Challenger Brand Marketing Trends 2026 [Download] Tobias Dahlberg September 18, 2025 – 1 min read Share this post Marketing 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 By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read Marketing 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 By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read Marketing 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 By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read Signals The GLP-1 Consumer Is Rewriting the Value of Every Bite The GLP-1 Consumer Is Rewriting the Value of Every Bite By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read Intelligence AI Is Becoming the First Sales Meeting In Brief For decades, the buying journey began with a search engine, a sales representative or a recommendation from a colleague. Increasingly, it begins with an AI. Whether using ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google’s AI Mode, Perplexity or enterprise AI assistants, buyers are asking machines to summarise markets, shortlist suppliers, By Tobias Dahlberg • 5 min read Journal Why Your Growth Strategy Is (Likely) Built on Outdated Assumptions Every growth strategy contains a hidden set of assumptions. But are they true? By Tobias Dahlberg • 9 min read brand strategy The Cost of Choice Confusion Many companies think they have an awareness problem. "If only more people knew about us". While this might be part of the problem, the underlying issue is a bigger one. They have a choice problem. The choice problem exists downstream from the awareness problem. Potential customers know they By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read Strategy Differentiation Is the Wrong Target In Brief: Thirty years of brand strategy has been optimising for the wrong thing. The goal was never to be different. It was to be chosen. To be chosen, a brand does not need to be the most different. It needs to be the most relevant. Those are not the By Tobias Dahlberg • 5 min read Strategy Positioning Strength: The Measure Of Choice. In Brief: Most companies have a positioning strategy. Very few have a market position. The gap between the two is where growth quietly disappears. Somewhere in your organisation there is a document that describes your positioning. It was probably developed carefully and expensively. Lots of workshops, debate, tasting of words, By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
Marketing 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 By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
Marketing 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 By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read
Marketing 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 By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
Signals The GLP-1 Consumer Is Rewriting the Value of Every Bite The GLP-1 Consumer Is Rewriting the Value of Every Bite By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
Intelligence AI Is Becoming the First Sales Meeting In Brief For decades, the buying journey began with a search engine, a sales representative or a recommendation from a colleague. Increasingly, it begins with an AI. Whether using ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google’s AI Mode, Perplexity or enterprise AI assistants, buyers are asking machines to summarise markets, shortlist suppliers, By Tobias Dahlberg • 5 min read
Journal Why Your Growth Strategy Is (Likely) Built on Outdated Assumptions Every growth strategy contains a hidden set of assumptions. But are they true? By Tobias Dahlberg • 9 min read
brand strategy The Cost of Choice Confusion Many companies think they have an awareness problem. "If only more people knew about us". While this might be part of the problem, the underlying issue is a bigger one. They have a choice problem. The choice problem exists downstream from the awareness problem. Potential customers know they By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
Strategy Differentiation Is the Wrong Target In Brief: Thirty years of brand strategy has been optimising for the wrong thing. The goal was never to be different. It was to be chosen. To be chosen, a brand does not need to be the most different. It needs to be the most relevant. Those are not the By Tobias Dahlberg • 5 min read
Strategy Positioning Strength: The Measure Of Choice. In Brief: Most companies have a positioning strategy. Very few have a market position. The gap between the two is where growth quietly disappears. Somewhere in your organisation there is a document that describes your positioning. It was probably developed carefully and expensively. Lots of workshops, debate, tasting of words, By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
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