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On How To Turn Your Business Into A Strong Brand
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That Can Stand The Test Of Time
It was an inspiring and high-impact session as City People Magazine marked its 30th anniversary with a special anniversary lecture that brought together media practitioners, entrepreneurs and other distinguished guests at the Yoruba Tennis Club, Lagos, on October 6, 2026.
The lecture, themed “Building A Brand That Can Stand The Test Of Time,” featured renowned preacher, entrepreneur and Founder of Kingsway International Christian Centre, KICC, Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo, as the guest lecturer. The choice of topic was particularly significant as City People marked three decades of building a distinctive identity in Nigeria’s media and entertainment industry.
Pastor Ashimolowo took the audience through a powerful and practical session on what it takes to build brands that can survive changing times, remain relevant and create value long after their founders are gone.
Speaking on the subject, he explained that building a lasting brand goes far beyond having a good name, an attractive logo or running publicity campaigns. A brand, he said, is built around identity, promise, experience, perception and reputation.
According to him, Identity is what an organisation says about itself, while a brand promise is what customers are told to expect. The real test, however, comes from the experience customers receive. When an organisation consistently delivers on its promise, it builds credibility and trust. When it fails to do so, the promise becomes nothing more than advertising.
“A brand is not merely what you tell people it is. It is what they have come to believe it is,” he stressed.
He explained that this is one of the major differences between a business and a brand. While a business may focus mainly on transactions, selling products and making money, a brand creates relationships and gives customers a reason to return. A business can make money without necessarily having a strong identity, but a brand becomes more valuable when its name begins to carry meaning.
He challenged entrepreneurs to ask themselves what their names represent and what customers immediately associate with them. The goal of branding, he said, should not simply be to become popular or well-known, but to become known for something valuable.
One of the major issues he addressed was the need to understand the customer. He explained that a business cannot effectively serve everybody and that clear positioning begins with understanding the people the brand exists to serve, the problems they face and the particular solution the business provides.
“Knowing the customer goes beyond age, gender, income, and location. You must understand the world behind the statistics,” he explained.
According to him, people often buy more than products or information. They are also looking for confidence, security, belonging, peace of mind, identity and hope. A great brand, he said, must therefore solve the practical problem while also understanding the deeper emotional need of its audience.
Pastor Ashimolowo also challenged entrepreneurs to stop simply following passion without considering whether that passion solves an existing problem. Drawing from his experiences in the United States, he spoke about aspiring talents who move to Los Angeles driven only by passion, only to spend years waiting for an elusive breakthrough.
“They followed a passion when they should have looked for a problem,” he stated. “A problem puts blessings on your table.”
He clarified that he was not telling people to abandon their dreams. Instead, he encouraged young people to look around them, identify problems and develop solutions. Once they find a solution that meets a genuine need, he said, they should pursue it with passion.
He used the changing nature of technology and different professions to explain why people must constantly re-engineer themselves. Some skills are being transformed by technology, while new opportunities are emerging in areas that did not previously exist. People, he said, must therefore be willing to learn, retrain and reposition themselves.
Education, he explained, should not limit a person to the course or profession studied in school. Rather, it should provide a foundation that enables people to think critically, analyse problems and identify opportunities. When a person discovers a new opportunity outside his or her academic background, the individual should be willing to acquire the knowledge required to pursue it.
For him, finding a problem and developing a solution can become the foundation for a business and eventually a powerful brand.
He also stressed the importance of differentiation. Businesses must find ways to stand apart from competitors instead of becoming commodities that customers can easily replace. When businesses become indistinguishable from one another, customers often make decisions based largely on price.
Rather than constantly asking how to become cheaper, he urged entrepreneurs to ask how they can become more valuable, more trusted and more difficult to replace.
That value, he explained, can come through quality, specialised expertise, faster delivery, better design, convenience, exceptional customer service, reliability, personalisation and memorable experiences.
He further warned businesses against trying to become “everything to everybody.” Enduring brands, he noted, understand what they can do exceptionally well and build authority around that strength.
Using Levi Strauss & Co. as an example, he explained how a brand can remain connected to its original identity while continuously changing its methods and tools to remain relevant.
“Authenticity is not a refusal to change; it is the ability to evolve without losing your identity,” he said.
Another major part of his lecture focused on purpose. Pastor Ashimolowo challenged business owners to constantly ask themselves one fundamental question: “Why do we exist?”
While acknowledging that profit is necessary for the survival of a business, he warned against making money the ultimate purpose of an organisation.
“Profit is the oxygen of a business; it enables survival, but breathing is not the ultimate purpose of life,” he remarked.
He urged businesses to create organisations that offer something meaningful to customers, employees and society. The purpose of a brand, he explained, must be visible in its decisions, actions and impact rather than existing only in mission statements and advertising.
He also spoke about brand personality, explaining that brands, like people, can be bold, warm, youthful, serious, stylish, innovative, traditional, premium or energetic. What matters, he said, is that an organisation understands the personality it wants to represent and communicates it consistently.
That consistency must go beyond advertising. A strong brand should communicate the same values through its website, social media platforms, documents, packaging, customer service, products, services and everyday interactions with customers.
Promotion, he noted, is important because it helps spread a brand’s message and create awareness, but promotion alone cannot sustain a brand. What a company promises through its marketing must match the experience customers eventually receive.
He therefore advised businesses to make their communication clear. A brand should be able to explain who it is, what it does, who it serves, what problem it solves, what makes it different and why people should believe its claims.
Pastor Ashimolowo also warned entrepreneurs about protecting their credibility. Once people build a brand, their reputation becomes part of that brand. The people they associate with, the decisions they make and the standards they maintain can all influence how the public sees them.
For journalists and other professionals, he emphasised the importance of personal branding and finding a niche. He advised journalists not to remain general practitioners throughout their careers without developing an area in which they can become recognised and respected.
A journalist, he explained, could specialise in investigative journalism, sports, business, entertainment, food and beverages or another field, study it deeply and gradually become known for that expertise.
When a professional develops such a niche, he said, the expertise eventually becomes part of the person’s personal brand.
His message to the City People team was therefore direct: “Be distinct. Be relevant. Be chosen.”
He also encouraged Nigerian entrepreneurs to think beyond their immediate environment and build companies that can compete across Africa and internationally. While acknowledging the challenges businesses face in Nigeria, including infrastructure and power supply, he urged entrepreneurs not to allow these difficulties to completely define their vision.
Instead, he called for solution-driven thinking, particularly in areas such as technology, energy and other sectors where Nigeria still has significant needs.
He also urged Nigerians to support businesses created by fellow citizens by promoting them, encouraging them and helping them build stronger brands.
However, the lecture became even more engaging during the question-and-answer session that followed. Media personnels and entrepreneur in attendance used the opportunity to seek further clarification from Pastor Ashimolowo on issues relating to branding, business growth, positioning, entrepreneurship, relevance and longevity.
Rather than rushing through the questions, the pastor took his time to respond to the different concerns raised by members of the audience. He expanded on his earlier points, gave practical explanations and used experiences and examples to make the answers easier to understand.
The interaction created another memorable moment at the anniversary event, as the audience listened attentively to his responses and absorbed the lessons from each question. The questions from media practitioners and entrepreneurs also allowed him to address some of the real-life challenges confronting people who are trying to build businesses, careers and personal brands in a rapidly changing environment.
His detailed responses appeared to resonate strongly with the audience, who were visibly pleased with the depth of his answers and the practical nature of the session. The question-and-answer segment therefore became more than an opportunity for clarification; it extended the lecture and gave participants the chance to engage directly with the ideas he had presented.
One of the strongest messages of the lecture was his call for entrepreneurs to think about Legacy. Pastor Ashimolowo challenged business owners to stop building companies only to make money or provide for their immediate families. Instead, they should think about creating organisations that can survive beyond their founders.
He urged entrepreneurs to build businesses that their children and future generations can inherit, improve and continue.
For him, building a brand that can stand the test of time means creating something bigger than the founder. It means putting structures and systems in place so that the business can continue even when the person who started it is no longer there.
This, he said, should be the ambition of every entrepreneur, regardless of the size of the business.
As City People celebrates 30 years, the subject of longevity naturally takes on an even deeper meaning. Pastor Ashimolowo’s lecture was not simply about attracting customers today, but about building names, reputations, systems and relationships that remain valuable tomorrow.
His message was ultimately a call to move beyond transactions and focus on trust, value, purpose, differentiation, consistency and legacy.
A business may begin with one person, one idea or one product, but the real achievement is when that business grows into a brand whose name carries meaning, earns loyalty, creates value and survives beyond its founder.
That, Pastor Ashimolowo stressed, is what it means to build a brand that can truly stand the test of time.
By Benprince Ezeh, Promise Babatunde and Sarah Ojo
