Brand Elevation @studiokoto My first session at Koto was a reminder of why I came for this FLA Design Leadership programme in the first place, to stretch how I think and to unlearn some habits formed from working in fast, pressure-driven markets like Africa. The session started with a simple line on the screen: “Brands are results, established in the mind, built over time.” I’ve known this, but hearing it through this lens again in a room full of people from every corner of the world made it land differently. It made me think about how often we’re forced to “deliver brand” overnight, as if perception can be rushed. But the part that stayed with me was the group exercise. We were asked to create a positioning using the True × Compelling × Distinctive model we were taught in class. It looked easy until we actually started. We were a team of 5, a team I had just met. We had to trust each other enough to move from scattered ideas to one clear direction in only a few minutes. For me, being my first class, that was the real learning moment in the session: watching how 5 people from different countries and cultures approach a single challenge, seeing where we aligned, where we clashed, and how quickly we had to let go of our individual ideas and biases to build something true with others. I also caught myself doing that thing of wanting to be extremely sharp and efficient. It’s what I’m used to. You don’t always get time to sit inside a thought—you solve fast. Here, they pushed us to slow down and question whether something was actually true, or just convenient. We quickly realized how many of our ideas were rooted in clichés. When it was time to present, it was about coherence. Did the idea hold? Is it on a path to solving the brand challenge we had been presented with? Could the room immediately understand what we were driving at? It made me realise how much branding is shaped by context.  In Nigeria, I’ve built several brands in survival mode. Both produce great work, but the paths are completely different. The session left me grounded in brand strategy and was a solid reminder that clarity takes time, and good work is always a team sport. This experience is already sharpening how I think about brand direction for the projects I’m working on. And it feels good to grow in a space with shared learnings. A huge shoutout to my teachers, Tom Moloney, Kathy Harvey and Dan Witchell for an awesome 4 hours 🙏