Clo Willaerts

The through-line

Across these posts, Clo Willaerts keeps returning to one question: does this actually work for the person on the receiving end, or does it just look clever to the person who made it? She applies this lens to brand names that are unsearchable [1], to speakers who improvise their opening lines [2], to content that gets engagement but no clients [12], and to marketing tactics borrowed wholesale from other niches [15]. Over the course of these posts the focus sharpens from general pet peeves about branding and copywriting toward a more systematic account of how attention, algorithms and audiences actually behave on platforms like LinkedIn, culminating in frameworks like IFP versus ICP content [12] and a running weekly digest of marketing and tech signals worth watching [4][8][14].

On clarity in branding

Willaerts is sharply against branding choices that trade comprehension for cleverness. She singles out invented spellings and decorative diacritics: "A bar calling itself aper'eau instead of Apero is a perfect example. Nobody can spell it. Nobody can search for it." [1] The same critique extends to vowel-dropping names like "Kidz. Bikr. Drivn." and umlaut-heavy ones like "Wünder. Hōme. Bränd." [1], and to taglines so abstract they need "a full brand strategy deck and a Creative Director to understand" [1]. Her standard for good marketing, by contrast, is behavioral and simple: a Kraft Heinz ketchup cap redesign works because it "starts with behavior... A simple idea... No 47-slide strategy deck required" [9].

On personal branding as performance

She rejects the idea that authenticity online means showing up unfiltered at all times: "Of course it's a performance. That doesn't mean you're pretending to be someone you're not. It means you're choosing which version of yourself gets the microphone today." [6] She distinguishes this performed voice, "very much 'teacher and trainer'" [6], from the fuller person offstage. She also draws a conceptual line between two things people conflate: "Personal branding gaat over hoe je overkomt; thought leadership gaat over wat je inbrengt. Wie beide weet te combineren, bereikt de grootste impact." [13]

On what gets remembered

Willaerts treats memorability as a design constraint, not a happy accident. Borrowing from Garr Reynolds, she asks: "If people remember only one thing, what do I want it to be?" [7], and extends it beyond slides to LinkedIn profiles, introductions and keynotes [7]. The same discipline applies to openings: "If you script only one thing, script the intro," pointing to Marques Brownlee's deliberately refined catchphrase as proof that the first ten seconds must earn attention, framing and credibility before anything else can happen [2].

On content strategy and the algorithm

She separates content that performs from content that pays. IFP content ("Ideal Follower Profile") gets rewarded by the algorithm because it is "relatable, easy to engage with, low commitment," while ICP content quietly builds trust with people "deciding if you're the one they'll eventually hire" [12]. Testing an old Gary Vaynerchuk claim about LinkedIn, she concludes the platform "is still a strong platform for organic content" but that "organic now means more than 'not an ad'" given how crowded and formulaic feeds have become [11]. Her copywriting standard, borrowed and reframed from Alex Hormozi, is "value per second, not value per...", content should reward the reader "in the time it takes them to read it," regardless of how smart it sounds [15].

Takeaways

• Avoid brand names or spellings that are hard to search or say out loud, even if they read as clever internally [1].
• Script your opening line and story before every talk or post; improvisation should start only after the first sentence lands [2].
• Not every mention deserves a reply; sort interactions into questions, criticism, complaints, trolls, spam and crises, and respond accordingly [3].
• Decide deliberately which version of yourself gets the "microphone" in public content rather than treating authenticity as constant self-exposure [6].
• Separate content built for engagement (IFP) from content built to convert (ICP), and expect the algorithm to reward the former first [12].
• When copy is cheap to produce at scale, competitive advantage shifts to being "useful enough, distinctive enough and trustworthy enough" [14].