Host spotlight: Wanjiru Gathanga

This month, I’m turning the microphone inward to our own team. I’m talking to my colleague Wanjiru Gathanga. Wanjiru joined us in 2019 as an intern fresh out of college, where she studied computer technology focusing on machine learning. I vividly remember her walking up to my table for our first interview. A smart but shy young woman, who thought she was interviewing at a medium-sized company where she would never meet the founder, and instead found me, on my own, behind a laptop. She’s gone from a quiet intern to a confident expert over the years, and I’ve learned so much from working with her.

Today she is our full-time community host, brand researcher, and my unmissable right hand. It’s very exciting for me to give you all a richer picture of this unique talent and personality.

am: What's the story of your name?

WG: Wanjiru is a female Gĩkũyũ name. 

The words ‘wa njíru’ directly translates to ‘belonging/ coming from darkness or dark matter’ and if not inherited from family members, it can be given to female children born with dark skin or born at night. 

But my community is quite strict with naming, so in my case, dark skin notwithstanding, I inherited it from my paternal grandmother. 

AM: If you were a drink in a bottle, what would it say on the label?

WG: A strong and peculiar burst of flavours! I’d be a tropical fruit juice with an undeclared amount of fruits and gin in varying quantities in each bottle. 

Always a surprise 😁

AM: What problem in the world keeps you up at night?

WG: Oh that is such a broad question! Where would I possibly start 😅

Like many other countries across the world, Kenya has not been spared the bizarre 9’oclock news briefings that seem alien and far from the edges of what should be reasonably possible. 

Unemployment, poverty, corruption, lack of accountability in our government, criminalisation of sexual orientation and hate crimes, gender-based violence against women, period poverty... you know, the usual.  

Needless to say, there are enough social stumbling blocks to go around to keep us all awake at night.

Some I have closer experiences and stronger frustrations with and others are distant. But on most days, thinking about these challenges that cause so much human suffering, daily recurrent challenges and even death, I find myself oscillating between crippling empathy and crippling rage.

am: What inspires you to get out of bed in the morning?

WG: The recognition that empathy and rage do nothing to create change. They’re more useless than signing online petitions. 

It’s not enough to feel. I have to do something to contribute to the change I want to see and experience around me. 

So every day I get out of bed with two things in mind; I want to feel fulfilled and happy with my work and the hope that the work I do can cascade into something meaningful in someone’s life. 

AM: What is the big change you want to see in the world?

More African voices and stories within the continent and to the outside world. For too long stories about Africa have been told by other people. 

I’m happy to see that changing. We’re slowly seeing the celebration and fusion of African culture through music and art and tourism and that makes me happy. It helps rectify some of the negative stereotypes around the continent.

Unfortunately, many of these stereotypes can be traced back to outward-facing charities and social organisations in Africa.

am: How are you working towards that change in your own way?

WG: There are many great changemaking ideas and organisations working to improve lives and our society and I think over time that that will evolve to influence the perspectives of our countries and continent.

I believe that the people who belong to a place have the best solutions to the challenges in their own communities. We should be telling our own stories, good and bad because we live here and we understand the underlying challenges.

It’s an honour to get the chance to work alongside such brands to get their ideas out to potential partners, and collaborators and finally into the hands of the people who need them. 

AM: If you were a car brand, which brand would you be?

WG: I would be a motorcycle. I try to be fast and efficient. And I can barely do two things at once. 

That’s also because I struggle with my concentration when people around me are talking, giving opinions and other tidbits. 

I very much enjoy unaccompanied time and space. It’s when I do my best work 😄

AM: You switched from the field of machine learning to branding. Why? (in god’s name, why???)

WG: Growing up I always had a computer around me— my mom’s computer. 

It’s only much later in school, (when even the school got computers) that I realised that I knew a lot more about computers than my classmates (and sometimes the teacher honestly) and also realised that that was uncommon.

I could effortlessly open up computers, name all the components, pull them apart, put them back in or replace them. I watched my mom do it. I watched her technicians do it. It was a privilege. She taught me the basics and I took off from there.

I just got computers. 

Fast forward to the university and it was the obvious and easy thing for me to do. I knew that I could do anything in the tech space. I could work in any industry and it paid bloody well too.

I liked school and compiler construction, data structures and algorithms and machine learning were as fun as they sound. And a good amount of people around me were brilliantly smart. There were great new, innovative and out-of-the-box ideas all around me. It was everything you could expect from a school with ‘Agriculture and Technology’ in its name. 

But that’s all they were. Ideas. 

Almost all were shelved and never saw the light of day again after horrid presentations led by Simon Cowell-like panellists. Only that they were actually smart and had several masters and PhDs between them. 

Other than lack of support and capital and other innovation killers, however, no one outside of school really understood anything we were doing or saying. My own family, who love me to bits, couldn’t recall anything I told them I was working on five minutes after I was done enthusiastically explaining it.

A light bulb went off for me 💡

Engineers and techies are boring. And we’re naturally quite wordy and jargony and terrible at making things simple. I needed to step out of the building and into the branding. 

The thought wasn’t this clear initially, but I knew that I wanted to make the move into “selling ideas”. Where that was exactly was a wild guess.

And when I got some clarity, I thought I was going into sales and marketing or communications. Somewhere where people talk a lot and with more clarity. At least more than we did in tech.

AM: How is your background an asset in your current work?

WG: Other than the ability to fix things and write some code once in a while, I find that the difference in thought has been helpful. 

I have a scientific and methodical approach to brand, research and strategy. It comes in handy when looking back at a brand and its history as well as looking forward at what the owners of the brand want it to be down the line. 

It helps me take apart a brand, spot what’s working and what’s not doing so well and immediately go into problem-solving. And if I don’t know how to solve it, I have a good idea of where to look or who to ask. I can recognize and apply the science of branding.

Even more concretely, working with tech brands is other-worldly. It’s like coming home. 

AM: What advice would you give any young professional who wants to make a start in branding?

WG: Forging a career in branding is exactly like building a brand. 

You need your core— a good idea of who you are, what you’re good at and what you specifically want to do in branding. And what you also don’t want to do.

A good identity is also useful in helping you stand out— verbal and visual. How you’re different, if at all, from other brand professionals.

It’s invaluable to interact with other brand professionals you can learn from and who are willing to guide you. A good mentor is a lighthouse. And there are many benefits you can get from a community of brand professionals and changemakers such as Brand The Change.

Have a plan, in your head, on the back of a napkin or a Miro board, but don’t overthink it.

Branding is a great profession, we talk a lot, and clarity is the goal at all times. Not like those techies.

AM: What is one thing about brand building that surprised you once you got to know the sector?

WG: Just one? 😂 Here are 3:

The amount of research that goes into brand building.  The volume is much greater than I had anticipated. There is a lot of desktop research, on-the-ground tours, interviews with the team, interviews with the audiences and researching the market and competitors.

Brand building is very cyclic and there is a lot of back and forth. Brand building simply never ends. There is always something to change or improve. You’re always carrying out tests and measuring what works and what could be tuned. So you can never truly be done with brand. 

I thought it would be all strategy and cool creative team meetings with colourful sticky notes on the brand thinking canvas and warm tasty coffee all day every day! There’s a lot to brand building that is not colourful and creative. The project management and planning alone are staggering. As a brand builder, you’re a bit of a generalist and a master of many things that will eventually make the actually cool stuff happen. 

AM: Are there any trends or developments in the brand space in your country that you think are promising or interesting?

Kenyan brands are generally very musical. Whatever you’re thinking, multiply it by 10.

A lot of brands have a distinguishing sound as part of their verbal identity. Some have anthems, beats or chants. 

Toilet paper, cars, cooking spices, beer, female hygiene products, shoes… you name it, and I can probably find a Kenyan brand that has put music to it.

With this musical trend, a brand is able to instantly increase top-of-mind awareness and recall overnight. And now with social media, and the rise of trending content and shorts, it’s easier and faster to capitalise on the far-reaching effects of a catchy tune. 

TikTok. Need I say more?

AM: What would you love to figure out about brand building that you still can't quite master?

WG: Positioning. Even at the BTC Academy, there’s a reason it was such a common question. 

I look at brands with simple and impeccable positioning strategies with a tinge of envy 😂 but mostly awe.

It’s a crucial part of brand building. You need your positioning strategy to be clear and easy to understand and then stand out from the competition while doing it. And sometimes, it calls for something new under the sun.

It’s like Pin the tail on the donkey, but the tail needs to go somewhere unique yet sensible, but it can’t go on the donkey’s arse, because that’s where all the other kids put their tails.

AM: What is your first memory of a brand?

WG: My mother was very particular about what brand of soap she bought and what toothpaste we used and what supermarket we went to. She trusted some brands on what electronics lasted the longest and what companies gave the best value and delivered on their brand promises. She’s a great believer in brand in that sense. 

But regardless of how particular she got, she still couldn’t get past the ubiquitous nature of some brands and would apply brand names uniformly. She called all powdered soap ‘Omo’ but never bought or used Unilever’s Omo. 

That’s when I started to pay attention to brands. What made them stand out? What made a brand a household name? And how did they create the beliefs that people hold about them and their products. 

AM: Which brand is totally overrated?

WG: A lot of designer brands. 

I find that there is no need to obnoxiously glorify and price things simply because someone plastered their name on a product. It’s branding on steroids. 

AM: What brand should finally get the attention it deserves?

WG: A Growing Culture— who are seeking food sovereignty for everyone, everywhere. 

They are raising a movement to confront the injustices in food systems through storytelling and by mobilising communal knowledge and resource sharing.

AM: Who is your biggest changemaker at the moment?

WG: Wandia Njoya, a Kenyan teacher and blogger, who has taken an educational approach to changemaking. She uses her blog to share her thoughts on pan-African life, social issues, citizenship and governance. She also talks about her dreams for the continent and her thoughts on the challenges many Africans are facing today and the knowledge and resources we need to address them.

The internet is awash with all sorts of information and misinformation and misdirected good intentions and she challenges people to stop, take a seat and think. 

AM: Business is/can be a force for good. Agree or disagree?

WG: Absolutely agree.

We need good businesses, that are good and thriving at business, for the people who run them, the people they serve and the causes they support to succeed as well. 

AM: If you could give someone or something one million dollars in services from the best brand builders in the world, who would you give it to and what would you want them to do with it?

Brand Kenya is a great example of how good intentions and a great purpose do not always result in a great brand. 

It’s basically the Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency (acronymized as KEPROBA 🤕 which really tells you that it’s state-run) whose sole purpose is to promote Kenyan exports and nation branding.

I like that they created a non-government-sounding name, but that’s where any semblance of a good brand ends. 

They desperately need a million dollars, some pocket change and the best brand builders in the world 😂

Send help!

AM: What is your dream project or who is your dream client and what would you like to work on with them?

WG: Enda, the sportswear brand.

They have an impressive mission: to increase fairness, justice, and equality in the world by making running shoes in Kenya. Kenya is well known for our athletes and it’s good to see a brand working to create more recognition for Kenyan athletics, and creating jobs through amazing Kenyan-made products. 

What’s not to love about them?

I see the brand growing beyond where it currently is and I would like to work with them on their next big step.

AM: We always say it takes a village to build a brand. Who is in your village - who is supporting you?

WG: I have been fortunate enough to have great support both in my personal life and work life. A career change is very shocking on a personal level and comes with a lot of fear and doubt and repeating waves of imposter syndrome. 

It also comes with doubt and concerns from family and friends who think it may be a cry for help. It’s like abruptly shaving your head in the family bathroom then walking out and yelling, ‘Surprise!’

Fortunately, I’ve done both and the career change got much better support. 

am: Where do we go to find out more about you and your work?

WG: My personal LinkedIn and my blog where I share a few thoughts and the books I’m reading.