In uncertain times, brands need more than adaptation - they need strategic clarity. Brand consultant Victor C.E. Aloji shows how genuine audience orientation can become a success factor for companies.
In our "Meet the Creatives" format, we regularly introduce experts from our creative pool of around 70 people with whom we work together on innovation processes for companies. In conversation this time: Brand Strategist Victor C.E. Aloji.
Victor, as a creative, you often encounter open processes and uncertainties in your work. How do you deal with this - and how can companies benefit from it?
When I'm travelling abroad on my motorbike, I sometimes have to ride through soft terrain to get to my destination. I have learnt an important lesson: speed brings stability. If you hesitate or slow down in deep sand, you are more likely to crash.
This is exactly how I move in open innovation processes and uncertainties: I keep the momentum and look further ahead than my first instinct tells me to - because sooner or later, tarmac will come again.
"True transformation is based on the guiding principle: Love your audience."
What characterises your work as a brand strategist - and what added value do you offer companies?
I focus on the essential, people-centred triangle of every successful transformation: the people internally (your employees), the people externally (all your target groups) and the people in the future (the future environment).
True transformation arises from the interplay of these three aspects and is based on the guiding principle: "Love your audience". This sounds simple, but in practice it is an intensive and ongoing task. It requires active concentration to keep this "flame" alive in the long term - for me personally, but even more so for companies in their day-to-day business. This is exactly where I help.
And what does that mean in concrete terms?
Specifically, I help companies in three key areas. Firstly, I strengthen the internal brand consensus. Many organisations have different perceptions of their own brand. We harmonise these from multiple perspectives and bring them together into a coherent, sustainable vision - so that everyone is pulling in the same direction.
Secondly, I help to establish a genuine "audience obsession". Teams learn to empathise with their target groups in a new and differentiated way - away from purely abstract data and towards culturally based empathy.
Thirdly, we actively shape the future of the brand. Together, we develop scenarios for how the brand can actively shape its industry in a rapidly changing local and global environment.
"My aim is to enable people in the company to live their strategy sustainably and constantly through strategic storytelling, creative habits and brand systems."
What question would you ask companies to challenge their innovative thinking?
How much do you really love your audience? Because your future as a company depends on it. Living "brand systems" sustainably and constantly - and moving away from one-hit-wonder brand relaunches towards small wins and iterations with a system.
Roald Seeliger has been working as a motion designer and creative director for around 15 years and is managing director of the animation studio CARTEL. With a background in film and many years of experience in motion design, he combines storytelling, design and 2D and 3D animation to make complex content visually tangible. He is part of the Cross Innovation Hub's pool of creatives.
