When Oscar Met SMart. A Classic Branding Love Story - (R)evolution Day 421 / 10.05.2019

This post should have been up yesterday, on a Thursday. But as with all things that happen in life, this too had room for change. So, what's this you're reading? A classic love story. A branding story, that is!All brands have an origin story. The reason of why they come to be is captured in words and storytold to the ones listening. It's their raison d'être, the behind-the-scenes every dedicated follower wants to know and learn about. All the stories are mostly being told AFTER the brand gets famous. All the stories come AFTER the journey, but no one tells the story AS IT'S BEING WRITTEN by the exact events it tells about.Gary Vaynerchuk calls it documenting. I call it brand storytelling. And I agree with Gary. All stories need to be told as they unfold. It's the classic Hero's Journey. The path where the novice becomes apprentice and then master. It's a story about evolution. And in today's age, about digital brand evolution.It doesn't stop when you get "there". You don't get to "arrive". Stories are forever. Brands are the heroes of stories, and they are constantly evolving, becoming.It's like when Oscar met SMart. Instant chemistry! You know that moment: the timing is just right, ideas and situations collide, and all of a sudden you lock eyes, hands and bodies. But that's about humans. Let's get back to brands.What is a brand? It is the impression you or the story you tell have on the audience. Before it came out to meet SMart, Oscar was a kitten in real life. Yup! Oscar started from a baby cat that happened to lay it's beautiful baby blue eyes into mine... SMart Choice Lifestyle. Just like this!So! This is the time when Oscar met SMart! But it wasn't the time for OSCAR & SMart to come into the picture. At least not yet!Let's go a little further back, to November 5th, 2010. That was the night that my first big project came to life: Shapes Photography. As the name says, it was a photography blog that came out of my passion of visually storytelling (shocker, I know! Me?! Talking about stories?! Neah! You couldn't associate the term with me, huh?! 😉😁). Most of my activity being freelancing and / or personal projects, it went on and off for about five years.November 2013 saw the day when the kitten went home with me, under the name Oscar. And he was (IS!!) loved as much as possible until I had to help the guy I had a relationship back then feel better from his asthma. A cat only made things worse. So, after only five months with Oscar in my arms, on March 2014, we took it to be outdoors, at his house. Not even two weeks had passed, and I found out that Oscar got killed under the stair by a neighbourhood dog. So Harry Potter-ish of him, wouldn't you say? 🤔😁 The heartache is implied, but Oscar stuck in my heart. And mind.In July 2014, Multiple Sclerosis came kicking me in the right eye - optic neuritis - first symptom / relapse, and pushed me out of the comfort zone straight into SMart!On April 7th, 2015, about eight months in after being diagnosed with the CIS (Clinically Isolated Syndrome) form of Multiple Sclerosis, and about to start daily injections in about two days (on a Monday from all dreadful days! 🙄), I was feeling alone in this. And then I heard this:David Osmond - "I Can Do This"A song for, about and by a singer living with Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis. The tune had been in my playlist for a few weeks now, but that day it made me want to jump off the fence and start what would for two years and a half be SMart Choice Lifestyle, a blog for young people diagnosed with MS and looking to continue living their best life, in spite of their diagnosis. I blogged about life, mental health, symptoms, career... you name it! Then cam the connections, the tweet chats with The European Multiple Sclerosis Platform (EMSP), Shift.ms, and (definitely THE highlight!) a bursary to attend the Young People with MS's conference in Oslo, Norway, in May 2016! 😍 Read all about it here: Young People's Conference.Coming back to Bucharest, life went upwards advocacy-wise. Founding Romanian Young People's Facebook Group together with Centrul SMile from Cluj-Napoca, coming together with four other great people and founding APAN Romania, weekly live chats on Facebook.In 2018, on April 10th, after 8 years of freelancing, from which half of them were in the company of Multiple Sclerosis, and after building upon experience, studies, learning and testing... tan-ta-na-naaaa! Ladies & gents...Meet OSCAR & SMart! Digital brand evolution, a year old on the 10th April. Aiming to be the place where personal branding, lifestyle design and MS advocacy come together under a lifestyle brand and digital brand storytelling agency, we're just getting started! But chose to tell the story as it unfolds.When Oscar met SMart, my story got to the point where I needed change. I was growing, pushing through difficult parts of my life, ending chapters and moving plot points around. But Oscar joined SMart again to be able to be there for others, for you.I aim to build and evolve brands to superhero status, through smart strategies, stylish visuals and immersive digital experiences. What I actually want to do is to work with brands behind the scenes, help write their stories, so that they can prepare and deliver their best performance on the growing digital scene.A DIGITAL BRAND (R)EVOLUTION.Because your brand is still unwritten!See ya next week, darlings! Want to keep in touch? Come join the story on Instagram @oscarandsmart.Denisa