Brand Monkey: who are we?

Amazon can be a confusing jungle, with its huge range of opportunities available and ever-changing updates to keep us on our toes (don’t we know it!). But when you’ve got a question about it, who can you ask? You want a real person, not a robot, who can answer your questions with no judgement. That’s where we come in – Brand Monkey: who are we?

 

Born out of excitement for the growth that Amazon continued to be gaining and seeing just how powerful a brand can be on the platform, Brand Monkey was the brainchild of Daniel Waite and launched back in April 2019.

Daniel had been working in the USA, spending 15 years in the Photographic and Video Industry, and with his work visa coming to an end he found himself at a crossroads. Should he continue his journey in the corporate world back in the UK, or take a risk and start his own company?

Having already managed a 7-figure business on Amazon for 13 years, he decided it was time for a bit of research. Industries like Makeup, Food and Health were about to kick off with some major growth, so where better place to start? The information he discovered through various interviews and online research really started to confirm his theory; it was time to go it alone!

Well, not alone per say. With the help of his mentor of 20+ years who he managed to dust off from retirement, Terry Carey, plus his sister and two daughters (who do you think helped come up with the name and brand colours), they set about building the business.

Where did the name come from?

Any business owner reading this will know the importance of a good brand name – and just how tricky it can be to come up with something catchy that, more importantly, you actually like. So how did Daniel come up with ours?

‘Any of my closest friends will tell you I have an affinity for cars. One day my sister joked that I should try and play on the brand “Gas Monkey”, a popular TV show in the US that I enjoy watching. Oh, how we laughed…hang on a minute…

Navigating the Amazon jungle I thought was certainly relevant to the word ‘monkey’, but what to use instead of gas? Given my obsession with brands was almost equal to cars, a little switcheroo and Brand Monkey was formed.’

It’s funny how these things come about, isn’t it?

The logo then came naturally; a cheeky little face wrapping his arms around the word ‘Brand’ to represent that we look after all brands as if they were our own, carrying them through the jungle. Plus you can’t really have ‘monkey’ in your brand without, well, a monkey!

The innocence of children

Family is important to us so what better opportunity to get them involved in the birth of the business than by letting them choose the brand colours. Daniel’s two daughters were more than happy to help by offering up their favourite suggestions. His eldest, Isabella, chose orange – what are the chances? It certainly wasn’t chosen based on the plan to work with Amazon sellers, just pure coincidence!

His youngest daughter, Alyssa, who was 5 at the time, chose brown because of the monkey. She certainly wouldn’t pick that now. The monkey would have been several different colours if she’d been asked again over the last 2 years…

Why would businesses choose us?

Starting a business is scary, exciting, nerve-wracking, motivating – all of that. But we knew that in order to succeed we had to offer what others sometimes don’t; honesty.

Aside from us being real life human beings (and with winning personalities, we like to think), we know how painful it can be to sell on Amazon. We don’t like to cover things in candyfloss and rainbows; Amazon is marmite. We never sell any client on the virtues of Amazon or force it to happen, especially if they feel they need to be convinced to sell on there.

Our team have racked up years of pain management when it comes to running Amazon accounts. We can quickly identify the difficulties ahead, particularly when maneuvering through existing retail or distribution channels alongside selling on Amazon. In fact, Daniel even had to deal with the FBA for counterfeit products at one point! We see Brand Monkey as the sword and shield for our clients, battling the everyday Amazon so they can focus on their business and brand.

Collectively, Terry and Daniel have over 50 years experience in running businesses and have also both held Senior positions in Manufacturing, Sales and Distribution. This wealth of experience allows us to see things from all sides, offering more value and insight into sales and e-commerce strategies that help support our clients decision to sell on Amazon.

Where are we now?

Little did we know when starting this business that there was a pandemic looming that would affect us all. Daniel saw the industry he came from hit hard and watched many of the businesses he had visited around the world crumble. Feeling lucky to make the change in career when he did, he marched forward with Brand Monkey.

‘I immediately saw a pickup in service demand and quickly found myself going from simply developing the brand to managing incoming opportunities thick and fast, a truly lucky position to be in. Clients were restructuring their e-commerce strategies and Amazon’s growth in 2019 and 2020 was unprecedented. Very few industries, if any, saw the type of growth Amazon enjoyed. Businesses had to re-think their route to market, speeding up Brand Monkey’s development dramatically and much faster than anticipated.’

Over the last two and a half years, we’ve gone from a simple startup to managing brands around the world, with liaison offices in the USA, Hong Kong and Australia. Brand Monkey quickly became recognised as a leader in marketplace management and is now officially listed on the Amazon Service Provider Network and the Amazon Advertising Partner Network – go us!

This year things have gotten even more exciting – we’ve hired some new team members! After two days of interviews (there are some seriously talented people out there), we’ve managed to nab some exciting individuals to help us move forward.

So what can we do to help you?

We built Brand Monkey around some core services and operations; expert consultancy, brand management and product procurement. If you’re looking for any help with your business on Amazon, we’re able to handle full management of your account, including strategic consultancy, listing products, registering your brand and developing your store and A+ content, optimisation and SEO, as well as Amazon Advertising.

That’s not all – we don’t just help with the ins and outs. Having good quality media and brand visibility has become even more key in sales, and we just so happen to have our very own Brand Monkey crew with all the in-house equipment you need to produce high quality content that will make you stand out. We can offer:

• Product and brand photography
• Film and audio production for social campaigns, TV adverts, documentary, live streaming or feature length films
• PR & brand communications
• Crowdfunding management – our first Kickstarter campaign raised over $800k for our client. whilst our current campaign has seen it become the most funded camera light in Kickstarter history!
• Digital marketing

If you see something here that takes your fancy, we’re just a phone call or an email away. Contact us and let’s see what we can do to help you.