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Seasoned tech executive Omar Johnson is leveraging his experience to revolutionize how brands market themselves.
Raised in Brooklyn, NY, Johnson’s exposure to technology was initially limited to video games and consumer electronics. However, his inquisitiveness grew and ultimately helped him secure roles with major tech giants.
“A lot of my curiosity was sort of like self-driven,” he told AFROTECH™ in an interview.
Tech Journey
Johnson’s interests also lay in marketing, leading him to earn an MBA from Emory University in 2004. Following a brief stint at Campbell Soup Company as an associate brand manager, he transitioned to roles with brands such as Coca-Cola and Nike. At the latter, he began as an assistant brand manager before being promoted to content manager of advising and innovation, which remained his focus.
“Find the most important things that the company is betting on for the future and work on those things,” Johnson explained. “I always had that sort of lean when I was at Nike. I was selected to work on one of Nike’s first-ever technology launches, which was Nike Plus — in addition to that, I moved on from that into our brand connections group, which was this hybrid of digital and traditional advertising, very much about the 24/7 nature of communication and marketing and social media, and the hybrid of that and traditional like advertising. So those two companies gave me my first taste and exposure into sort of technology as a product. The inner workings of technology going from a draft of an idea through engineers, through actual product execution, and then maintenance.”
Inevitably, Johnson transitioned into two consecutive roles heavily focused on technology. For six years leading up to 2016, he served as the chief marketing officer at Beats by Dre, collaborating closely with a talented team to create the groundbreaking software that evolved into Beats Music.
Johnson credits Beats Music with playing an integral role in Apple’s reported $3 billion acquisition of the company in July 2014. Following the acquisition, Johnson joined Apple as VP of marketing from 2014 to 2016, during the launch of Apple Music.
“Joining Apple just deepened and furthered my appreciation for not only technology but what it could mean through marketers,” he mentioned.
Øpus Intelligence
In 2018, Johnson made a bold move to ØPUS United. This platform blends tech and culture for executives, strategists, and creatives aiming to market world-class brands. The platform relies on “Culture-Centric Design,” which gathers insights from individuals who shape consumer behavior in culture to inspire ideas.
In its early days, it was more of an “experiment.”
“We took on projects that we wanted to take on. We didn’t have any clients, and there were no cold calls,” Johnson said. “We literally only worked on things we wanted to work on. So we got to choose, we had the luxury of choice… It really taught me that last dimension of marketing. And to me it was really important to understand that, if I was going to build a true enterprise software that serviced multiple clients.”
In November 2024, Johnson announced the launch of Øpus Intelligence, a generative artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform designed to enhance marketing campaigns. The platform leverages time-tested marketing playbooks, media trends, audience personas, and product sentiment, according to information shared with AFROTECH™.
“So there are parts of the marketing process that need humans, and there’s a part that needs technology. What we focused on is building the things that the tech can do better,” Johnson detailed. “AI is amazing at summarization and fact finding right now. So when you think about grabbing volumes and volumes of information, making it understandable and then cleaning out key insights, these machines are pretty impressive at it… We’re leveraging machine learning to scale our efforts and create this, what we call, Super Mario effect for all of our clients. Where you as an individual can do more, you’re more precise, you have more speed, have more remit, more scale.”
Øpus Intelligence is already being used by brands such as Nissan, NBA 2K League, and the NFL’s Tennessee Titans and Minnesota Vikings. Johnson notes that the tool cannot only be used by major brands but also athletes, artists, marketing directors, and solopreneurs.
“We want to see the first solopreneur billionaire have a marketing department that’s powered by the same solopreneur,” Johnson expressed. “Meaning we want to see companies get to big results with lower overhead for their people. We want to see teams; larger teams have larger impacts on their clients… From our perspective, when we think about democratization, some of it is powering solutions where there are no people. And some of it is powering people to do way more work faster, to work way more efficiently, be ahead of trends before those trends hit. So when I think about how we revolutionize marketing, it’s going to make speed, precision, and accuracy way more accessible to more companies.”
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