Dani Kimble

Two years into running my marketing business, I almost quit.

Not because I lacked clients - but because I was buried in one-off requests for ads, SEO, and lead gen.

The problem?

Most of those tactics were built on shaky ground. 

No positioning. No story. No brand foundation. Which meant no real scalability.

So in 2023, I rebuilt my business around what was missing: brand strategy.

And in 2025, I layered in AI to help clients actually execute that strategy.

Today, I help businesses stop wasting money on disjointed marketing and instead:

Build a brand foundation worth recommending
Create a strategy that scales with them
Activate their story with an AI-powered system that turns strategy into consistent, on-brand execution

My core work:

Brand Audit – diagnose strengths + gaps
Brand Strategy – positioning, messaging, POV, story
Brand Activation + AI – a clear marketing plan + custom GPTs trained on your brand to help your team execute

Because brand strategy alone isn’t enough.

And AI alone is just noise.

But brand + AI together? That’s the multiplier that makes marketing work.

👉 Visit azeliestudio.com or DM me to see how your brand can run smarter, not harder.

Fractional CMO

5 kids later, and I finally gave myself permission to take a real maternity leave.

With my first four, I was back at my laptop within weeks. 

Answering emails from the hospital bed. 
Hopping on calls between feedings. 
3AM work sessions while everyone was asleep.

I wore the hustle like a badge of honor.

Baby #5? He slowed me down in the best way. 

He's almost a year old now - and for the first time, we've truly been home. 

Did I still tinker during nap times? Of course. 😉

Taking on a few little projects. Experimenting with AI. Posting here and there. Sending my weekly newsletter. Studying and obsessing over where branding and marketing are headed. (What a time to be in this industry!)

But those things? They filled me up. 

They didn't feel like obligations. They were curiosities I got to explore on my own terms.

The difference between "I have to" and "I want to" is everything.

I used to measure success by how quickly I could "bounce back."

Now I'm realizing success might look more like staying still long enough to actually rest and enjoy the season you're in.

To the families wrestling with that same guilt - it's okay to redefine what this chapter looks like for you.

You're not falling behind. (I know it can feel that way...)

You're exactly where you need to be. ♥️

P.S. Feeling ready (and really excited) to tip-toe back into a balanced work mode for 2026 - rested, with our little crew settled into a good rhythm here. Here we go!

Brand & Marketing Strategist @ Azelie Studio

"Do minifigures sleep with their eyes open?"

That's how the LEGO Group opens a job posting.

They're hiring a writer for their customer experience team. And look at the real customer questions they lead with:

"What are you doing to protect the polar bears?"

"Are there minifigures with prosthetic limbs?"

"My kid wants to know if minifigures sleep with their eyes open."

And then this: "If questions like these make you smile instead of sweat, you'll click perfectly with our team."

This is not corporate HR speak.

But here's the line that really got me...

Buried near the bottom:

"Children are our role models. Their curiosity, creativity and imagination inspire everything we do."

That right there is the culture filter.

More than a copywriter, they're hiring someone who sees the world through play.

The hiring manager literally says you might spend your day "playing with LEGO bricks for research." 

Most companies display values on a wall and call it culture. Then post job descriptions that sound like they were written by a compliance bot.

LEGO wove their entire brand philosophy into a job posting.

Warmth. 
Empathy. 
Imagination. 
Curiosity.

Not efficiency metrics. Not deflection tactics.

No wonder their customer service team is one of the most beloved in the world.

Job postings are brand moments. Most companies treat them like paperwork.

What does yours say about your culture when no one's watching?

📸 Pictured: the Kimble R&D department hard at work. ;)

Skull logos. Tallboy cans. A tagline that says "Murder Your Thirst."

This is a water company. Valued at $1.4 billion.

Liquid Death built a billion-dollar brand by doing something most companies are terrified to do:

They rejected everything their category stood for.

Every other water brand plays the same game. Clean. Pure. Blue. Natural. Soft pastels. Earthy imagery.

Liquid Death looked at all of it and said... nah.

Heavy metal fonts. Cans that look like they should come with a hangover. "Death to Plastic" as a rallying cry.

The water itself? Completely unremarkable.

The brand? Impossible to ignore.

Look at this ad below....

They're not trying to win over Michael W. They're using him to attract the people who think his disgust is hilarious. 

When we build brand strategy, one of my favorite exercises is mapping the trade-offs. What your brand refuses to be. What customers you're okay losing.

Most companies try to appeal to everyone... and end up blending into the noise.

Liquid Death made a different bet: Be sooo specific that some people hate you... and the rest become obsessed.

So, what are your trade-offs? What's your brand saying no to?

January 5th: New year, fresh goals, ready to finally get ahead.

January 21st: 5 of 7 Kimbles have been down with a virus, one by one. Sick days. Snow days. Early dismissals. Zero routine. Winter break vibes are back. 😅

I used to think the goal was to find the rhythm. Get the routine locked in. Then the real work could begin.

Turns out, there is no "normal" week waiting on the other side.

Most days actually hum along just fine. But I'm learning to build a life that bends when it needs to... and that's not plan B. That's just... how it works now.

The margins are where the magic happens for me. The 90 minutes at wrestling practice. The work sessions during nap times. The early mornings before the house wakes up.

Perfect conditions aren't coming. And I think I'm finally okay with that.

So to the ones already re-adjusting their 2026 goals:

Same. ♥️

How's your January going... really?

P.S. They're all back to school today (we'll see if anyone calls home 🤞). Even managed to sneak this lunch box note in for my daughter - the real priority this morning. Ha!

Nobody budgets for confusion. But everyone pays for it.

I talked to a CEO last month who'd cycled through three marketing directors in 5 years.

She said each one "just didn't get the brand."

I asked for their brand materials to do an audit.

What I got back was a target market bio and a few ad samples:

CFO
age 45-48
Husband and father of 2
Listens to business podcasts
Attends industry conferences

The ads? Generic stock photos and taglines that could've belonged to any competitor.

That was it. The entire brand foundation.

No story. No stakes. No reason a prospect would choose them over anyone else.

So every new hire started from scratch. Every campaign needed six rounds of feedback because "it doesn't feel right." The sales team was making up their own pitch on the fly - and every call sounded different.

Here's the thing no one talks about:

Clarity is infrastructure.

You can't build momentum on a foundation that shifts every time someone new walks in.

Confusion doesn't show up as a line item on the balance sheet. It shows up as prospects who can't explain you to their boss. As talent that leaves because the vision keeps changing. As years spinning instead of scaling.

Three directors. 5 years. And the real cost wasn't in the severance... it was in the momentum they never got to build.

Confusion tax at its finest.

P.S. 📸 The Kimble creative department hard at work... and also what your sales team looks like without brand clarity. ;)

There's a sentence haunting professional services websites.

I spotted it six times last week doing a bit of market research.

Insurance. Accounting. Engineering. Each one a slightly different version of the exact same thing.

"We're committed to providing exceptional service tailored to your unique needs."

And of course... it had friends.

"Your success is our success."
"A client-first approach to everything we do."
"Trusted by clients for over X years."
"We take the time to understand your business."

At this point, I'm convinced there's a secret "About Us" generator that every professional services firm uses.

Most corporate messaging is the verbal equivalent of beige.

Words that technically mean something... but just don't land.

Neuroscience actually backs this up: concrete language is recalled 4x better than abstract language.

"We offer personalized insurance solutions." ...forgettable.

"When a client's warehouse flooded at 2am, we had an adjuster onsite by sunrise." ...sticky.

Your brain literally can't hold onto vague. It needs texture. Specificity. Story. Something it can see.

And yet... most companies default to the same safe technical language because it feels "credible."

But that version of "credible" gets lumped in with the other five companies who all sound exactly the same.

The irony?

These companies do incredible work. They've saved businesses, protected families, helped clients sleep at night.

But none of that comes through when their brand messaging sounds like everyone else's.

The work is specific. The words should be too.

What's the worst offender you've seen on a company website? (Bonus points if it mentions "leveraging cutting-edge technology" ...unironically.)

Bay Oaks Group, Inc.

Wholesale broker specializing in self-insured workers' compensation programs and self-insured liability plans for public entities

President, Wholesale Brokerage

Epic Intermediaries, Inc.

President

Self-Funded Alternatives

Wholesale broker of self-insured worker's compensation programs

Vice President

I am an unabashed insurance nerd who has worked as a wholesale broker since I joined the industry in 1997. I help retail insurance agents evaluate, develop and maintain comprehensive and cost-effective self-insurance programs for their clients. I actively work with both individual and group programs in the public and private sectors. In support of these programs, I:

- Develop individualized feasibility studies to retail agents and employers who are interested in evaluating self-insurance as an alternative to their current insurance programs.

-  Help prospective self-insurers complete and file state-mandated forms required for regulatory approval of their self-insurance programs.

- Assemble a team of vendor service providers to support the self-insurer's program. 

- Evaluate service providers and negotiate contracts with those providers. 

- Secure insurance coverages and negotiate collateral requirements necessary to establish and protect the self-insurance plan. 

- Provide ongoing support and oversight of the self-insurance program.

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Dani Kimble

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The Battle

Dani Kimble

Vince (Vincent) Capaldi

Followers

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Dani Kimble's LinkedIn Performance

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