen because I have a track record. But I wanted an extra layer of credibility. An MBA certificate can convince people to at least hear you out, so I wanted something that could open doors for me. I know I already have it, but just to have that extra backing. I can go through any door and talk business strategy with anybody, based on the knowledge I have acquired and the experience that I also have. Also, try to discover your own style. Don’t try to fit into what everybody’s doing. I know that searching for information in the early stages can be a hassle but try to find people around you who can help you out. Find a mentor. Get people you can easily reach out to. Those open enough to give you from their wealth of experience, as this can be a turbo boost that moves things along faster. Instead of trying to look for templates out there, trying to find processes or whatnot, you can borrow processes, but along the line, try to find your own style, your own rhythm and then crunch things into that. Because whatever somebody or a business would find in another brand strategist, they probably won’t get it from me, and vice versa. That’s because I have gone wide and now I am going through. I have acquired knowledge from different people but have also developed my own unique style. I think it gives that layer of professionalism and gives prospective clients the perception that you know what you’re doing. Now, if you need accountability partners, then find them. People that you can bounce ideas off, find them, because you’re going to need them. A lot of ideas will not make sense to you. And there are times that you would come up with ideas and decide to present them to your audience, only to realize that your audience doesn’t care about those ideas. Meanwhile, they may seem brilliant to you. So, you also need to be a qualitative person and somehow, you must find joy in data and research as you cannot do without them. You cannot sit in your house or on your workstation and figure scarcity out, no, you have to go out and get responses from people. It’s just like creating an App and then wanting to improve it. I need to know what your pain points are first of all, before I can match it up with the appropriate and effective solution.

You can read the concluding part of Bolutife Awakan’s exclusive interview in EduTimes Africa’s May issue.

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Award winning Bolutife Awakan is a Senior Brand Designer and strategist with close to a decade of combined experience in Design, Marketing, Branding, Strategy and Business growth, leverages strategic and creative approaches to build brands that PEOPLE love.

Passionate about branding and dedicated to helping others find their path, Bolutife is recognized as a mentor of excellence and an inspiration to many.

Her commitment to sharing knowledge and expertise has led her to write several valuable branding resources that have benefited countless individuals.

Bolutife has successfully led and delivered projects across various industries, both locally and internationally. She has consistently deployed meaningful strategies, crafted unique visual systems, and propelled brands to thrive in competitive markets.

She currently leads the Brand and Creatives team at Traction Apps, a fintech startup providing financial solutions and growth-enabling management tools for business

Links to connect:
www.mainstack.com/bolutifeawakan
www.instagram.com/bolutifeawakan
www.twitter.com/bolutifeawakan
www.linkedin.com/in/bolutifeawakan