Ashley Pereira: Branding Your Way to Success

Branding is complex, and building a brand does not happen overnight. It requires proper strategy and process implementation to see the light of day. A carefully planned, tested, and ultimately optimized marketing strategy is, first and foremost, to drive revenue growth and help brands become successful. In this era of the digital boom, social media has become a powerful tool that brands are leveraging to be “seen and heard”. The question remains: how do you carry out your business in an efficient manner? The much-needed handholding can be provided by a brand leader who can help you tap into the pulse of the potential customers, their way of thinking, and what exactly they need. Ashley Pereira, a brand and marketing leader and co-Founder of ivrygold, helps businesses drive revenue through authenticity and value-added strategies.    

Finding a Voice   

Ashley’s childhood was far from perfect. She battled with a lot of suppression and abuse. This encouraged her to resolve to help others in similar situations. Even before she delved into marketing, she always wanted to teach people, especially to come out of their shells and find their voice. Marketing happened to Ashley by accident. Shattering all notions that the most opportunistic industries for women were technology and healthcare, she started her career in door-to-door sales more than a decade back. The job taught her to pay attention to the needs of the people and connect with individuals. She went on to hold a recruiting role in the same organization and helped open other branches across the country. While at it, she toyed with the idea of making personal connections with clients and candidates looking to connect with the organization. Slowly and steadily, Ashley took the leap of faith toward entrepreneurship to fulfill her mission of helping brands and people grow.   

Purpose-Driven Brand Journey   

In 2013, Ashley opened a brand agency as a requirement for the franchises that she opened for her previous company, where she helped them understand the market and their target audiences. This is where her first learning about business came from. Earlier this year, she had the idea of helping more people grow better and faster, knowing that it would not be possible if she worked for an employer. She co-founded ivrygold in September to guide individuals and businesses who fit in with what she was striving to do.    

The company provides various services, including revenue growth, brand, and marketing strategy, execution strategy, project management, and personal branding. Ashley’s team helps establish a direct line of contact with the team, customers, prospects, and investors to convey the information that the brand wants to put out by providing unique strategies, solutions, and documentation. Her approach rests on the belief that a shift in the mentality and operations of a business is the need of the hour to act more like a marketing or media company as the world demands right now. To put it simply, strategy and execution are the pillars on which a successful business rests, and ivrygold helps to review, redefine, refresh, and reconnect your brand with your audience.  

Unrivaled Experiences   

Ashley’s passion and drive for brand strategy, understanding why you are doing what you are doing, and executing marketing programs with a focus on brand integrity stems from her rich background and personal experiences. She brings a people-centric approach to her work with values such as brand innovation, open-minded conversations, empathy in leadership, and integrity. Ashley encourages brands to have a personalized connection with the audience with their solutions that will help foster long-term relationships. “A concept without a strategy and a brand without a voice are surefire ways to set your passion and life-changing products and services up for failure,” said Ashley.   

Advocating Mental Health   

This year also saw Ashley launching her own intentional skincare line, Free Skin Co ., which combines her love and passion for skincare with clean ingredients that work for sensitive and acne-prone skin with her drive to improve mental health issues. A victim of child sexual and mental abuse herself, Ashley is a strong advocate of trauma recovery, PTSD, and other related mental health issues and believes that personal care goes beyond just taking care of your outer self. All the products are paraben-free, sulfate-free, organic, vegan, and cruelty-free.    

Ashley has a bigger cause behind starting a skincare line, as she also wants to give back to the community for a cause she strongly feels for. Going through the healing process for seven years now, she realized that there is a lack of access and open communication when it comes to speaking about such issues. COVID-19 made things worse, making the world more isolated, but it encouraged people to come out and talk about the subject on various platforms, prompting Ashley as well to do her part in bringing about a change. Skincare was something that really helped her at the beginning of her mental health journey. Hence, 30% of the profit from all purchases made from the skincare line is donated to organizations helping victims and survivors of childhood sexual abuse, trauma, and PTSD.   

Spreading Kindness   

Ashley feels grateful for being able to live the life she has now, where she can help others. She wishes to create a more positive impact and connect with like-minded individuals through ivrygold, her skincare line, and her connections, as that is the core of her being.    

To the businesswomen starting out, Ashley has one piece of advice: to fearlessly follow your dreams. “Listen to your passions and ignore the naysayers. As women, we hear a lot of things from society and give too much importance to irrelevant noise. Follow the voice of your inner self and push forward with the belief that you can do it. We are blessed with empathy, listening skills, and different communication skills, which we can leverage to move forward. Get help if needed, and just go for it.”