REVIEW: Startups Live ICYMI | Kayla Medica On Successful Branding
Voice, personality, tone, copywriting, making adjustments — Kayla Medica shares her keen insights into several key aspects of branding.
Written by Keith Liles // Also shared on Startups.co.

“Have you ever answered the phone without looking, heard ‘hey it’s me’ and known exactly who it was? This is essentially what you want for your company.”
– Kayla Medica, Branding Is More Than A Logo
Kayla Medica is an expert on branding for startups who are still finding their feet and larger startups looking to go global. Her linguistics background helps her to explain why some slogans sound better than others and why naming products in another language isn’t always the best idea. She’s particularly adept at locating any ambiguity in your marketing.
Today she joined Startups Live to talk about what she sees working, where companies stumble, and gives pro tips for taking an overall more effective approach to branding.
“Can I just say how much this resonated with me from the article,” Ryan Rutan enthusiastically got things started: “Have you ever answered the phone without looking, heard ‘hey it’s me’ and known exactly who it was? This is essentially what you want for your company.”
“Yeah, I mean for me [Kayla Medica] personally, one of the most obvious examples is when I’m mindlessly scrolling on social media and I see something that makes me double take because it seems so out of place — always ends up being an ad. As an individual, I think we’re all aware of who we subscribe to. So being able to slide right in and not have that ‘this is unusual’ reaction = resonating with your customer, and most of the time we’re not checking the user profile picture of the post first, so the text is super important.”
“Do you have any tips that someone who isn’t a linguist could follow to improve their copy so their ad doesn’t seem out of place? Or ways to improve a brand’s ‘voice’?” asked Steph Newton.
“Observe what your core users or customers say first before trying to pretend to emulate them. Go on forums, read customer reviews etc. and use their own vocabulary back on them!”
“What brand voices do you love right now? Who just nails it?” Wil Schroterasked.
“Nike and Adidas always have really great voice, it’s strong and instantly identifiable. Actually over the past few days, a new Nike campaign has rolled out over Sydney and it’s all I see on my way to work, haha!”
“Do you think that the addition of so many platforms has created some of the issues in brand voice consistency?” asked Ryan. “ie — people are bending their brand messaging to fit the platform norms and follow best practices for Twitter, Instagram et al — and leaving their brand voice behind?”
“I would say so, I think lots of people have caught on to different platforms = different content, but aren’t quite consistent in HOW they say things.”
“I think a huge part of branding is the behind the scenes ethos,” said Stephen Moore. “Some brands come across as very human, very personal — others are more formal, even a bit robotic. That’s one of the plus points of social media — it can be used to show process rather than just brand / products.”
“We are deep in the middle of a flip-side of this convo,” shared Michael Kassing. “We are trying to figure out a way to pass on the great warm feelings that our client have for our founders to the company. We just went through the ‘Okay, two of us die and then what happens…. drill. So I do agree that your brand is LOTS more than your logo and your name, it is how you do what you do. No one ever said this was going to be easy and these are shark filled waters.”
“That’s really true, it comes down to knowing the difference between personality and voice/tone — you can be friendly and approachable (personality) but still be firm and knowledgable (tone).”
“Have you seen some startups (not Airbnb level) that have built a really strong brand voice sorta on their own dime?” asked Wil. “Meaning, it’s easy to have a great brand voice when you have hundreds of millions of dollars in media and can hire Weiden+Kennedy to do your ads, but what about more grassroots stuff?”
“You know, a lot of the accelerators/incubators do it really well, and co-working spaces as well. A lot of those really are the founders being the face of the company though.”
As though on cue, Jonathan Crawford declared:
“The best accelerator branding http://thefamily.co. (The Family nurtures Entrepreneurs through Education, Unfair Advantages and Capital.)”
“What do you like about it?” Steph asked Jonathan.
“It’s random (unexpected, makes you pay attention), it’s down-to-earth (makes you relate), it’s pretty, and yet it’s intelligent. I’ve visited their space in Paris and it’s very reflective of the culture. They host karaoke parties, discos, top-tier lectures and much more. I was very impressed by the consistency of the branding as it told the story of their approach and culture.”
Having a look at the landing page, Kayla weighed in, “they know exactly who their customer is — someone who can appreciate an Attack on Mars and other pop culture reference, but someone who’s also there to get work done!”
“Kayla, is branding something you should still be laser focused on when you’re first starting a company?” asked Eileen Guan. “Or something you start focusing on once you’re a bit further down the line?”
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