Brands for the
People
By: Deana Marshall
She’ s worked for Fortune 500’ s building international brands, enjoyed million dollar budgets, high-rise condos with a view and generous clothing allowances. That was then.... Andrea is a phenomenal Branding, Marketing and Social Media expert who now connects and creates more modest branding strategies through her unique company, Brands for the People. Power Culture Magazine had just a moment to pick her brain on how we could create our own unique brand.
Kristi: I want to start off telling you that I really like how clean your brand and marketing is. I really like the flow- everything matched, it’ s very inviting and professional. It must have cost a fortune!
Andrea: Didn’ t cost me as much as you think. It doesn’ t have to cost a ton to have a great looking site; you just have to make sure you’ re matched up with the right designers to get the work done. In fact, it’ s what I’ m passionate about. I love connecting small businesses with designers to match their needs so they too can look like Apple and other major brands.
Kristi: Well yours looks amazing! Andrea, for someone who hasn’ t had the opportunity to work with you or read your content rich blog- tell us, who is Andrea Shillington?
Andrea: Um, well I’ m an entrepreneur; a bit of a brand nerd. I’ ve made a lot of mistakes with online marketing and have accumulated many skills in the process. But my background is in branding. I have lived and worked globally for big corporate companies. I was living in the Middle East in Dubai for 5 and ½ years and then I lived in London for an amount of time so my background is helping big corporate businesses, rebrand and start up new brands. I got about 8 years’ experience doing that and then I came back to Canada and I started meeting a lot of entrepreneurs. The common theme that kept rising was that none of them could afford to hire designers to create a brand for them – the way these big corporations and companies would. This is what gave me the idea that there has got to be a better way; which is why Brands For the People was born – out of the problem I saw on the market and the need for a solution. Small businesses could afford to get a logo. They could afford to hire a freelance designer but they couldn’ t afford to go through a branding process. I thought that was a problem that our industry had created and it was something I was very committed to figuring out how to solve.
Kristi: What are the most crucial things you’ ve done to grow your business?
Andrea: When I first launched my business I got global exposure literally overnight. It was
36 POWERCULTURE APR2013