The Reverse Trojan Horse Strategy: Sell the Expensive Thing, Give the Cheap One Away Tobias Dahlberg October 17, 2025 – 4 min read Share this post Attention grabbing. Different. Chosen? Strategy Most Brands Are Trying to Be Different. But Choice Takes Something Else. In Brief: In competitive markets, differentiation has become the default answer to a question it does not actually solve. The goal was never to be different. It was to be the most relevant choice — and that requires knowing, precisely, what your customers value and whether your proposition delivers it. Walk By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read Strategy The Relevance Gap™: Why Every Safe Decision Has a Price. In Brief: No company decides to become irrelevant. They arrive there through a long series of reasonable, defensible, individually harmless choices — each one costing a little bit of choice, none of them visible on their own. Yet, all visible without explanation, 12 months later in the P&L. Nobody By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 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 Intelligence More research doesn’t always give you a clearer picture. Warning. The following article might put people who don't care much for research and market intelligence to sleep. Avoid reading while driving. But if brand growth is vital to your business, or you geek out on stuff like this (like me), read on. -- A business can know a By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read Intelligence Introducing Talk™ by Original Minds There’s someone missing from a lot of conversations between brand leaders, agencies and consultants. You know who. The customer. Ideas get tossed around. Strategies take shape. Assumptions become conclusions. Personal preferences develop impressive strategic justifications. Meanwhile, the person whose choice pays for all of this hasn’t said a By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read Journal 10 Lessons From 6,543 Days As A Strategist In late 2008, started my first company, a brand consultancy. That was six weeks after Lehman collapsed. I know, brilliant timing. Here are ten things I've learned about brand-led growth through both obsessive reading and practical application since then: 1. Differentiation isn't the game. Relevance By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read Marketing Marketing to the Average: The Customer You Designed For Does Not Exist In Brief: Nobody is average. And a brand built for the average customer is built for someone who does not exist — which is why it struggles to be the most relevant choice for anyone. The average person has one testicle. The line is crude but it makes the point faster By Tobias Dahlberg • 5 min read Attention grabbing. Different. Chosen? Strategy Most Brands Are Trying to Be Different. But Choice Takes Something Else. In Brief: In competitive markets, differentiation has become the default answer to a question it does not actually solve. The goal was never to be different. It was to be the most relevant choice — and that requires knowing, precisely, what your customers value and whether your proposition delivers it. Walk By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read Journal The Customer Is Allowed to Be Ignorant. You Are Not. "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." Usually attributed to Churchill. Probably not his. Still quoted constantly, because it captures something people recognize. There's a version of it in business, and it isn't about customers. Customers aren& By Tobias Dahlberg • 1 min read
Attention grabbing. Different. Chosen? Strategy Most Brands Are Trying to Be Different. But Choice Takes Something Else. In Brief: In competitive markets, differentiation has become the default answer to a question it does not actually solve. The goal was never to be different. It was to be the most relevant choice — and that requires knowing, precisely, what your customers value and whether your proposition delivers it. Walk By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read
Strategy The Relevance Gap™: Why Every Safe Decision Has a Price. In Brief: No company decides to become irrelevant. They arrive there through a long series of reasonable, defensible, individually harmless choices — each one costing a little bit of choice, none of them visible on their own. Yet, all visible without explanation, 12 months later in the P&L. Nobody By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 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
Intelligence More research doesn’t always give you a clearer picture. Warning. The following article might put people who don't care much for research and market intelligence to sleep. Avoid reading while driving. But if brand growth is vital to your business, or you geek out on stuff like this (like me), read on. -- A business can know a By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read
Intelligence Introducing Talk™ by Original Minds There’s someone missing from a lot of conversations between brand leaders, agencies and consultants. You know who. The customer. Ideas get tossed around. Strategies take shape. Assumptions become conclusions. Personal preferences develop impressive strategic justifications. Meanwhile, the person whose choice pays for all of this hasn’t said a By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
Journal 10 Lessons From 6,543 Days As A Strategist In late 2008, started my first company, a brand consultancy. That was six weeks after Lehman collapsed. I know, brilliant timing. Here are ten things I've learned about brand-led growth through both obsessive reading and practical application since then: 1. Differentiation isn't the game. Relevance By Tobias Dahlberg • 2 min read
Marketing Marketing to the Average: The Customer You Designed For Does Not Exist In Brief: Nobody is average. And a brand built for the average customer is built for someone who does not exist — which is why it struggles to be the most relevant choice for anyone. The average person has one testicle. The line is crude but it makes the point faster By Tobias Dahlberg • 5 min read
Attention grabbing. Different. Chosen? Strategy Most Brands Are Trying to Be Different. But Choice Takes Something Else. In Brief: In competitive markets, differentiation has become the default answer to a question it does not actually solve. The goal was never to be different. It was to be the most relevant choice — and that requires knowing, precisely, what your customers value and whether your proposition delivers it. Walk By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read
Journal The Customer Is Allowed to Be Ignorant. You Are Not. "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." Usually attributed to Churchill. Probably not his. Still quoted constantly, because it captures something people recognize. There's a version of it in business, and it isn't about customers. Customers aren& By Tobias Dahlberg • 1 min read
