ON BRAND IDENTITY, MARKETING AND CULTURE with Wes Kao

Audio production by James Ede, Be Heard

Wes Kao is a marketing strategy expert who helps challenger brands maximise their product launches.

When working with her clients, she often finds that the biggest challenges for a lot of companies lie at the intersection of brand, marketing, and culture.

Wes strongly believes that the culture people experience inside their organisation has a major influence on how the company is perceived externally and how successful it can be in the marketplace.

She says: “What you believe and who you are permeates everything that you do: in big and in small ways and in ways that you are often unconscious of.”

Episode Highlights

• The power of asking the “what if” question
• Storytelling as a useful tool to connect with your audience and “sell” your ideas
• The importance of social proof and of building credibility in strengthening a brand and in executing a marketing strategy
• Why empathy and understanding others’ worldview comes first when we try to influence or drive change
• How to get anyone’s buy-in and get projects successfully off the ground by de-risking ideas and proactively overcoming objections
• How to shift organisational culture through addressing behaviours and forming new habits
• Seth Godin’s approach to shaping the culture in his own team
• The importance of trust in marketing, branding and building culture

Listen to the interview in the player below, or on iTunes. If you like what you hear, please leave a review and it may be featured on a future episode.

Audio production by James Ede, Be Heard

More about Wes Kao

Wes Kao is a marketing expert who helps challenger brands maximize their product launches. Wes helps clients build high-performing launch teams and create marketing engines that drive growth.

Previously, Wes was the founding Executive Director of Seth Godin’s altMBA, a leadership and management program for innovators, entrepreneurs, executives, and change agents. Under Wes’ leadership, the altMBA program grew from zero to 550 cities in 45 countries in a three-year period of high growth. Before this, Wes held leadership roles in marketing at Flite (acquired by Snapchat), Bare Escentuals, L’Oreal, and Gap Inc.

Wes received her B.S. in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. She was a fellow for the Singularity University Global Solutions Program, held at NASA Ames and sponsored by Google. She serves as a mentor for Backstage Capital and WeWork Labs.

Connect with Wes on LinkedIn, Twitter, or her website.

Resources and Books Mentioned on the Podcast

Books
Linchpin by Seth Godin

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