For today’s THRIVE Influencer collaboration, we have with us Mena Nathaniel, Founder and CEO of Mena Nath Media, an integrated marketing and communications agency she started after quitting her 9-5 job in corporate Lagos in 2024.

Since founding the agency, Mena has handled campaigns for brands including Samsung Nigeria, realme, vivo Nigeria, and Minimie Noodles by Spice360.

But today’s conversation is not just about campaigns or the brands she has worked with. It is about the mindset behind building African communications that can compete globally. People often say Africans do not tell enough stories, and maybe that is why parts of our history, identity, and business journeys are easily lost or overlooked. But for Mena, storytelling is not something brands should wait to do after they have “made it.” It is a business tool that helps brands shape perception, build trust, and become memorable.

So, what does it really take to build communications that can travel beyond borders?

Let’s hear from Mena.

I think the biggest thing holding us back is our mindset.

When I say, “We shouldn’t still be doing this in 2026,” I am talking about the way we think about marketing and communications. We should not still believe that the safest way to win is to copy what someone else has already done.

There is a difference between learning from great work and simply recreating it. Inspiration helps industries grow, but imitation weakens brands.

If I took your logo off your campaign and no one could tell it belonged to your brand, then we have missed an opportunity to build something distinctive.

That one is a word.

Another thing holding us back is that we are still looking outward for validation. We often assume the best ideas have to come from New York, London, or Paris, when I honestly believe some of the best ideas in the world can come from right here in Africa.

Why?

Because we understand our people better than anyone else. We understand our cultures, our languages, our humour, our music, and the everyday experiences that shape how people connect with brands.

We spend too much time asking, “What are brands in New York or London doing?” when we should be asking, “What conversations are happening in Lagos, Nairobi, Kigali, Accra, or Johannesburg that only we truly understand?”

That is where original work comes from. That is how we stop following trends and start creating culture.

I do not want Mena Nath Media to be seen as just another PR agency.

I want us to be seen as a strategic communications partner.

Clients do not come to us simply because they need influencers or content. They come because they have a business challenge they need to solve. So the first question we ask is not, “Which influencers should we use?” It is, “What business problem are we trying to solve?”

PR and influencer marketing are not the goal. They are tools.

If we do not understand the real challenge, we could execute a beautiful campaign that does not move the business forward.

That is why we are an integrated marketing communications agency. We do not believe brands should approach PR, influencer marketing, digital, or brand strategy in silos. The best campaigns happen when every touchpoint works together to achieve one clear business objective.

Before any campaign goes live, we ask ourselves this: “What is the one thing we want people to remember about this brand?”

If we cannot answer that clearly, then we are not ready.

Because we are a founder-led agency, I am personally involved in the strategy behind every project. I am not handing clients a template or recycling ideas that worked for someone else.

Every brand has a different challenge, so every solution should be tailored to that challenge.

At the end of the day, we are not attached to tactics, we are attached to outcomes.

I actually agree that proven models reduce risk. Every industry has best practices, and I do not think there is anything wrong with learning from success.

The mistake is assuming that because something worked for one brand, it will automatically work for yours.

Innovation is often misunderstood. It is not always about creating something that has never been done before. Sometimes, it is about changing the way people experience something.

A good example is Call of My Life. It could have been marketed like many other film releases. The traditional route would have been trailer, premiere, press rounds, trending sounds, and dance.

Instead, the campaign focused on creating conversations that got people emotionally invested in the story before they watched the film.

The movie did not change. The thinking behind how it was presented did.

And I think that is where innovation lives.

Consumers are exposed to thousands of messages every day. The brands they remember are not always the ones with the biggest campaigns. They are the ones that communicate something distinctive.

So I do not think businesses have to choose between following what works and innovating. Learn from what works. Understand why it worked. Then build something unmistakably your own.

That is how great brands are built.

The biggest misconception is that PR starts when you have something to announce.

It does not.

PR starts long before the press release, the media interview, or the influencer campaign. It starts with how your business is positioned, how you communicate, how you respond during difficult moments, and what people consistently experience every time they interact with your brand.

That is why I always say, “PR is not about publicity. It is about perception.”

You can get featured on every major publication, trend on social media, and work with the biggest influencers, but if people still do not understand who you are or why they should trust you, then you have generated attention, not reputation.

There is a difference.

I also think people separate PR, branding, and marketing too much, when in reality, they should work together.

Your brand is your promise. PR shapes how people perceive that promise. Marketing communicates it to the right audience.

When those three things are aligned, you do not just get visibility. You build credibility.

And credibility is what drives long-term growth.

That is why I do not see communications as a support function. I see it as a business function.

I think Nigeria has already proven that it can export culture and media.

Afrobeats is global. Nollywood is reaching audiences far beyond Africa. Our fashion, food, and creators continue to gain international recognition.

So the question is not whether we have something worth exporting. We have already answered that.

The real gap is the machinery that helps great ideas scale.

By machinery, I mean business infrastructure: distribution, licensing, intellectual property, partnerships, and the systems that allow a brand, film, or piece of media to travel beyond its home market.

We have the talent. We have the creativity. What we need is stronger infrastructure to carry both further.

You see it in music. Sometimes a brilliant record does not become a global success, not because the song was not good enough, but because the distribution, timing, or industry support was not there.

I think the same applies to brands and media.

Our next challenge is not creating more great work. It is building the systems that allow great work to scale.

The world is already paying attention. Now we need to make sure what we build can travel as far as it deserves to.

I think the biggest reason is survival mode.

A lot of founders here are so focused on keeping the business alive, chasing revenue, managing cash flow, and solving the next operational fire that documenting the journey feels like a luxury they cannot afford.

Storytelling gets treated as something you do once you have “made it,” instead of something you build alongside the business from day one.

But by the time a founder feels ready to tell their story, they have usually forgotten half the details that would have made it compelling in the first place.

There is also a cultural humility around it. Many of us were raised to believe that talking about your wins is showing off and that the work should speak for itself.

I understand where that comes from, but it has a cost.

Silence does not protect you. It just means someone else gets to define your story, or worse, nobody tells it at all.

That part is so important.

Your story is often the reason someone chooses to trust you over a competitor with a similar product. It is the reason investors remember you, customers feel connected enough to stay loyal, and talent wants to work with you.

When you do not document that, you are not just missing a nice-to-have. You are leaving out one of the most persuasive tools you have.

I do not think storytelling is about saying more.

I think it is about saying the right thing, to the right people, at the right time.

That is how we approach every campaign.

Before anything goes live, we make sure the story is authentic to the brand, relevant to the audience, and aligned with the business objective.

If those three things are not in place, no amount of creative execution will fix it.

I do not think it was one defining moment. It was a gradual shift that became clearer when I started Mena Nath Media.

Early in my career, I thought communications was about creating content, getting coverage, and running successful campaigns.

But the more I worked with brands, the more I realized the real conversations were not about content. They were about business.

Clients were not just asking, “How do we get more visibility?” They were trying to build trust, enter new markets, manage reputation, or change perception.

That completely changed how I approached my work.

I stopped asking, “How do we get people talking?” and started asking, “What business problem are we trying to solve?”

Starting Mena Nath Media reinforced that mindset. Becoming a founder made me realize that every business decision communicates something.

Your positioning, your pricing, the partnerships you pursue, even the clients you choose, all shape how your brand is perceived.

Once I saw that, I could not unsee it.

I hope people say Mena Nath Media helped raise the standard for communications in Africa.

I want us to be part of the reason communications stopped being seen as an afterthought and started being recognized as a strategic business function.

I want more brands to think beyond publicity and start asking better questions about reputation, positioning, and long-term value.

I also want us to help shift the perception of African agencies. For too long, we have looked outside the continent for the benchmark. I want Mena Nath Media to prove that African agencies can produce world-class strategy, lead conversations, and influence how communications is practiced, not just here, but globally.

That is the legacy I am intentionally building.

Not just a successful agency, but one that raised expectations: what clients should demand, what agencies should deliver, and what African communications can become.

Stop chasing every trend just to stay visible.

Not every moment needs your brand’s voice in it, and trying to be everywhere makes you forgettable, not memorable.

A lot of young professionals mistake activity for strategy. They jump on every trending sound or topic because it feels productive, when really it is just noise that disappears the next day.

Visibility without a clear point of view does not build anything that lasts.

And never stop paying attention to the people you are trying to reach.

The best work I have ever built came from genuinely understanding an audience, not from a brief or a template.

That instinct does not come from a course or a certification. It comes from staying curious, watching how people actually talk, what they actually care about, and building from that instead of from what worked somewhere else.

If you take nothing else from this, take that.

Chase relevance, not attention.

And never lose curiosity about the people you are speaking to, because that is the one thing no one can teach you and no one can take from you.

Mena Nathaniel’s story is a reminder that communications is not just about being seen. It is about being understood, trusted, remembered, and positioned clearly enough for people to know why your brand matters.

Through Mena Nath Media, she is building a different kind of communications agency, one that does not treat PR, influencer marketing, branding, or media strategy as isolated tactics, but as tools that should serve a real business objective.

For founders, creators, and businesses, the lesson is clear: stop chasing attention without direction. Build a point of view. Tell your story early. Understand your audience deeply. And most importantly, create work that is not just visible, but relevant.

Till next time,

Team Thrive

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