WHERE WE CAME FROM

I’m Leanne Fernandez-Pook, founder of Battle Brand Media, former fighter, and the anti-hero your business has been waiting for.

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From the time I was a child, I knew who I was. I was Leanne the fighter.

That identity wasn’t just something I had; it was something I built, brick by brick, through decades of training, competing and showing up when it would have been easier not to.

Then came the ACL tear. And just like that, the identity I had spent most of my life building was gone.

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What do you do when the thing that defines you is taken away?

You find out what you’re actually made of.

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By then, I had spent years working professionally in marketing within the cosmetic and medical-device industries. My work appeared across retailer websites including Boots, Superdrug, Amazon and Justmylook, while marketing literature I created appeared in print magazines and was used in NHS hospitals and GP surgeries across the UK.

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That experience taught me that effective marketing isn’t simply about making things look good. It’s about understanding people: what makes them stop, pay attention, trust a business and ultimately choose it. Consumer behaviour became one of my biggest specialisms.

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So, I took that experience and started freelancing in social media management. But the industry advice was always the same:

“Only chase the high-ticket big corporate clients, don't waste your time on anyone else”

I ignored it. Not out of stubbornness, but out of conviction.

I had walked down too many high streets and seen too many closed shops. Brilliant businesses with incredible products and passionate owners that simply couldn’t compete with the corporate chains outspending them at every turn. That felt wrong to me.

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So, in June 2024, the freelance side hustle became Battle Brand Media: a marketing company built entirely for the independents.

From sole traders building something from scratch to established SMEs ready for their next stage of growth. The businesses taking hits from every direction and still choosing to show up.

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And the moment I launched, something happened that no industry expert had predicted. People practically snapped my hand off.

Because, for the first time, they felt like someone in marketing genuinely understood them.

That was the moment I knew I was onto something and it was the moment Battle Brand Media was really born.