The Functional Beverage Category Is Quietly Changing
Most functional beverage brands think they’re competing on ingredients. They’re not. They’re competing on relevance — and many are losing without noticing. We’ve just published a new Category Brief™: Functional Beverages, looking at how customer choice is shifting across North America and Europe. Not trends. Not tactics.
If You Don't Understand Your Customers Better Than Your Competition, You Don't Deserve To Win.
Let’s say the quiet part out loud. Most companies have a shockingly weak understanding of their ideal customers. Not vague. Not “room for improvement.” Weak. And I don’t mean they lack data. They often have plenty of data. What they lack is understanding. I see this constantly—across
Cultural Drift: The Silent Brand Killer Nobody Measures
Most brands (the companies behind them) assume their biggest battles are inside the category. They’re wrong. The biggest threat to FMCG and wellness brands in 2026 isn’t competition. It’s Cultural Drift — the widening gap between what the world signals and what your brand expresses. Here’s howLatest Articles
Bland or Brand: Why Most Value Propositions Fail the 10-Second Test
Here’s a brutal question I like to ask leadership teams: Can a customer understand why they should choose you in under 10 seconds? Not after a demo. Not after a white paper. Not after a 42-slide pitch deck. Ten seconds. Cold. If the answer is no, you don’t
The Most Expensive Blind Spot in Business: Misunderstanding Your ICP
Most companies believe they know their customers. But if you push a little deeper, the illusion starts to crack. Ask a leadership team to describe their ideal customer and you’ll usually hear something like: “mid-sized companies,” “urban professionals,” or “health-conscious consumers.” That’s not insight. That’s a census.
How Much Is Your Relevance Gap Costing You?
Growth rarely collapses overnight. It erodes quietly. Revenue softens. Win rates dip. Discounting increases. Sales cycles stretch. Teams work harder. Margins thin. Boards ask sharper questions. And most leadership teams respond the same way: more activity, more campaigns, more initiatives, more optimization. But activity is not causality. The real question
You Are Not Slow, But Your Indicators Are.
There’s a specific kind of CEO frustration that doesn’t show up in board minutes. It shows up in the conversations I am having, especially with CEO's of growth companies (often PE-owned). It sounds like this: * “We’re doing a lot… but things are not moving fast
The Functional Beverage Category Is Quietly Changing
Most functional beverage brands think they’re competing on ingredients. They’re not. They’re competing on relevance — and many are losing without noticing. We’ve just published a new Category Brief™: Functional Beverages, looking at how customer choice is shifting across North America and Europe. Not trends. Not tactics.
If You Don't Understand Your Customers Better Than Your Competition, You Don't Deserve To Win.
Let’s say the quiet part out loud. Most companies have a shockingly weak understanding of their ideal customers. Not vague. Not “room for improvement.” Weak. And I don’t mean they lack data. They often have plenty of data. What they lack is understanding. I see this constantly—across
If You Don't Understand Your Customers Better Than Your Competition, You Don't Deserve To Win.
Let’s say the quiet part out loud. Most companies have a shockingly weak understanding of their ideal customers. Not vague. Not “room for improvement.” Weak. And I don’t mean they lack data. They often have plenty of data. What they lack is understanding. I see this constantly—across
You're Not Competing Against Drinks, You're Competing With Routines.
In Brief Functional beverage brands think they’re fighting for shelf space. That's not the root issue. They’re fighting for a slot in someone’s day. And most are losing — not because the product is bad, but because it doesn’t stick. What Is Happening (Signals) * ConsumersMarketing
The Most Expensive Blind Spot in Business: Misunderstanding Your ICP
Most companies believe they know their customers. But if you push a little deeper, the illusion starts to crack. Ask a leadership team to describe their ideal customer and you’ll usually hear something like: “mid-sized companies,” “urban professionals,” or “health-conscious consumers.” That’s not insight. That’s a census.
You're Not Competing Against Drinks, You're Competing With Routines.
In Brief Functional beverage brands think they’re fighting for shelf space. That's not the root issue. They’re fighting for a slot in someone’s day. And most are losing — not because the product is bad, but because it doesn’t stick. What Is Happening (Signals) * Consumers
Why Your 2026 Marketing Strategy Is Not A Growth Strategy (And It Should Be).
In Brief Right now, CMO's and marketing teams are busy creating plans or starting to execute their 2026 marketing plans. But way too few of these plans are connected to the real drivers of growth, and too few marketing people can explain how their work will hit the
When Marketing Science Becomes a Religion – Why The Ehrenberg-Bass Model Is Useful, But Incomplete
There’s a cult-like thing happening in modern marketing. Only last week, I met with four different marketing professionals discussing the same ideas. A set of ideas—originating from Australia, backed by serious data, and popularized by Byron Sharp and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute—has quietly crossed the line from usefulBrand
How Much Is Your Relevance Gap Costing You?
Growth rarely collapses overnight. It erodes quietly. Revenue softens. Win rates dip. Discounting increases. Sales cycles stretch. Teams work harder. Margins thin. Boards ask sharper questions. And most leadership teams respond the same way: more activity, more campaigns, more initiatives, more optimization. But activity is not causality. The real question
The Streaming Wars: It's No Longer About Scale, It's About Compressing Choice.
In Brief Netflix trying to buy Warner Bros Discovery isn’t a content play. It’s a response to a deeper problem: choice fatigue. And the next phase of streaming won’t be won by whoever owns the most IP — but by whoever becomes the default choice in an overcrowded
Clean Labels Are Losing Meaning
Brand-building is an infinite game. Advantage is hard to come by. At least the sustainable kind. First you work hard to be able to provide clean products, only to find yourself in the same game with most of your competitors. What was first an advantage turns into a hygiene factor,
Levi's - Relevant or Redundant?
Levi’s is one of the most recognizable apparel brands on the planet — a century-old symbol of American culture, youth identity, and “authenticity.” It practically invented denim as we know it. But the category it once defined has fragmented into micro-cultures, fast fashion cycles, secondhand ecosystems, and aesthetic tribes thatDesign
Sora 2: The AI Video Revolution and What It Means for Designers, Marketers, and the Industry
The Signal OpenAI’s Sora 2 just changed the creative landscape — again. The new model turns text prompts into cinematic, physically realistic video with synced sound, dynamic motion, and scene continuity that makes traditional production pipelines look slow and expensive. What once took crews, cameras, and budgets now takes prompts,Entrepreneurship
Brand Dating Apps: What Agencies Can Learn from Matchmaking Platforms
Executive Summary Agencies and dating apps share the same problem: everyone’s swiping, no one’s committing. The signal: client–agency relationships are shorter than ever, with project churn replacing partnership. The deeper truth? It’s not about bad chemistry—it’s bad matching. Agencies sell capabilities; clients crave compatibility.
Culture
Culture-First Branding: Join, Don’t Invent
In Brief Culture is no longer a backdrop — it’s the battlefield. The signal: the most resonant brands aren’t creating culture, they’re participating in it. The deeper truth? Audiences no longer reward invention, they reward fluency. The shift is from “brand as creator” to “brand as collaborator.” The
The Psychology Of Trust In 2026
Trust used to be simple: a familiar logo, a tagline, maybe a celebrity endorsement. In 2026, it’s more fragile — and more valuable — than ever. Consumers swipe past hundreds of brands a day, algorithms curate their choices, and scandals go viral in minutes. The psychology of trust has shifted from
Internal Comms Is Becoming As Valuable As External Branding
For years, branding meant billboards, Superbowl spots, and social campaigns. External, external, external. The customer was king, and employees were the afterthought. The irony? In 2025, the most powerful brand audience isn’t out there — it’s in here. Internal comms and culture have become as valuable as external branding.Journal
The Infinite Feed - Navigating A World Of Limitless Information
In Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, Gordon Gekko delivers one of cinema’s most enduring lines: “The most valuable commodity I know of is information.” In the 1980s, that statement was pure power. Information was scarce, access was privilege, and the few who possessed it could outmaneuver the market andLatest Articles
Bland or Brand: Why Most Value Propositions Fail the 10-Second Test
Here’s a brutal question I like to ask leadership teams: Can a customer understand why they should choose you in under 10 seconds? Not after a demo. Not after a white paper. Not after a 42-slide pitch deck. Ten seconds. Cold. If the answer is no, you don’t
The Most Expensive Blind Spot in Business: Misunderstanding Your ICP
Most companies believe they know their customers. But if you push a little deeper, the illusion starts to crack. Ask a leadership team to describe their ideal customer and you’ll usually hear something like: “mid-sized companies,” “urban professionals,” or “health-conscious consumers.” That’s not insight. That’s a census.
How Much Is Your Relevance Gap Costing You?
Growth rarely collapses overnight. It erodes quietly. Revenue softens. Win rates dip. Discounting increases. Sales cycles stretch. Teams work harder. Margins thin. Boards ask sharper questions. And most leadership teams respond the same way: more activity, more campaigns, more initiatives, more optimization. But activity is not causality. The real question
You Are Not Slow, But Your Indicators Are.
There’s a specific kind of CEO frustration that doesn’t show up in board minutes. It shows up in the conversations I am having, especially with CEO's of growth companies (often PE-owned). It sounds like this: * “We’re doing a lot… but things are not moving fast
The Functional Beverage Category Is Quietly Changing
Most functional beverage brands think they’re competing on ingredients. They’re not. They’re competing on relevance — and many are losing without noticing. We’ve just published a new Category Brief™: Functional Beverages, looking at how customer choice is shifting across North America and Europe. Not trends. Not tactics.
If You Don't Understand Your Customers Better Than Your Competition, You Don't Deserve To Win.
Let’s say the quiet part out loud. Most companies have a shockingly weak understanding of their ideal customers. Not vague. Not “room for improvement.” Weak. And I don’t mean they lack data. They often have plenty of data. What they lack is understanding. I see this constantly—across
If You Don't Understand Your Customers Better Than Your Competition, You Don't Deserve To Win.
Let’s say the quiet part out loud. Most companies have a shockingly weak understanding of their ideal customers. Not vague. Not “room for improvement.” Weak. And I don’t mean they lack data. They often have plenty of data. What they lack is understanding. I see this constantly—across
