Brand The Five Forces Shaping Customer Choice In Brief Many leadership teams run strategy and planning by staring at competitors (market) and polishing messaging (brand). But that’s like trying to steer a boat by debating the paint color and ignoring the ocean. Real relevance and choice is shaped by five forces: 1. World (macro reality, the By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
Marketing 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 By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read
Marketing 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 useful By Tobias Dahlberg • 6 min read
Brand 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, By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
Marketing Functional Is No Longer Enough In Brief Functional FMCG is drifting into commodity science. What once differentiated brands now barely gets them noticed. SIGNAL — What’s happening? Protein is everywhere. Gut health is everywhere. “No sugar”, “added vitamins”, “immune support”, “energy”, “focus”, “hydration” — everywhere. Walk down any grocery aisle and you’ll see the same By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
Marketing The 2026 Growth Delusion - Why Most Strategies Aren't Plans - They Are Wishes A Founder POV for modern CEOs, CMOs, and Commercial Leaders Around this time of the year, companies around the world perform the same ritual: They gather in meeting rooms, open a fresh slide deck, and announce, “Let’s build our 2026 plan.” "What is our GTM plan? Commercial Growth By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
Brand 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 that By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
Marketing Aspiration Has Changed: The New Status Symbols of 2026 Are you ready to look at how culture and values are changing for 2026 and beyond? I thought so. Here's the pattern: From wealth → wellbeing → wisdom → autonomy. What brands must signal to feel modern and desirable. In Brief Aspiration has quietly rewritten itself. Money no longer signals status By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
Brand Relevant Or Redundant? – BOSS I came back from London late last night, and after strolling the streets for a few days, (mostly waiting while my wife and daughters shopped like there is no tomorrow), I did what I suppose most brand-builders do...analyse brands and concepts. What follows is a new content series I By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
Marketing The Relevance Gap Starts In The Corner Office The Relevance Gap™ is a term I coined to illustrate the disconnect that happens between brands and customer choice. And while Relevance is a function of many external forces (from cultural shifts, macro trends, category dynamics, and most of all, changes in consumer tastes, values, etc. the problems rarely starts By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
Brand I Analysed Dozens Of FMCG Brands - Here Is How Many Are Drifting I’ve run a good amount of Brand Relevance Scores for FMCG brands this last month. Here’s the uncomfortable pattern: the categories aren’t stale — the brands are. Most FMCG brands aren’t losing relevance because of competition. They’re losing relevance because culture moved and they didn’t By Tobias Dahlberg • 1 min read
Brand AI will change everything about brand-building. Except what matters most. Why the Future of Brand Still Belongs to Humans — Even in an AI-Driven World. After 20+ years at the intersection of of brand strategy, innovation, design, and marketing for companies across industries, countries, and stages, I’ve learned one thing with absolute certainty: AI will change how brands are built. By Tobias Dahlberg • 5 min read
