Photo by Koushik Pal / Unsplash Unilever’s Purpose Pivot: When Brand Values Meet the CFO’s Axe Tobias Dahlberg October 01, 2025 – 2 min read Share this post Brand When The "Brandless Brand" Wins, And Why It Happens. In Brief Every few years a company with no heritage, no advertising history, and no place in anyone's brand tracker takes serious market share from businesses that have spent decades and fortunes building their names. The industry response is always the same: confusion, then rationalisation, then a think By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read Brand The Brand Strategy You Can't Actually Strategize In Brief: The cultural moment is rewarding brands that look like they've stopped trying. Which creates a problem. Because the moment you try to stop trying, everyone can tell. There is a memo going around marketing departments right now. It has different subject lines depending on the company, By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read Brand Bland or Brand: Why Most Value Propositions Fail the 10-Second Test Here’s a brutal question I like to ask leadership teams: Can a customer understand why they should choose you in under 10 seconds? Not after a demo. Not after a white paper. Not after a 42-slide pitch deck. Ten seconds. Cold. If the answer is no, you don’ By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 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
Brand When The "Brandless Brand" Wins, And Why It Happens. In Brief Every few years a company with no heritage, no advertising history, and no place in anyone's brand tracker takes serious market share from businesses that have spent decades and fortunes building their names. The industry response is always the same: confusion, then rationalisation, then a think By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read
Brand The Brand Strategy You Can't Actually Strategize In Brief: The cultural moment is rewarding brands that look like they've stopped trying. Which creates a problem. Because the moment you try to stop trying, everyone can tell. There is a memo going around marketing departments right now. It has different subject lines depending on the company, By Tobias Dahlberg • 4 min read
Brand Bland or Brand: Why Most Value Propositions Fail the 10-Second Test Here’s a brutal question I like to ask leadership teams: Can a customer understand why they should choose you in under 10 seconds? Not after a demo. Not after a white paper. Not after a 42-slide pitch deck. Ten seconds. Cold. If the answer is no, you don’ By Tobias Dahlberg • 3 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
