The Only Thing Thats Ever Changed The World Is A Story Jaiku Founder Marianne Olaleye On Her Latest Endeavour

Creative Boom: Insight Branding JAIKU founder Marianne Olaleye on why we shouldn't obsess with Gen Z, and how storytelling can change the world The JAIKU founder has helped brands from Glossier to the British Library find their story. Now, finally, she's learned to apply the same thinking to herself. Written By: Tom May 9 July 2026 Marianne Olaleye. Photography by Krystal Neuvill There's a special kind of irony in being a storytelling expert who can't quite bring herself to tell her own story.

Marianne Olaleye, founder of brand storytelling agency JAIKU, has spent years helping clients find and articulate their narratives, running workshops that 96% of participants rate as useful or very useful, and advising founders and CMOs on how to make their brands memorable. And yet, for two full years, she sat on her most ambitious idea without acting on it. "I bought the website domain and planned out the entire positioning for the Storytelling Summit back in December 2024," she says. "But I was terrified because I have such big dreams for it, and it all felt too daunting." Part of the fear stemmed from the scale she envisioned.

"I imagined my first summit being a full-day gathering with hundreds of attendees, multiple talks and panels, workshops, breakout activities, brand activations: the whole works," she explains. But over time, she started to notice that the most impactful events she'd attended recently had had no more than 20 people in the room. "I told myself, 'just make it exist first, the rest will fall into place,'" she recalls. "This year is our proof of concept: show it works, get feedback from the people who join us and build from there." Can stories save us? The JAIKU Storytelling Summit runs on 17 September at Second Home Spitalfields, London.

It will host 60 people from 9.30am to 11.30am, with speakers confirmed from Adobe, ustwo Games, YouTube, Arcadis, Digital Voices and Cassava Republic Press. The summit's central question, "Can stories save us?", isn't a rhetorical provocation for its own sake. Marianne quotes her favourite sociologist, Dr Tressie McMillan Cottom: "The only thing that has ever changed the world is a story." That isn't, she admits, always a good thing. "Stories move economies, and in the wrong hands, they've put questionable people in positions of power.

But stories can only save us if we're willing to seek them out beyond our own bubble, hear perspectives that challenge us and learn to disagree well. Especially at a time when the world feels increasingly fragmented and polarised." B Corp Workshop - Cornwall (Credit: Toby Weller) Marianne chose a summit format, she says, because storytelling has always been a collective act. "From cave paintings to oral traditions and tales around a campfire, stories have always been a survival tool rooted in dialogue. Storytelling is dependent on people listening to each other and making sense of the world together.

A summit can do that more than a single article could." Her own instinct for unexpected learning shaped the event's structure from the start. "I've always learned best from unexpected places: small talk with an elderly woman in the park, conversations with my hairdresser's young children, the years I spent jumping between industries before starting JAIKU," she says.

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The article discusses a significant shift in branding strategy by emphasizing storytelling and inclusivity, which is highly relevant for brand professionals navigating generational marketing.