Looking Outside Brand Building: Oana Leonte, Founder unmtchd.brands

Today we’re looking outside a very familiar topic, exploring brand building that strengthens a brand’s equity today and sets it up for the future. We’re joined for this all-marketing chat with marketing rockstar, fellow podcaster, Founder of unmtchd.brands and former Puma exec, Oana Leonte.

Oana recently pivoted from a marketing career working to build some of the world’s biggest brands, including WB, Paramount and Disney, to building her own brand. Armed with a big ambition to make marketing a better place for marketers and in bringing the magic back into marketing, and with the goal of helping marketers focus on the most required skills for the future.

With marketers todays over-fixed on chasing hype and virality, the focus has become more on performance than on brand building, and away from what Oana says is the real job of marketers. While marketing fundamentals shift with the changing times, when it comes to younger marketers, they’re often completely disregarded but, “They exist for a reason.” Oana encourages young marketers to understand those basics, and leverage the earned and learned knowledge of older leaders in the room, who have a seat at that table for a reason.

The point is considering a diverse array of perspectives, including less experienced ones. Oana stresses she is an advocate for bringing young people into important forums with senior leaders. More and more, businesses and brands are spending time creating youth boards that allow young marketers a voice in the boardroom. Oana says this is particularly important to better compete with emerging disruptive small brands who are often run by smart, young marketers savvy with modern marketing tactics.

Equally, Oana believes senior business leaders and CMOs need to hear more from the every day humans they are creating and marketing for. After all, if we still believe that the consumer is the ultimate boss, then they should be not just represented in data but heard with their own voice. Oana highlights how important this is not just to understand behaviors being exhibited today but in foreseeing how those behaviors are likely to evolve.

In guiding brands towards futures that they can play a relevant role in, Jo and Oana also explore how culture shapes brands often without them realizing it, or indeed leveraging it. In the quest to protect the status quo, and keep up with past success, brands run the risk of making safe, predictable decisions that paralyze them in time. This is a particular risk for big brands that have more to lose.

Whether it’s a big brand or a personal brand Oana’s unwavering push for future growth is led by a learner mindset and a choice to act bravely. She describes her own superpower as just that – unique to her. She encourages anyone who lacks confidence because they feel like they don’t fit in, to stop thinking of this as a liability but as an advantage that no one else has.

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To look outside, Oana connects with people who hold different experience from across varied industries, categories and backgrounds. Oana approaches this with curiosity, with what she calls an open heart and ear. She brings this curiosity to her learner’s mindset, like to technology which she sees as the biggest disruption in our lives.

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Oana Leonte is a seasoned brand marketer and the host of the popular marketing podcast, Unmtchd.

With an impressive background, she brings a wealth of experience from her previous roles in marketing and consumer products for Fortune500 brands such as Disney, Warner Bros., and Viacom. She recently left her position as Marketing Director at PUMA, to devote herself to her mission of driving brand evolution toward a future of limitless creativity and impact through her brand transformation consultancy work, her podcast and her upcoming book. 

Follow Oana on Insta, YouTube, TikTok and LinkedIn.

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Looking Outside is a podcast dedicated to exploring fresh perspectives of familiar business topics. The show is hosted by its creator, Joanna Lepore, consumer goods innovator and futurist at McDonald's. Find out more at looking-outside.com.

Connect with Jo and join the Looking Outside community on LinkedIn.

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All views are that of the host and guests and don’t necessarily reflect those of their employers. Copyright 2024. Theme song by Azteca X.