Ayoola Salako is a multimedia storyteller and marketing professional with a track record of successful executions across editorial, brand storytelling, and user acquisition campaigns. His strong interest in creative storytelling and technology has led him to work for top brands and publishers in multiple countries. Currently, he leads marketing operations and storytelling efforts in LemFi’s mission of making International Payments accessible to everyone.
- Explain your job to a five-year-old
My job is to make pictures and videos of the cool things my friends and I do, and then show them to people, like our friends and family, using the internet or any other means. This helps them know about our business so they can come and buy from us.
- How do you adapt your storytelling approach for different clients?
I adapt my storytelling by looking for the most effective way to tell the business’s story. I find references on the internet that are closest to the client’s needs, whether they are crazy or sane, and then I use those references to guide the storytelling.
- What’s your process for collaborating with clients who may not have a clear vision for their project?
I ask a lot of questions to understand what the client truly needs, even if they don’t have a clear vision. I find something that is the safest option to tell their story, present a few references that match what they might be looking for, and then work with them to choose the direction that fits best.
- What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in remote collaboration on multimedia projects?
The biggest challenges in remote collaboration are dealing with bandwidth issues and the lack of very detail-oriented talents among media producers. Often, production companies and agencies don’t understand why I need content in specific formats or durations, which complicates the process.
- Beyond production, how do you measure the success of a storytelling project?
I measure success based on the impact and how well people can relate to the story. For example, I once worked on a documentary about a traditional bone healer that led someone from the US to come to Nigeria to visit the healer. I also look at how organically a story spreads and resonates with audiences, as with a campaign I did that went viral because people thought it was part of a TV show, not an ad.
- What exciting things are you working on now?
Right now, I’m excited about the transition I’ve made in my career, which is quite unique. I’ve moved from being purely a brand storyteller to taking on a more strategic role that involves not only crafting narratives but also integrating project management, legal compliance, and data analysis into my work.
This evolution happened as I started working on a market expansion campaign in Ghana, where I realized that my role was expanding beyond just creating content. I found myself asking the “so what?” question—essentially ensuring that every piece of content or strategy directly ties into specific metrics or goals.
My current focus is on blending my storytelling background with growth strategies, working closely with various teams like product, engineering, data, legal, and finance. This multidimensional role allows me to contribute to more intentional and metric-driven campaigns, making my work both challenging and fulfilling.
- What does the future look like?
The future for me would be to find a unique blend for what I do. In sub-Saharan Africa, there are no companies that are focused on data-conscious storytelling. As a creative person, while it’s very easy to focus on the promotion part of marketing, it’s also easy to forget about on of the other Ps of marketing, pricing. I think I’d like to see myself as a business-conscious creative director.
- Given your love of documentaries, what story would you jump at the chance to tell, given the opportunity?
I would love to tell the story of a wildlife ranger in a park. I want to follow them and document their lives, understanding what inspires them to protect wildlife and what their day-to-day life is like.
We don’t get to see a lot of that in West Africa. We’ll often see these stories told in Kenya or East Africa, even Southern Africa, but those stories are needed here.
- You describe yourself as a “Student of the internet”—can you share a recent online discovery that blew your mind, related to storytelling or technology?
Recently, I learned about different home automation protocols like Zigby and Z-Wave, which allow devices to communicate without Wi-Fi. This was a big discovery for me because I always thought everything relied on Wi-Fi.
In storytelling, I discovered James Tulland on YouTube, who tells life stories from a unique point of view, such as what life is like for a great white shark, highlighting how much we still don’t know about the ocean.