Brand The AI Brand Machine: What Happens When Creativity Goes Algorithmic By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
Design Planet-Centric Design: What It Means to Design for Earth, Not Just Users For a decade, “human-centered design” was gospel. Designers stuck Post-its on walls, mapped journeys, and chanted empathy mantras. It worked — for humans. The problem? Humans don’t exist in isolation. They exist on a heating planet, inside fragile ecosystems, and within communities bearing the costs of consumption. In 2025, the By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
Photo by Jimmy Jin / Unsplash Brand Apple’s Quiet Brand Tax: How Cupertino Keeps Raising Prices Without Revolt Apple just raised iPhone prices again, and customers barely blinked. The signal: Apple has built a “brand tax” — a premium people pay without question. The deeper truth? Trust and ecosystem lock-in let Apple defy inflationary gravity. The shift is from product pricing to brand pricing, where identity, status, and switching By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
Brand Has Lululemon Lost Its Stretch? Once the unstoppable force of luxury athleisure, Lululemon is starting to sag. Sales are soft, markdowns are heavy, and the stock has lost nearly 60% of its stretch from the highs. The signal: fatigue is real. The deeper truth? Premium positioning alone can’t carry a brand through shifting consumer By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
Journal The Brief+ Welcome to the tequila shot of business intelligence I'm excited to share an upgrade to The Brief premium subscription. I just made some changes to the original offering that I hope you agree is pretty awesome. I decided to offer all five Daily Briefs for ONE SUBSCRIPTION price. And I am offering it at the intro By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
Entrepreneurship Ideas Are Equity (When It's The Right One For Your Client). By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
Photo by Suganth / Unsplash Journal The Airport Test If you want to understand a culture, don’t read its constitution. Don’t study its GDP. Spend 30 minutes at its airport. Airports are the most condensed, exaggerated versions of national character. They’re pressure cookers where design, behavior, and ambition collide in plain sight. In Helsinki, my home By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
Photo by James Ting / Unsplash Journal When Everything Becomes A Brand It used to be that brands were things companies had. Nike, Mercedes, Rolex. You went to the supermarket, chose between Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and went home without ever thinking you yourself needed a “brand.” Well, that was me as a kid, long before I became a brand strategist. After that, By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
Journal The Curse of Optionality We live in a time of near-infinite possibility. You can start a company in a weekend, outsource your supply chain to strangers on another continent, and advertise to millions of people with a few clicks. If you don’t like your job, you can switch industries. If you don’t By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
Culture The Silver Surge By 2030, one in five people in the U.S. and Europe will be over 65. What was once a demographic footnote is now the defining consumer bloc of the decade. Aging is no longer about rocking chairs and Florida condos — it’s about active, working, consuming citizens who control By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 min read
