The most important thing in business isn’t awareness. It isn’t differentiation. It’s getting chosen. Chosen by customers, consumers, employees, investors, you name it.
Every strategy, campaign, and product ultimately exists to answer one silent question in the customer’s mind: Why should I choose you? And the answer that wins, more than any other, is because you matter to me right now. That’s relevance — and relevance is everything.
Differentiation may make you interesting, but relevance makes you chosen.
Once upon a time, Nokia had 40% of the global mobile phone market.
Once upon a time, MTV was youth culture. Until it wasn't.
Once upon a time, Revlon was synonymous with glamour.
Once upon a time, Gillette, Kodak, Blockbusters, Gap, and thousands more misread the signals.
These brands became irrelevant.
Ever since I started in brand consulting some 20 years ago, I've been obsessing over the "Why You" question, as well as what makes people choose one brand over another.
I remember a two-by-two diagram with difference on one axis, and relevance on the other. I bought into it. I later realized, those are the two most important factors, but they are not equal. Relevance is the key metric. Relevance is intrinsic "Is this for me? Is this for my need, right now?". Difference is comparative, and it is a factor that affects relevance. Relevance is king. Ok, I'll calm down with the theory. 🤓
But here is the punchline.
When people talk about the death of brands, what they really mean is the death of relevance. Brands don’t fade because they stop advertising; they fade because they stop mattering. They lose touch with the customer’s evolving context — the needs, values, and signals that shape choice.
In an age where consumers are overwhelmed by options and algorithms curate their reality, the fight for attention has been replaced by the fight for applicability. You don’t have to be famous; you have to be for me.
That’s why irrelevance, not competition, is the real enemy. You can coexist with rivals, but you can’t survive irrelevance.
The antidote? Intelligence.
Staying relevant today means staying tuned — to culture, category, and customer behavior — with a level of sensitivity that borders on obsessive. You have to sense the shifts before they become obvious. That’s hard when your days are consumed by execution, reporting, and survival.
Intelligence precedes strategy and action.
That’s why I’m building Original Minds Intelligence™ — a platform designed to act as insurance against irrelevance. It’s a business-intelligence system that continuously scans the world for signals — macro trends, micro shifts, competitor moves, emerging narratives — and translates them into meaning.
Not just “what’s happening,” but why it matters and what to do about it.
It’s built for founders, CMOs, consultants, and creative leaders who want to feed their strategy, innovation, and marketing with continuous insight — to see the world clearly enough to adapt before the world demands it.
And the really cool part is, you can connect your brand into it as a lens, giving you more accurate interpretations and suggested actions. It works scaringly well.
Because relevance isn’t static. It’s a moving target. It shifts with culture, technology, and emotion. The brands that thrive build systems for constant interpretation — systems that connect intelligence to action.
Think of it as your brand’s radar. A nervous system that senses change and responds faster than competitors can blink.
Most companies treat relevance like a creative problem — a matter of message, design, or campaign. But in truth, it’s an operational capability. To stay relevant, you need a machine that continuously learns, adapts, and innovates.
That’s what we’re building: a living brand operating system where intelligence feeds innovation, innovation feeds marketing, and marketing feeds back new data into the loop.
If you are a brand leader, CMO, or agency owner, I'd love to talk to you, top demonstrate what it can do, how you can gain from it.
The future belongs to the brands that never stop listening, learning, and reinventing their way into relevance.
Reply to this email if you are interested in discussing.
Tobias
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