You can't build a real brand with fake values

Branding can’t fix a broken culture.

A brand is more than a logo or tagline. It’s identity.

It’s not what you say in a deck, but what you live through culture, values, behavior.
Not just what you design, but how you decide.

So when a company rebrands, it’s not just a design project. It’s a declaration of who they are—and who they want us to believe they are.

---

Since I shared that I lost my job, many people have asked what happened.

And while I’ve been hesitant to go into details, I knew I had to speak the truth.

Not to name and shame, but to speak to the people silently navigating the same dynamics, and open a conversation I believe we all need to have.

This isn’t just about one job. It’s about an entire industry where branding is too often a costume for cultures that refuse to do the real work—where image wins out over integrity, and performance replaces leadership.

The illusion of a rebrand

A rebrand, done right, is a chance to realign identity.
To revisit who you are, what you believe, and how you show up—inside and out. It’s not just an aesthetic refresh. It’s a cultural reset.

So when I joined the company, I was genuinely excited. I thought we were about to lay the foundation for something meaningful, starting from the inside out: mission, vision, values, brand pillars. The basics of any story rooted in truth.

Instead, the rebrand was scoped as a surface-level facelift. New homepage. New logo.

I quickly realized: the goal wasn’t to build something real. It was to look like we had.

No interest in coherence, just optics. No desire for depth, just speed.

When I tried to initiate deeper conversations about alignment or strategy, I was met with deflection, resistance, or vague encouragement to "do it in the background" while prioritizing whatever could move numbers in the next 48 hours.
They said they wanted both. But the truth was clear: quick wins always won.

The deeper I got, the clearer it became—this wasn’t just a brand problem. It was a leadership problem.

Culture eats brand for breakfast

This company sells communication—but internally, communication was broken.

The contradictions were everywhere:

"We need to move fast." But every decision was micromanaged, validated by 3 layers, or walked back.

"You’re here to lead." But I wasn’t consulted on key decisions—or even informed.

"You have full autonomy." But even my slack messages and my personal linkedin posts had to be pre-approved or rewritten.

Like being hired as a driver, only to be told to sit in the back seat—while still being blamed for the route.

Speed was prized over sense. Ego over expertise. Decisions were made to please the top, not empower the team.

I was asked to urgently source and onboard a new SEO agency—approval was granted, contracts kicked off, teams aligned. Then, out of nowhere: a complete reversal. “We’re going with the old agency after all.” One I hadn’t recommended, and they didn’t even like. But it became my responsibility to make it work.

Or our designer—hired for bold vision, but buried in daily reactive asks. When it came time to present the future-state brand: “Where’s the vision?”

Dysfunction on loop: sabotage the process, blame the person, repeat.

Big brand decisions were routinely made without consulting the people who built it. Experienced team members were ignored. Context was dismissed. External consultants were brought in, given carte blanche to make sweeping changes that didn’t work. Then it was on the team to clean up the mess.

It wasn’t dysfunction by accident. It was systemic—baked into how decisions were made, how trust was distributed, and how people were treated.

Leadership seemed more interested in optics than outcomes.
Winning, not building.
Looking good, not doing good.
Snap decisions were the norm.

People were let go without real reasons. Team members reshuffled like chess pieces.
Leaders asked for input, but ignored voices that didn’t echo their own. Accountability was demanded from the bottom, but never modeled at the top.

What they called a "fast-paced environment" was really a culture of manufactured urgency—reactive, short-sighted, and allergic to real strategy.

When you’re asked to build a story that isn’t true

I can handle pace. I can handle pressure. But I can’t brand a lie.

That’s what this started to feel like. Selling a story I didn’t believe in. Polishing optics over integrity.

It’s not just that the homepage didn’t reflect the company.
It’s that the company didn’t reflect anything it claimed to be.

That dissonance erodes your instincts. You wonder if you’re being “too sensitive.”
If maybe, you’re the problem.

I’ve never felt less agency in a role.
I had to constantly ask for permission, navigate a child-parent dynamic where disagreement felt like disobedience, tread carefully, and second-guess myself.

And this is the gaslighting effect of working in a toxic system.

The real cost wasn’t my job. It was the erosion of self-trust.

At some point, I started to wonder if maybe this was the norm—and I had just been lucky. Maybe I was “spoiled” in my last job.
My parents even said this was good training for the real world.
Builds character, they said. Thickens your skin.

But the more I sat with it, the clearer it became: this wasn’t character-building—it was soul-sucking.

And no, it’s not too much to ask for decency and respect.
It’s not naive to want a job where your nervous system isn’t constantly on edge. Especially in branding and creative work—where we’re asked to take risks, speak truth, and make meaning—psychological safety isn’t a luxury. It’s a prerequisite.

This isn’t about one company

I wish this was a one-off. It’s not.

Since I started sharing my story, I’ve spoken to too many friends and strangers who are living this exact same loop.
Different names. Same pattern.

What I experienced was part of a bigger pattern: a leadership culture obsessed with speed, control, and optics—at the cost of people, systems, and sustainability.

We call it hustle. We call it startup life. We call it “just how it is.”

But it’s not normal. And it’s not okay.

What we normalize, we reinforce

But I’ve seen the other side, too.

I’ve worked at companies where the brand did match the culture. Where feedback was safe, values were real, and the result was a brand that didn’t need a costume.

So no, it doesn’t have to be this way.

To founders and execs:

You are the brand.
Not the logo. Not the homepage. Not your font or deck.

You.

The way you listen—or don’t.
The way you treat people when no one’s watching.
The way you handle disagreement, feedback, or failure.

If your leadership culture is driven by ego, fear, or optics, your team feels it. And eventually—your customers will feel it too. It’s not just a culture issue. It’s a brand equity issue. A retention issue. A reputational risk.

It’ll hurt your brand, and your bottom line.

To brand leaders, creatives, and employees:

Your discomfort is data. And your integrity is not a liability—it’s leadership.

Your refusal to tolerate broken systems is not naïve—it’s necessary.

We reclaim our voice the moment we stop branding lies.

We create change by refusing to play along

I know it’s scary to speak up. To walk away. To risk being seen as “difficult.”

I’ve wrestled with whether saying any of this would come back to bite me. Whether telling the truth would be seen as “burning a bridge” or being “unprofessional.”

But silence is what keeps broken systems in place.

Because when you work in environments that erode your confidence, strip your agency, or compromise your integrity—there’s always a cost. And it’s not just professional.

We can’t keep branding dysfunctional cultures as if they’re normal—because when we do, we become complicit in our own burnout.

Real change begins when we stop polishing the surface, and start rebuilding from the core.

---

I lost a job—
but I reclaimed something far more important: my voice.

That’s the only kind of rebrand that really matters.

Big love,
Joei

P.S. If this hit home—I’d love to hear how. Leave a comment, reply directly, or share it with someone who might need it.