u1492637478_Two_Gen_Y_marketing_professionals__a_man_and_woma_ec0a830a-343f-4a49-b0ed-331aa25fc188_1 Attention Economy 2.0 The Great Attention Reset: Why Reach Is Easy and Attention Is Expensive Again In Brief Social video is everywhere. CPMs are down, feeds are infinite, and reach has never been cheaper. But here’s the catch — attention is evaporating. The average human now gives a brand less than a minute before moving on. For marketers, that means the metric that once mattered most By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
u1492637478_picture_of_a_small_branding_or_creative_agency_wi_a39be852-64bb-471a-a3f9-7828ae222a53_3 Agency Growth The Old-School Tax: How Agencies Are Bleeding Margin in Plain Sight Summary: Most agencies are still paying the Old-School Tax—burning hours and profit on outdated processes—while their competitors finish faster, deliver sharper, and pocket the margins. Every wasted hour in your process isn’t neutral—it’s a donation to your competitors. Agencies don’t lose profit because they By Tobias Dahlberg • 6 min read
u1492637478_A_Trojan_Horse_standing_on_a_beautiful_landscape__7af8af3d-ae18-47a2-9dd1-9737fa736f87_1 Global The Reverse Trojan Horse Strategy: Sell the Expensive Thing, Give the Cheap One Away In Brief In the classic Trojan Horse model, brands sell the cheap thing to unlock the expensive one. In the Reverse Trojan Horse, they flip it: sell the expensive thing to build status, scarcity, and credibility — then give away (or scale down) the cheap thing to dominate culture. Luxury brands, By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read
u1492637478_A_podcast_studio_where_two_people_are_conducting__d20c0751-e684-4180-a23f-a1257d674abc_2 Global Netflix x Podcasts: What This Move Signals — And How Marketers Should Respond Netflix is entering podcasting via a distribution deal with Spotify to bring an initial slate of video podcasts (The Ringer sports shows, The Bill Simmons Podcast, Dissect, Conspiracy Theories, etc.) onto Netflix in the U.S. starting early 2026, with other markets to follow. In short: your TV streaming app By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
u1492637478_Two_creative_entrepreneurs_man_and_women_in_a_cre_ec0d2592-b7ad-4dd5-8fff-5b1e61ce4002_1 Design & Experience Service Design at the C-Suite: Why CEOs Are Finally Paying Attention For years, “service design” was the backstage art of fixing broken journeys — buried in org charts, misunderstood, and mostly ignored by leadership. But in 2025, that’s changing. CEOs have discovered what design thinkers always knew: a brand is only as strong as the system delivering it. Customer experience is By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
u1492637478_Two_visionary_creative_founders_man_and_woman_loo_fca7256f-e1bd-4d9b-a01d-361496ed7978_2 Global AI Priority #1 — And the Biggest Headache in Marketing The Signal In Salesforce’s global survey of nearly 5,000 marketers, AI implementation ranks as both the top priority and the top problem for marketing leaders in 2025. CMOs want the holy trinity — speed, personalization, and scale — but fear blowing up their brand or breaching compliance in the process. By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
u1492637478_An_old_factory_filled_with_creative_directors_and_563b8377-9192-4ed4-a39e-89e1ee96a090_3 Agency Growth Running “Content Factories” for Clients High Volume. High Impact. Low Waste. CMO's and brand leaders have a problem: they need to act like media companies — but without media-company budgets. They’re under pressure to grow awareness, stay top of mind, and show up everywhere — while running on smaller teams, tighter budgets, and relentless By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
u1492637478_Two_creative_professionals_a_man_and_woman_shot_e_4ea30db8-93db-4d7f-9318-1d9d733aca68_0 Editorial Originality: The Last Lasting Edge In a world where everyone can learn the same things, prompt the same AI models, hire from the same global talent pool, and reach the same audiences, the only real edge left is what you do with it. Originality has become the last sustainable advantage. originality | əˌrɪdʒɪˈnalɪti | noun [mass noun] By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
u1492637478_a_beauty_ecommerce_startup_office_bustling_with_e_bbfe88a6-026f-4768-b47a-fda460f964b5_0 Branding The AI Equalizer: How Challenger Brands Are Outsmarting Giants In Brief For the first time in decades, size doesn’t matter. Speed does. The signal: artificial intelligence has turned the scrappy, underfunded, over-caffeinated challenger brand into a legitimate threat. The deeper truth? Big companies aren’t losing to technology — they’re losing to indecision. The shift is from scale By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
u1492637478_a_busy_high-end_restaurant_in_Soho_New_York._Tren_084b0b18-cbdf-4daf-9a7f-bbb53a1d8316_0 Branding The Five Brand Dimensions – And Why Almost All Branding Is One-Dimensional For decades, branding has been treated like a communications exercise. You define your positioning, craft a visual identity, make a brand book, and hand it off to marketing. The result? A nice logo, a color palette, a few tone-of-voice examples — and a brand that looks great on paper but struggles By Tobias Dahlberg • 5 min read
u1492637478_A_split_image_with_an_explorer_on_the_left_a_busi_221bddc3-2e9a-4ca6-b930-a8d3f3fb479f_0 Editorial Reinvention vs. Optimization In 1991, the organizational theorist James G. March published a paper that has quietly shaped how we think about business ever since. He called it Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning. His argument was simple but profound: every organization faces a tension between two forces — exploring the new and exploiting By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read
marty flux.001 Branding The Future of Brand Strategy –From Brand Books To Brand Brains. Me with my biggest brand influencer Marty Neumeier, at my Flux Conference, ten years sgo. By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
