I've been thinking a lot about what happens when a brand stops hiding behind its logo and lets a real person stand in front of it. Two women keep coming to mind: Kathryn Turner at M&S Food, and Fisayo Longe, the founder of Kai Collective.

One works inside a 140-year-old retail giant. The other built her brand from a fashion blog and a family loan. But the playbook underneath is surprisingly similar.

Kathryn Turner: the legacy brand gets a human

Kathryn is the Director of Product Development at M&S Food. A few months ago she started a TikTok account, and it took off.

What gets me is that she's not a marketer. She's the person who turns ideas into finished products, which means briefs, supplier conversations, taste panels, and signing off on what lands on the shelf. Now she's walking through the Foodhall sharing her favourite finds. Nearly 50,000 people followed her within a month of her first video in mid-May, and her profile now sits at over 245,000 followers and 2.7 million likes.

It works because it doesn't feel like marketing. When the person who helped create a product talks about it, you believe her.

Fisayo Longe: when the founder is the brand

Fisayo's story starts from the other direction. She was a fashion and travel blogger from 2012, sourcing fabrics on her trips and designing outfits that her community kept asking to buy. That's the origin of Kai Collective, which she launched in 2016 with an £8,000 loan from her mother.

Here's what I love about it: having the following didn't guarantee sales. She had around 40,000 followers when she launched and said it was a real shock when things didn't take off. It took years of launching, testing, and sharing her journey online before the brand had its first good year in 2019.

And this is where the product story matters. She realised her range wasn't unique enough, so she cut a lot of it and focused on a few pieces. One of them became the Gaia dress, which brought in over $200,000 in its first year, roughly half of the company's sales. By 2021 she'd made the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list for Art & Culture.

What this looks like in Lagos

The same shift is under way at home. Nigeria now has more than 250,000 active creators, according to a mid-year 2026 industry outlook reported by Legit.ng. Micro creators are posting engagement rates of four to six per cent, often ahead of bigger accounts, and the same outlook says brands now want clearer links between creator activity and measurable returns. A face your audience already trusts is the shortest route to that link.

If you want to try it, start here:

• Find the person closest to the product, and let them talk about their work in their own words.

• Fix the product before you film it. Content only amplifies what is already good.

• Give that person a producer and a clear brief.

What they have in common

I keep coming back to two things.

First, visibility builds trust. Whether it's a product director or a founder, a named person who is accountable for the product gives the audience something a campaign can't.

Second, the content only works because the product holds up. Nobody shares a dress or a snack they don't rate. And when Kathryn puts her name and reputation behind a recommendation in public, she raises the bar for the whole team behind it.

I see this all the time in my own work across creators, agencies, and talent. The strongest stories are rarely the ones a brand invents. They're the ones already sitting inside the business, or the founder, with people who know their craft and just need the platform and the format to share it.

So the question I'd leave you with is this: who in your business already has a story people would trust, and are they being seen?

Key Takeaways

• A named, accountable person gives an audience something a campaign can't.

• Followers do not guarantee sales. Kai Collective launched with around 40,000 and needed years to find its feet.

• Nigerian brands are shifting from reach to results, and a trusted face is a shortcut to both.

• Ask who in your business already has a story people would trust, and put them in front of the camera.

Image credits: portraits of Fisayo Longe via Forbes; photo of Kathryn Turner via Grocery Gazette / M&S.