In this four-part article, Iyinoluwa Adunade, Brand and Marketing Strategist, writes about the struggle some brands face in connecting with their audiences, and how cultural understanding can help make brands more memorable and build stronger connections with their target audiences.
A quiet crisis runs through a lot of brand and marketing work today, and it rarely gets named directly. The problem is not a lack of budget, talent, or strategy decks. The problem is that too many brands are communicating without actually saying anything. Visuals are clean, messaging is polished, campaigns go live, and almost nothing lands. Audiences scroll past. Stakeholders forget. The brand stays invisible in the one place it cannot afford to be: the minds of the people it needs to reach.
What separates brands that achieve deep market resonance from those that merely exist is not a bigger spend or a more sophisticated platform mix. It is cultural intelligence. This is the ability to root a brand’s identity in something people already believe, already feel, and already carry with them. That is not a creative indulgence. It is the most precise business tool available to any strategist who knows how to use it.
This question drives my approach to brand strategy: not just “what does this brand want to say?” but “what does this audience already feel, and how do we build a brand that lives inside that feeling?”
Cultural Truth in Brand Narratives
This philosophy drove the creative direction I developed for EnterpriseNGR’s State of Enterprise 2025 Report. The goal was to produce a report that captures the state of Nigeria’s Financial and Professional Services sector in a way that it would be read, remembered, and shared across global markets. My answer was to make it human first.
The report’s design theme, “Culture and Finance,” drew on three iconic symbols:
- The Cowrie of Western Nigeria: Ancient currency and a marker of prosperity.
- The Arewa Knot of Northern Nigeria: An emblem of unity across difference.
- The Nsibidi of Eastern Nigeria: An ancient ideographic writing system encoding peace, love, and collective identity.
These were not decorative choices. They were a strategic decision to anchor a financial narrative in cultural truth, demonstrating through image and symbol that an economy cannot be separated from the people who built it. The report also told the story of Nigerian’s lives, capturing their trade, fashion, festivals, infrastructure, and art. Data without human context is just data. Data that shows the life behind the numbers becomes a story people want to be part of.
The Power of Identity-Led Storytelling
This approach is being validated from one of the most authoritative directions on the continent. Olori Ivie Atuwatse III, Queen Consort of the Warri Kingdom (recipient of the Freedom of the City of London and recognized among the 100 Most Influential African Women), applied the same brand logic in creating her book, Redemption.
Built through portraits and texts that weave together memory, service, and identity, it stands as identity-led storytelling at its most deliberate. A leader who could have told her story any way she chose decided that culture, image, and personal narrative were the most powerful vehicles. That is a brand strategy decision, even when it is not explicitly named as one.
The sectors that understand this earliest tend to win the longest. Financial services brands that speak in their customers’ cultural language build deeper trust than those leading solely with product features. Consumer goods companies rooted in the communities they serve generate advocacy, not just transactions.
Whether in technology, telecomms, healthcare, education, real estate, or public policy, every space where a brand needs an audience to trust it enough to act, the principle holds true. Cultural intelligence is not a niche specialization. It is a highly transferable skill, and its strategic application changes market positions.
Securing the Competitive Advantage
The organisations doing the most compelling work right now are asking, long before any campaign goes live: Does this mean something to the people we need to reach? Does it belong to them?
That question, asked early and answered honestly, is the difference between a brand that earns attention and one that merely buys it. The brands that will define the next decade will not be the loudest. They will be the ones with the most honest story. The strategists who can find that story, build it with rigor, and express it with clarity will always be the most valuable people in the room.
