Jason Gunn & Easily Said: From Personal Brand to Business Platform

Jason Gunn’s Easily Said brand architecture is a great example of a personal brand and business brand working together - rather than competing with each other.

When Jason came to us at These Guys I Know, he was operating simply as Jason Gunn. Which makes sense - Jason already had decades of trust, profile and connection with audiences across New Zealand. But as he made the transition from broadcast into business, there was a bigger strategic question to answer.

Because while personal brands can be incredibly powerful, they can also create limitations. Everything sits under one name. Every opportunity, every project and every new idea becomes tied directly to the individual. Jason Gunn’s digital journey was complex, erratic, wonderful, complicated - taking a visitor through a history of topics and events related to Jason Gunn - before finding the business offering. 

So, rather than building more Jason Gunn, we advised a different business strategy: create a separate business brand - Easily Said. Founded by Jason Gunn, but distinct from Jason Gunn.

This shift was also about creating something that Jason could build equity and meaning in. The “Easily Said” brand is a valuable asset.  Meanwhile Jason’s personal brand - the credibility, profile and trust he’d built over years - could be leveraged to help drive awareness and growth. 

Easily Said is a business with its own equity, its own potential and room to scale beyond a single person. This was the intention behind These Guys I Know’s strategy. 

Easily Said captures the ease and heartfelt style that Jason brings, and then teaches others to deliver it. Because - as Jason often says - when you’re speaking from the heart, with true authenticity in play, words and communication really do become much more easily said.

Visually, the brand itself was designed to feel colourful, warm and approachable - unmistakably Jason in personality. But underneath it sat some serious strategic thinking around growth and structure.

Since developing Easily Said for Jason, the business has gone from strength to strength. Jason has delivered the Easily Said approach across New Zealand and internationally, and it’s been great to see it take on a life of its own.

The beauty of this approach is that both brands can play different roles. Jason’s personal brand remains free to do Jason things - cricket chats, lawn mowing updates, dentist appointment observations and all the everyday stuff people love him for!  Meanwhile Easily Said can focus on growing a business with its own distinct strategy and future.

Too often people think it’s a choice between building a personal brand or a business brand. As brand strategists These Guys I Know work with founders to determine the best strategic and long term approach for brand architecture. 

Jason’s journey shows something more useful: as a founder, your personal brand is one of the most powerful advocacy tools for your business - and your business brand, when built well, strengthens and extends your personal credibility in return.

When building Easily Said, one of the most powerful tools used for the B2B market was LinkedIn -  so it’s great to see Jason speaking at LinkedIn Local, an event for LinkedIn community members in August at Smales Farm! Find out more https://www.linkedinlocalauckland.nz/events