06Brand Strategy
Brand Direction for an AI Studio
An AI studio had the technology but not the story, so we shaped its brand direction and how it presents itself to the market.
We solve hard problemsby connecting the rightpeople, ideas, and markets.
What We Do
01
Brand and Positioning
We shape who you are and how you show up, from positioning and messaging to naming, logo and visual identity, and the website and copy that bring it all together.
02
Marketing and Social
We grow your audience and keep it engaged through organic social, paid media, and the content that carries both, built to fit the platforms and communities that matter to you.
03
Strategy
We figure out where you should play and how you'll win, from go-to-market and product launch to monetization and any other problems that you're facing.
04
Event Production
We create live moments that build your brand and your relationships, concepting and producing events with venue access through our network, curated guest lists, and the media to extend the moment well beyond the room.
05
Creative
We bring ideas to life through creative direction, campaign concepts, video, and editorial, turning a brand into stories people actually want to watch and share.
06
Cultural Advisory
We help you read the room before you act, pressure-testing whether an idea is culturally authentic and will resonate, so you connect rather than miss or misstep.
07
Partnerships
We open doors that are hard to open alone, sourcing the partners, talent, and collaborators you need and brokering the brand-to-brand deals that move things forward, all through a network built over years.
Ethos
We don't see what we do as a list of services to pick from. Brand, social, strategy, partnerships, events: most agencies sell those one at a time, and each piece stays in its own lane, never crossing into the next.
We'd rather take on the whole picture. One engagement might run from brand to social to a partnership to a live event, each piece feeding the next, because using all of it together is what drives outcomes. We can work this way because we're founders ourselves, used to owning the result and doing whatever it takes to get there.
When the right people, ideas, and markets meet, remarkable things follow.
The Founder
Michael Lai
Lai Collective is led by Michael Lai, who has built his career at the intersection of media, culture, and business. He's the founder of AsianFeed, which he has grown into one of the leading Asian-centric media brands, reaching more than 25 million people a month, and his work has ranged from culture-defining brand campaigns to media initiatives produced with the White House. He holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
That breadth is deliberate. The hard problems worth solving rarely sit inside a single discipline, so Michael and his team works across all of them, connecting the people, ideas, and markets that move a brand forward. He knows these worlds from the inside, and he brings a founder's instinct for owning the result and seeing an idea through from the first conversation to the final output.
Recognition
- Forbes 30 Under 30
- Fast Company World Changing Ideas
- Long Island Innovator of the Year
- Rhode Island 25 Under 25
- Clinton Foundation Fellow
Selected Work
Here's a look at some of our recent and ongoing projects.
01
Campaigns
Major Studio Launches
High-profile Netflix and Disney titles needed to reach new audiences, so we drove a key part of the campaigns that brought each launch to the right communities.
02
Brand Integration
An Original Reality Series
Consumer brands wanted into culture, so we built them into an original streaming reality series as part of the story.
03
Branded Content
A Talent-Led Content Series
A brand needed credible star power, so we're building a content series that connects it with talent from across major studios.
04
Cultural Media
The Japan State Visit
A moment of diplomacy needed media that resonated, so we produced initiatives with the White House and the U.S. State Department around the 2024 Japan State Visit.
05
Cultural Media
The Vice President's Residence
Two cultural firsts needed to be seen, so we produced coverage with the White House and the Office of the Vice President for the first-ever Lunar New Year celebration and AAPI Night Market held there.
Selected work — continued
07Event Production
An Olympic Moment
A national governing body within the Olympic movement needed a moment that landed, so we're planning and producing a live event around its Olympians, with the media to carry it further.
08Organic and Paid Social
Defining a Marketing Strategy
An education and career platform needed to grow, so we built its organic social and paid ads strategy, and the content plan behind it.
09Advisory and Speaking
Grubhub
A national brand wanted to engage its own people, so we advised its teams on employee engagement and spoke internally.
10Brand Strategy
A Creator's Brand
A creator with an audience past 500,000 had reach but no real brand, so we shaped the positioning, identity, and content direction to turn that audience into something lasting.