can the master’s tools dismantle the master’s house?

By Edo Dijksterhuis, for Dutch Designers Magazine, Translated from Dutch

Anne Miltenburg lives and works in Nairobi, where she applies her knowledge as a brand expert for social innovation. Why would you use effective capitalist tools only to maximize profits?

“The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house” is one of Professor Audre Lorde's most famous quotes. To change a dominant system and ingrained inequality you can't play by the same rules as the oppressor, the activist writer wants to say.

Anne Miltenburg does not entirely agree. "You can start a revolution from the outside or you can use the tricks from the capitalist toolbox for social innovation,” she says. “If we reject branding and growth marketing because of the context in which they originated we will miss out. But we have to learn to use them for positive impact.”

'Making a difference' is the common thread throughout Miltenburg's career and it was her greatest motivation to become a designer. She graduated on the topic of visual communication in low-income countries. After twelve years of working for brand agencies like Studio Dumbar, Lava, and Interbrand, she wanted to put her beliefs into practice in places that needed it.

On a year-long journey, she talked to social entrepreneurs and visited incubators and accelerators across the world. “I asked them: what is stopping you from building a stronger brand? It often was not the case of a lack of money but the lack of knowledge and skills – a brand was for them often no more than a logo and a campaign. Since I had taught at the Design Academy and the Willem de Kooning Academy for several years it wasn't such a stretch to set up a training company, rather than an agency.”

Brand The Change is the name of the company and it is established in Nairobi. “Nairobi is the epicenter of social innovation, within the region and across Africa”, explains Miltenburg. “Developments are going very fast here. For example, when I came here eight years ago international banking transactions were complicated and time-consuming. Now everything is running smoothly.”

What she also likes: “People are not here nostalgic but embracing technology. The demand from Brand The Change has been steady from the start. We now have 36 certified trainers trained, who work independently with our methodology. The total number of trainees is almost 2700.” The company, which has two employees in addition to Miltenburg, not only serves the local market. “There was a worldwide interest but for someone from the US or Australia to come to Kenya for a course won't happen that quickly, so we took it online in 2016. Before the outbreak of the pandemic, we had run five six-month online programs already. That put us ahead of the rest of the world."

The most important lesson that Miltenburg learned in those early years: don't cram the program too much. “With small goals, you make the learning experience deeper. And it's very important to foster good relationships between participants. You cannot assume a shared background and culture. If you have participants from Canada, New Zealand, and Zambia put together, who are also in different roles –founder, marketer, or freelancer – you have to invest in the group feeling.”

The community is based on a kind of digital cosmopolitanism, and it's now the foundation of Brand The Change. "It is an ever-growing circle of students and alumni that are interconnected. Some come for a course and fly out again, others have already been with us for six or seven years. That is valuable, because someone from South Africa has a completely different perspective on climate change, for example than an Englishman, or someone from Saudi Arabia will have different examples of strong brands than someone from the US.”

In addition to her training work, Miltenburg has also always remained active in the practice of her field. For the first five years in Nairobi, she worked as a brand lead at Internet of Elephants, an organization that uses digital experiences to promote wildlife protection. Last year she made the switch to MESH, a professional social network for young Kenyans. “In a country with 60 million people, 1 million young people leave school every year but only 80,000 official jobs will be created.

So the majority is going to work in the informal economy: digital marketing or catering, they become photographers or deejays. The informal economy generates $290 million a month. But nobody acknowledges that potential or does anything to strengthen it. MESH is changing that.”

According to Miltenburg, brand thinking has boomed in Kenya. “When I first got to Kenya, branding was still very classic: billboards and radio commercials from brands like Blueband. But the American tech companies have plunged into Africa, especially Nigeria and Kenya, and with it the startup culture and its type of marketing: another type of photography, copywriting, and marketing. It's very digitally oriented. Young people in Nairobi want to become creators, YouTubers or bitcoin and Forex traders.”

With progress, a discussion about ' digital colonialism' has started, says Miltenburg. “Companies get customers and data from Africa but Africa gets nothing in return. A local transport company can't compete with Uber and multinationals are siphoning off local talent. But there are also specifically African problems that multinationals are blind to that offer opportunities for local entrepreneurs. This creates a lot of innovation. It happens a lot in the home cooking space for instance. Gas bottles are expensive for people with small and irregular incomes. Now some companies developed a smart system where you can pay per used unit instead of investing a bigger cost upfront.”

Aware of her status as a Western ‘outsider’ Miltenburg regularly asks himself the question: do I add something to the economy or do I take something away? “Can or should a Kenyan have my job? Yes. But my clients and team still want to keep me for now [chuckles]. I train people who will eventually replace me.”

She also reflects on this ethical dilemma: “If you are vocal about your ideals, you are also held to the highest standards. Meanwhile, commercial companies are allowed to do anything they want while they rarely get called out for it. In the academic world this is called 'the meat paradox'. When you are a vegetarian, meat eaters will question your food choices and call you out about your leather shoes or belt. Idealists always need to be the best kid in class on all fronts, which is fair but also very tough. It's more realistic to develop a moral compass and to be aware of the trade-offs you are making.”

“The Dutch have a large index finger and a small mirror,” says Miltenburg. "In the ten years that 'purpose' is on the rise, everyone has become an impact warrior, without much knowledge of the complexity in which we operate. Intentionally or not, there is a lot of greenwashing, woke washing, and gender washing. Many professionals in our industry don't realize how bad that is. People get lulled to sleep thinking they can continue their normal lifestyle because someone is working on a solution.

I sometimes get angry at my sector: grow a spine! We don't all have to stand on the barricades or grow organic vegetables on our rooftops, but go educate yourself! You have to not just sell the change to people, you also have to make it happen. A brand is not separate from a product. The product is the number 1 brand experience.”