A Cartoon Alter Ego Cost Me a Fortune: How to Repair a Digital Identity
A Cartoon Alter Ego Cost Me a Fortune: How to Repair a Digital Identity
Published on Rolling Stone August 07, 2025 by Jason Barnard
In an age where AI assistants and search engines are the world’s primary influencers, you cannot leave your personal brand narrative to chance.
My career has been… unconventional. It started with an Economics and Statistical Analysis degree at Liverpool John Moores University, playing blues at the Cavern Club (where the Beatles famously played), and then moved to France for a career playing double bass in a punk-folk band called The Barking Dogs. But my weirdest and most costly professional pivot involved becoming a cartoon dog. A blue one, to be exact. His name was Boowa, and for years, he was my primary identity.
From Punk-Folk Double Bassist to a Cartoon Blue Dog
In the early 2000s, I co-founded an EdTech company for children called UpToTen Ltd, and built an edutainment website starring two cartoon characters: Boowa the Blue Dog and Kwala the Yellow Koala. The venture became a massive success, hitting a billion page views in 2007 and competing directly with giants like Disney and the BBC. Better still, it became so popular that we made a TV series with ITV Studios that was launched at Cannes, and aired in 25 countries (including on Playhouse Disney). Wow. Cool.
I was the CEO of UpToTen, the co-creator of the characters, and I also happened to be the voice of Boowa.
I embraced my role as a cartoon blue dog. It was fun. When people asked what I did for a living, telling them I was a blue cartoon dog was a much better conversation starter than “I’m the CEO and founder of a pioneering EdTech firm.” Boowa and Kwala had a close emotional connection with millions of kids, and being the voice behind that was incredibly touching. For a long time, my professional identity and my cartoon alter ego were one and the same, and I was perfectly happy with that.
Why My Digital Business Card Was a Joke (And Cost Me a Fortune)
The problem began when I exited UpToTen and decided to pivot my career into digital marketing consulting. I would walk into boardrooms, deliver a killer presentation on brand strategy, get amazing feedback and leave on a cloud, feeling the deal was done. After I ran out of fingers and toes, I gave up counting the number of times my optimism was followed by radio silence and the opportunities worth hundreds of thousands of dollars went to another consultant.
I eventually discovered the culprit: my digital business card. When the executives would Google my name to vet me by googling my name, the story Google told them on my Brand SERP was not about an experienced digital marketer and seasoned entrepreneur. It was, overwhelmingly, about Boowa the Blue Dog. I could almost picture the scene: a CEO, impressed by our meeting, does a quick search, sees the cartoon, has a laugh and decides I’m not the serious strategist they need. My digital blue dog past was sabotaging my future.
The ‘Aha’ Moment: Realizing Google Is a Child
My initial attempts to fix this were a masterclass in frustration. I was treating Google like a sophisticated adult, trying to reason with it through traditional SEO tactics. It didn’t work. The algorithm, it seemed, was stubbornly attached to my past.
The breakthrough came when I flipped my perspective entirely. Google isn’t a wise, all-knowing oracle. Google is a child.
Like a young child, it learns through simple, direct and consistent repetition from sources it trusts. It has a very literal understanding of the world and gets confused by nuance or conflicting information. It can’t intuitively grasp that the fun-loving voice of a cartoon character might also be a serious entrepreneur and marketing consultant. You can’t reason with it. You have to teach it, slowly and clearly.
Using My Kids’ Cartoon Playbook to Re-Educate an Algorithm
The universe has a strange sense of humor. The solution to my very adult, high-stakes business problem was to apply the exact same principles I had used to create educational content for preschool children.
I had to give the algorithm a new, simple story and repeat it everywhere. My solution was to apply what I now call The Kalicube Process™ - a simple, non-geeky strategy that anyone can apply.
You can easily re-educate the algorithm in three deliberate steps:
1. Build your ‘entity home’: Your personal website that acts as the single, authoritative source of truth about how you want to be presented today, giving the algorithm a new script to learn from.
2. Revamp your entire digital brand echo: You need to align every profile, bio and online mention you control to consistently repeat your new brand narrative.
3. Reinforce your new identity: Create an ongoing stream of new, authoritative content (articles, conferences, podcast appearances, books, videos, etc.) that demonstrates your expertise and overcomes the outdated narrative by “algorithmic weight of proof.”
Note: At the time, this was just for Google, but this approach is universal and timeless. It now works for all the AI - Google AI, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, etc.
It was a slow, deliberate process of re-education. And it worked. Over time, the toddler learned. My digital identity began to reflect my reality, and the deals stopped disappearing in a puff of smoke when the prospects googled my name.
The takeaway from my delightful journey is a critical one for anyone who has a multi-faceted career. In an age where AI assistants and search engines are the world’s primary influencers, you cannot leave your personal brand narrative to chance. You have to actively curate it. You have to tell the machines who you are, or they’ll decide for you… and their first draft might just be a cartoon blue dog.
