Summer is here and it’s getting hot!

If you are like me, you might want to spend this season when things hopefully turn down a notch to gain some energy and maybe also some inspiration.

For the last couple of years I published reading recommendations on books (1, 2, 3, 4) to help you with your marketing strategy during the holidays.

But this year I have to admit I didn’t get a lot of reading done yet 🙈.

So today I have something else for you:

I had 13 podcast conversations with industry and marketing leaders about the shifts that currently matter for brands.

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I talked to people from companies like Manner, Ö3, Henkel, Fairphone, the Austrian National Tourist Office, Danube Insurance, The Good Plastic Company, ÖBB/The Austrian National Railways and LinkedIn as well as the International Advertising Association (IAA).

I asked each of these experts what their perspectives are on what works in marketing, what’s trending and what we need to focus on for consumer behaviour.

Here is what stuck with me, including links to all the podcast episodes:

🌐 The state of the (marketing) world

Three forces sit underneath all of it:

• a tighter economy

• AI in every workflow

• and an audience splitting in two.

Fredrik Borestrom, World President of the IAA and LinkedIn’s director of international agency development, put the AI shift bluntly (Apple Podcast / Spotify):

That means if your brand is not legible to an AI model, you are now invisible at the exact moment the shortlist gets written.

Fredrik’s read on where AI generated content can settle (particularly interesting given his position at LinkedIn): Platforms will get smarter at spotting purely AI-generated content and quietly downrank it, and the value moves to the things a model cannot fake, the creativity and the gut feeling that comes from twenty years in a category, the person who looks at an idea and knows it is right.

On AI I also keep returning to Stefan Sagmeister (Apple Podcast / Spotify), designer, two-time Grammy winner, one of the most-invited TED speakers alive, who refused to flatter the technology.

AI raises the floor.

It does not hand anyone a ceiling.

And we already know it is making most marketers worse at their jobs.

Next up: The structural conversation about 3 big shifts in marketing, was with Andreas Cieslar (Apple Podcasts / Spotify), IAA Austria Marketer of the Year 2025 and Head of Marketing at Donau Versicherung/Danube Insurance.

What I found insightful about this:

Marketers and media people decide every single day what becomes visible and what disappears into irrelevance, which makes reach a position of real power before it is a metric. And we’ve spent a decade optimising for the one number that carries no moral weight. Quantity, as he said, became the alibi.

Which is exactly why the following four shifts matter.

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📵 Algorithmic Exhaustion Escape

In the first chapter of FRICTION RELOADED I argued that more and more consumers are tired of algorithmic media (I stopped calling it social, because I no longer see my friends there) and that we are quietly opting out.

Sandra Stichauner, CMO of the Austrian National Tourist Office (Apple Podcasts / Spotify), ran the cleanest marketing example I have seen. Their NDA (Non Disclosure Austria) campaign blurred the country’s most beautiful landscapes and made people sign a (fake) non-disclosure agreement to unlock more than 120 hidden gems. Underneath the mechanic sits her bigger argument about what brands need to consider:

David Dittrich, Head of Marketing at Ö3 (Apple Podcasts / Spotify), is building the antidote to unauthentic content into the product itself. While everyone races to add AI, he is doubling down on being human:

🧘 The Search for Meaning

In uncertain times people reach for things that hold them. The marketing version is the question of what you actually leave a person with.

Christian Schneider, Director of Digital Marketing at Manner (Apple Podcasts / Spotify), works for a 140-year-old love brand where strangers tell him their childhood Manner story unprompted. But they also have to go with the current of times:

🥇 IRL is the New Gold

This is the trend that excited me the most and also the one most client sessions center around. Probably because it opens up rooms for creativity and trying out something new (and analogue).

Magdalena Horejs, strategist at Scholz & Friends (Apple Podcasts / Spotify) named the gap from inside the usual agency model.

She is not the only one who walked back toward the room. Fredrik’s IAA runs on dinners and Soho-House-style memberships you have to earn your way into, and Christian’s Manner is staging its first big club event this year, sitting members down together in person.

Everyone, independently, arrived there.

💚 Green Inside

This is the chapter that changed most in six months. The clearest version of the lesson is a case I wrote up separately: Red Wing, the American bootmaker, sells a lifelong warranty, about the most sustainable thing a shoe company can do, and never says the word once.

Six sustainability leaders, separately, confirmed the same instinct:

Stop leading with sustainability, lead with what people actually want.

Viktoriia Siedova, co-founder of The Good Plastic Company (Apple Podcasts / Spotify), whose recycled material furniture sits inside Nike stores and McDonald’s restaurants, said it cleanly.

In her world sustainability opens the door but never closes the deal, so the material has to win on durability, design and a price that matches anything else on the table.

Verena Kitowski, marketing team manager at Fairphone (Apple Podcasts / Spotify), lived the proof: In their 2025 repositioning they changed nothing about the sustainability, they are still the category leader, they simply put longevity and the product first:

Instead they focus on longevity and the Lime button on the Fairphone 6, a physical switch into a calmer phone, sells digital detox, and the sustainability rides underneath (linked to the Algorithmic Exhaustion Escape as well as Search for Meaning of FRICTION RELOADED).

For Laura Lamard, global B2B marketing leader at Henkel (Apple Podcasts / Spotify), sustainability lives in the business itself, deeper than the communications:

Her Loctite Pulse work generated a quarter of the line’s revenue over five years, with sustainability embedded in the solution rather than bolted onto the campaign.

Her colleague Seza Eraydin, sustainability manager at Henkel (Apple Podcasts / Spotify) explained the three focus areas for their sustainability agenda: Climate, Circularity and Safety. And of course a company like theirs has a huge impact, so I was listening closely when she talked about their strategic pillars and their contribution.

Sven Pöllauer, Head of PR, Marketing and Public Affairs at ÖBB (Apple Podcasts / Spotify), is responsible for Austria’s most sustainable product by default, the national railways company, and still insisted on the perspective every impact company should have.

He also warned that painting the world in black and white pushes people away from sustainability rather than toward it.

And Philippe Schuler (Apple Podcasts / Spotify), author of The Wise Man and the Story of Plenty, gave the communication frame a name. His future of marketing is two words: “green trusting”.

⏭️ What I am taking forward

I am happy FRICTION RELOADED was right on track.

What fascinates me is, how consistent the move underneath all four shifts turned out to be. In nearly every conversation the winning play was less - so focus.

• Brands opting out of the algorithmic feed and seeding on Reddit, newsletters and Twitch instead.

• Pulling the AI voice back out of the product to stay unmistakably human.

• Taking the screen away and putting people in a room. Stripping the gimmicks so the thing that actually holds a person, the feeling, the quality, is what's left.

• Dropping the word sustainability and letting durability, longevity and price carry the pitch.

Thirteen leaders kept arriving at the same conclusion, that the growth now comes from friction, and from giving the audience the real thing again - something they feel and really remember.

That is also the harder discipline, because adding is easy and every dashboard rewards it, while focus forces a point of view about what actually matters to the person on the other end, which is the one thing no algorithm and no model will hand you.

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Finally, almost everyone I spoke to was a bit pessimistic about the next year BUT optimistic about the next ten. And we know that nobody ever built anything from the pessimistic version, so I am keeping the optimism and the work.

Have a wonderful summer, and I will see you on the other side of it.

Until soon,

Florian

But if you’re not and feel like you want to grow, this is for you…

⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

I know that spot. Here’s how I got out of it:

I started my business over 4 years ago to have a good life. Not to get rich, not to get famous, though I’d happily take both. When I left a well-paid job as Head of Marketing at Too Good To Go, my motivation was different:

I wanted time for work I love, time to get better at it, time to explore the world, time with curious people and brands worth thinking about - without hustling around.

The script we’re sold says the opposite. Scale faster. Grind now, live later. Earn the good life back once the numbers are big enough.

That didn’t appeal to me, so I bet on the reverse and built the life first.

Four years in, the work and projects followed. Stable six figures and growing, brands and people I’m glad to work with, and the freedom to take as much holiday as I want.

That freedom is the reason I’m not burned out, and the reason the rest holds together.

So how did it actually work?

I also started with cold outreach. I texted people on LinkedIn (sorry if that was you) out of the blue. I had outbound decks, “just circling back” messages, and a success rate of 0.5%.

Let me tell you: It was fucking exhausting.

It worked at the beginning.

But I don’t do any of it anymore.

My clients come to me.

It doesn’t have to be this hard.

I get to choose who I work with and which projects appeal to me.

Why? Because I built something else.

A personal brand.

This newsletter with +2,500 readers. Three podcasts (this one, this one, that one) with over 100 episodes. The posts on Linkedin and Instagram. My trend report FRICTION RELOADED. The keynotes and panel talks I give. The interviews, the 3 universities that I teach at (and that don’t pay well). Being approached to co-author studies and papers.

Most people file those under content, extras, a nice-to-have next to the real work.

But they are the real work.

They are how I sell now, and they sell while I sleep (or travel).

Here’s the shift it took me years to see:

Most people treat a personal brand as reach, so to get seen by as many people as possible.

But for me it is different:

By the time someone emails me, they’ve had several touch points with my personal brand already. They already know how I think and what I’m good at (and most importantly, whether they find me sympathetic).

So no conversation starts at zero.

It starts at “I want to work with you.”

Or “I really liked what you said about XYZ…”

That makes pricing simpler as well, because my audience has already experienced the value that I can give them long before we spoke.

That’s the mechanism.

Your brand closes the sale before the meeting.

Cold selling argues your worth in the room, once, under pressure and with far too short an attention span. A brand argues it for years, in the background, while you do something else (best case you work on the first projects).

And that’s why my business carries my life instead of eating it.

Chase clients and you’re never done, the pipeline empties the week you stop. Build a brand that works for you, and you can take the holiday without the funnel collapsing. The channels keep running while you’re gone.

Focus - The uncomfortable part

All of this rests on a sharp positioning. A personal brand with no clear “what for” is just noise, and noise sells nothing. The day a stranger can say in one sentence what you stand for is the day attention turns into paying projects.

That’s not easy. Focus is brutal. Because it makes you choose something and stick to it. But it is the reason why some businesses work and others fail.

That approach, and the way to set up the channels that carry it, is exactly what took me four years to figure out.

Now I can hand it over in six sessions - individualised to you.

✴️ LEAP

Six sessions, 1:1 just you and me, where we build the flywheel I just described, applied to your business, your tone of voice and your pace:

• 01 Positioning. Thoughts and feelings anyone understands and remembers.

• 02 Offer & Pricing. A real offer at a price that stops being a negotiation.

• 03 Network. The fanclub logic. Known by the right people for one clear thing.

• 04 Content. A plan where every post is proof of your one thing.

• 05 Conversion. How visibility, a stage or a conversation turns into a paid project.

• 06 Your Leap. Your 90-day plan and the rhythm you keep running on your own.

In between sessions, you’ll get tasks to work on yourself. After all, the real change doesn’t happen during our conversations, but afterwards, in your actual business.

Get the details

Whom is this for?

It’s for self-employed marketing and creative people whose business runs but doesn’t break through. You miss the structure, the plan or the bigger picture.

If you feel like that is you, then just one final note:

You don’t need me to pull this off.

You can build all of it yourself, the way I did over four years.

LEAP isn’t a safety net, it’s a shortcut.

The only question is whether you want to walk the path alone, or take a few steps faster with someone who already knows it.

What you will get:

✴ A positioning that supports you in your daily life.

✴ An offer at a price you can live with.

✴ A plan to take you to the next level.

And so you know what you’re getting into:

This isn’t a feel-good coaching. In every session I’ll challenge you and tell you the uncomfortable truths, the ones no one else will. I work this way with all my clients because mere reassurance is of little use, and I want to help you solve your problems and overcome your challenges. I want you to succeed.

You’ll find your most critical voice and your biggest supporter in one person.

I offer 5 seats for Q3 2026 for those 6 sessions.

€2,500 (excl. VAT).

Is this your time to take that LEAP?

➡️ If it is, just reply to this mail and I will tell you more.

Looking forward to our next conversation,

Florian

Okay, let’s take a deep breath.

I’ve been thinking a lot about AI in the last weeks.

And I am fucking bored of what I currently see.

Because one thing get’s left out in most discussions, videos, podcasts, speeches: If you work in marketing and have a lead role, your actual job is judgment, and judgment is the one input no current LLMs can supply.

The only thing AI really produces is just quantity out of mediocrity.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted on Linkedin that I would unfollow everyone who writes their postings with AI. It was my second most viewed post this year:

Some people then told me “You are just anti AI.”

I am not.

I use it daily in work and life. I run research studies with it, I draft with it, I use it to pressure-test arguments and critique me. I also use it to research vacations, find new recipes or find a new printer for my office.

But the closer I work with these tools, the clearer it becomes to me what they are doing to the people who lean on them.

Whenever we lean too much on something, we lose something.

And when the pendulum swings into one direction, it always swings back.

Now we have the first psychological data on what the over-reliance does to our capabilities, and the first cultural signs of where it goes next: the early glimpses of an AI-backlash that ends the day it stops being the story and simply becomes normal.

So today, let’s look at the risks of marketeers and brands using AI. At what skills you will need in this beautiful post-hype-future. Because when AI becomes normal, it becomes infrastructure, and infrastructure does not differentiate anyone.

1. What you’ve already noticed

Every keynote is now about AI.

Every podcast.

Every newsletter (including this one).

And then you close the laptop and most of the actual work looks the way it looked two years ago. The volume of the conversation and the size of the change in the average day have come apart:

The first sign is the feed: By the end of 2024 already more than half of long-form LinkedIn posts were AI-generated. Just in May 2026 Linkedin itself is now moving to limit the reach of AI-generated postings, and user fatigue and a demand for more human content are reshaping what gets seen. The posts all sound the same, the comments sound like the posts, and it is just fucking boring.

The second sign is young people: In May 2026 the graduating classes booed speakers who praised AI: Eric Schmidt at the University of Arizona, the University of Central Florida speaker who pitched it as the next industrial revolution, the one at Middle Tennessee State.

“Gen Z, despite being more familiar with AI, is the most pessimistic about jobs, with 81% saying that AI will decrease job opportunities. People are not rejecting AI, but people are asking questions now since the initial AI fever is gone.”

Chetan Jaiswal, Department of Computing at Quinnipiac

Even Pope Leo XIV used his first encyclical to call for AI to be “disarmed.” (This is especially interesting when we consider that religion has a little bit of a comeback - especially with young men).

The third sign is about your work: Brands have started to advertise the absence of AI as the product. Dove committed to never using AI to represent real women. Polaroid put billboards next to the Apple and Google offices reading “AI can’t generate sand between your toes.”

Aerie’s pledge to use real people only became its most-liked post in 2025. Meanwhile the AI-made ads, from Coca-Cola, Gucci to Toys R Us and LEGO got called soulless in public.

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Over the last couple of months I talked at 15 events and for 10 clients about FRICTION RELOADED, my trendreport around the four shifts in consumer behaviour and the potentials for marketing they contain.

One central observation didn’t let me go…

Uncertainty and pressure are the new baseline.

Consumer confidence is at historic lows. Inflation is still biting. People are cutting back on clothes, electronics, groceries. And yet young people are travelling, concerts are selling out in minutes. Festivals are packed. Live Nation just reported 107 million tickets sold, up 11% year over year, with no slowdown anywhere, no demographic, no venue size, nothing.

That is a contradiction. And a signal.

And inside of this a term from the recent past is coming back to my mind that I have forgotten about a little: YOLO.

The original post-COVID YOLO was built on something optimistic. We survived something terrible, the world felt short and bright, spending freely felt like a celebration.

That party is over.

With crisis after crisis, war after war, AI doomsday messages everywhere and no one really knowing whether their job will still exist a couple of years from now, many are in a slight panic mode.

Yes, I am also thinking a lot about my future job as an independent strategist.

I still believe that AI can’t replace the emotional depth, the experience, the passion, the gut feeling and the ability to imagine new ways of reaching people that I have gathered over the last twenty years of working in this industry.

But am I sure that I will have the same job in 5 years? No, absolutely not.

And like me, many people are currently experiencing some uncertainty about their future, not just from a professional POV.

Crises are always starting points of something new.

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🌀 The mutation of YOLO

What I observe now is different to that previous YOLO, and honestly way more interesting from a strategic perspective. It has split into two patterns that look similar on the surface but come from completely different psychological places.

The first is what economists are beginning to call “Disillusionomics.”

Gen Z is currently carrying an average personal debt of $94,000, more than any generation before them. Millennials know they won’t be able to afford the same as their parents (and no, it’s not the fault of obsessive avocado eating).

“The economic system their parents are talking to them about isn’t really going to work out for them in the same way.”

Alice Lassman, British Economist

At the same time, spending on entertainment and travel is growing faster than any other category, up 25.5% year over year according to Bank of America. Alice Lassman described it as a coping strategy for an uncertain and mystifying financial future. If the system is broken anyway, why defer? The logic of the original YOLO is still present, but the emotion driving it has shifted from freedom to fatalism.

This is not just a Western phenomenon: In Korea, driven by a prolonged economic recession and high exchange rates, young people are turning to digital platforms like “rooms for beggars” (geojibang) and “map for beggars“ (geojimap) to gamify their penny pinching.

Different expression, same underlying psychology:

The second pattern is more deliberate. People are actively trading down in categories that feel replaceable, cheaper (or second hand) clothes, fewer electronics, private label groceries, so they can protect the things that feel irreplaceable. They are making this trade-off consciously. And what they are protecting, consistently, across demographics, is experiences.

Especially live ones.

Especially shared ones.

Especially the kind you can’t watch on a screen later.

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According to the Eventbrite Social Study 2026 “Reset to Real” 79% of 18-to-35-year-olds plan to attend more events in 2026. Nearly a quarter of that same age group reports feeling lonely. The Eventbrite CEO describes it precisely:

"They're done with performative get-togethers and instead want spaces where they can shape the moment rather than perform for it."

Julia Hartz

Both patterns lead to the same place.

🎭 Experiences have become the protected category

Because in a world that feels digital, overloaded and abstract, a real moment with real people in a real space is one of the few things that still feels unambiguously worth it.

In FRICTION RELOADED I called this trend IRL is the New Gold.

Recent data from 2026 is remarkably consistent on this, across geographies, income groups and research methodologies.

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For many years, I have been fascinated by one question:

How do people choose a brand without really knowing why?

Not out of habit. Not because of the price. Not because of the latest campaign.

But because something, at some point, created a connection.

Long before the moment of purchase arrived.

“Brand is an emotional association.”

Scott Galloway

That is the power of branding.

Like a sea of lights, a strong brand guides us through decision-making processes.

But this power is currently being systematically underestimated.

This is because many marketing strategies are based on the assumption that people take in information, process it and then make a decision. Rationally. Consciously. Logically.

Science tells a different story:

🧠 The brain doesn’t buy what you think

Gerald Zaltman, a marketing researcher at Harvard Business School has, after years of research, published a figure that captures this:

95% of all purchasing decisions are made subconsciously.

Not just sometimes. But systematically.

This means that if your brand relies solely on rational communication, you will reach at most 5% of the factors influencing your target audience’s decision-making. The remaining 95% are determined elsewhere, before your campaign is even seen.

Our brain has already made a decision before our conscious mind even begins to gather arguments.

What this means for your marketing is radical:

Every cent you invest in rational persuasion – that is, in features, comparisons and justifications – is fighting against a resistance that is biologically ingrained.

And there is a second 95% problem.

At any given point in time up to 95% of your potential buyers are simply not in your market. They aren’t buying because they don’t need anything right now, not because your campaign isn’t reaching them.

And you can’t force them into the market by persuasion.

Performance marketing is tasked with converting that 5% who are currently ready to buy. This is both sensible and necessary for every brand.

What determines which brand is chosen at the moment of purchase? Which brand pops into their mind first. Which brand has left an emotional connection long before the purchase decision became a reality.

You don’t build that with a performance budget.

❤️ Brand and Performance

Brand marketing has a reputation for being a bit of a soft touch: pretty pictures. Emotional stories. Hard to measure.

On the other hand, performance marketing is all about metrics, statistics, ROAS, CPL, attribution. Clear accountability.

A few weeks ago, I put this question to the test on LinkedIn and asked which of the two functions was “more important”: 48 marketing professionals voted and discussed the issue.

The results show that the marketing world is divided:

I am a brand marketing strategist. I believe in the power of brand storytelling.

And in long-term power, in trust that builds quietly until people choose you without knowing why. I believe in building, not renting. I believe in demand creation rather than just demand capture.

But I also understand the performance arguments:

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I am currently obsessed with a brand.

If you have been to any of my recent keynotes, you have probably heard me fanboy over that brand…

Last autumn I needed new boots for the colder months. For years I had been walking past a small store near my apartment that sells Red Wing Shoes. The shop always pulled me in. So one early September day, I finally walked inside and bought a pair.

During the conversation with the salesperson, two things surprised me.

1. First, they told me that they would repair any damage to the shoes. No matter what happens, I can bring them to any Red Wing store worldwide and they will repair them. The sole, they explained, will probably crack in about 10 to 15 years. “Then you just come by and pick a new one.”

   10 to 15 years! For a pair of shoes.
   How crazy is that?

2. Second, they warned me that the boots would feel uncomfortable at first. The leather needs time to break in. But then “they will become the comfiest shoes you own and you will never want to wear anything else.” And they were right about both.

Red Wing is not just a company that sells boots. They are iconic.

“What do Ryan Gosling, Harajuku hipsters, and Middle America have in common? An enduring passion for Red Wing’s unpretentious, intrepid, always-in-style 6-inch Classic Moc boot.”

Kathy Passero, Footwear Plus

It is a brand built around durability in a world obsessed with disposability.

And that leads to a fascinating paradox.

Red Wing rarely talks about sustainability.

Yet the entire brand is built on it.

So today let’s look at this brand I am obsessed with, in depth:

1. From Workwear to Cultural Symbol

2. Product Obsession as Brand Strategy

3. Campaigns that Show, Not Tell

4. The Nostalgia Challenge

5. Strategic Marketing Lessons

1. From Workwear to Cultural Symbol

Before we talk about storytelling, sustainability, or campaigns, it helps to understand the scale of the brand.

Red Wing is not a niche craft project. It is a serious industrial company.

The privately held Red Wing Shoe Company generates somewhere between $500 million and $800 million in annual revenue, employs more than 2,000 people, and distributes its products in over 110 countries. 

The brand operates hundreds of retail stores globally and thousands of distribution points in the US alone. 

In other words: this is a century-old manufacturing company that quietly built a global presence without ever behaving like a modern fashion brand.

And that story starts in a very different place.

Red Wing was founded in 1905 in Red Wing, Minnesota, by Charles Beckman, a local shoe merchant who saw a practical problem. Workers in industries like farming, mining, and logging needed boots that could survive brutal conditions. 

So the company did not start with an idea about style.

It started with a need. Build boots that last.

Durability was not a brand idea. It was simply the job the product had to do.

And that origin story still shapes the brand today.

Red Wing boots were designed for oil field workers, construction crews, farmers, mechanics. People who rely on their equipment every single day. If a product fails in those environments, the brand disappears quickly.

So the company built something else.

Trust.

“We really try to tell a value story. You can buy a cheap pair of boots that will last one year, but then you’ll need to buy another pair. Or you could buy a more expensive pair that will last decades. That’s the pitch, but the reality is that people do have less money to spend. So we’re trying to keep our prices in check as much as we can.”

Aaron Seymour-Anderson, Chief Creative Director Red Wing Shoe Co.

Over time, something unexpected happened:

The same boots that were worn on construction sites began to appear somewhere else entirely. In Tokyo fashion districts. In Brooklyn coffee shops. In Scandinavian design studios.

Workwear slowly became culture.

When fashion brands try to look rugged, the result often feels artificial. But when a product was genuinely built for hard labor, the aesthetic comes naturally. Thick leather, heavy stitching, visible wear, patina over time.

These details tell a story.

That is how Red Wing made the transition from a purely functional workwear company to a cultural icon. Not by reinventing itself, but by staying the same while the world around it changed.

Today the brand lives in two worlds at the same time.

On one side, it still supplies safety footwear to workers in demanding industries around the globe. On the other, its Heritage line has become a staple in fashion, design, and craft communities.

Very few brands manage this balance.

2. Product Obsession as Brand Strategy

If you look at the company from the outside, something unusual becomes visible very quickly:

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For 18 years now (wow, I feel old writing that), I have been working on marketing strategies and have had the privilege of designing concepts and workshops for some of the world’s biggest brands.

From McDonald’s, the world’s largest burger joint, to the NGO Greenpeace, the car brand Opel, the food retail chain SPAR and many more, before joining the start-up Too Good To Go as Head of Marketing.

Now I have been an entrepreneur with my own marketing studio FutureStrategies for four years. And while running my practise, I have noticed one aspect that is not handled properly in most companies or even by agencies.

➡️ Most marketing strategies fail because they play no role in everyday life.

Everyone has an image of “strategies” in their mind.

A definition. Perhaps even a course of action.

But most of the approaches I see in practice are

a) complex

b) intellectual

c) fluffy – in other words, shallow

That’s why many strategies get stuck in presentation mode. They never make it to implementation. They are not really put into practice. They sound good, but are not practically useable.

Complexity is often just ambiguity in disguise.

So today I would like to share my strategic approach as a model. It consists of a mix of other models such as:

• The Strategic Kernel

• The Limbic Map

• The Future-Back Approach

• The Brand Archetypes

✴️ The Strategic Flow

One model. A hundred names.

When I develop marketing strategies or design workshops, I use this model because it is simple, tangible and practical.

I am a big fan of Richard Rumelt’s strategic approach, which he calls “the Kernel”. For my own modified model, I work with three steps:

1. Diagnosis

2. Guidelines

3. Actions

These three are complemented by two further aspects to really bring them to life:

4. Skills

5. Resources

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1️⃣ Diagnosis

Strategy without diagnosis is wishful thinking with KPIs.

Most mistakes – whether made by large corporations, policymakers or start-/scale-ups – happen because people start by defining goals or actions. But the task of a strategy – and therefore of a strategist – is to start with the problem.

Or as Albert Einstein said:

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”

At the Oracle of Delphi, the place where the ancient Greeks came to seek guidance about their future, it was written in large letters: Gnothi seauton. Know thyself!

Not as a question. But as a basic prerequisite.

First, we need to know who we are, who our target audience is, what problems we want to solve, and what shapes our market.

“Strategy does not start with what shareholders want, or what ‘core capabilities’ we have. It starts with a profound appreciation of and fascination with customers, and a deep desire to make their lives/businesses better off.”

Roger Martin

I work on this diagnosis in my projects across five levels:

a) Human Needs

First, we need to understand what drives our target audience. In “Decoded: The Science Behind Why We Buy”, Phil Barden describes three basic needs: excitement, autonomy and security, or the pursuit or avoidance of these.

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Honestly, I did not want to write another trend report.

Not because trends are boring or don’t matter.

But because marketing teams already have enough inputs, reports, crises, charts, dashboards, hot takes - pressure.

The thing about trend reports is: Most are easy to agree with, easy to present, and similarly easy to forget the moment the meeting ends.

And yet, here we are.

Read The Full Trend Report

Because many marketing teams enter 2026 with the same question in the room:

And on top of that, the big picture looks like this:

• Geopolitical turmoil

• Budgets are tighter

• Expectations are higher

• Clarity feels rarer than ever

• And there is less room for trial and error

You cannot afford to chase everything anymore.
But ignoring signals feels risky too.

This trend report exists to guide you.

To reduce the noise and surface the shifts that will shape strategic marketing decisions in 2026. That is the reason my second PULSE: FRICTION RELOADED exists. It’s 90 slides.

Read The Full Trend Report

✴️ My 4 Marketing Trends for 2026

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: AI.

It’s everywhere, which is why this report doesn’t focus on it.

The bigger - and less obvious - shifts are happening underneath, in trust, behaviour, and what people tune out. AI accelerates these changes. It doesn’t explain them.

Why is the overarching theme FRICTION RELOADED?

• That’s why they scroll away from feeds.

• That’s why they look for things that feel meaningful.

• That’s why they show up in real life.

• And that’s why sustainability only works when it’s not the main act.

If an experience doesn’t cost time, effort, or a trade-off, it doesn’t stick.

Friction works because it adds that cost.
And once something costs something, you remember it.

The 4 marketing trends underneath the essence of Friction Reloaded are:

Read The Full Trend Report

1. ALGORITHMIC BOREDOM ESCAPE

Digital media promised discovery and connection.
What it delivered was optimisation, repetition, and feeds that all feel the same.

People are not disengaging, they are escaping.

You see it in cringe as a reaction, in comments becoming content, and in the rise of Substack and small, personality-driven formats.

Attention moves to places where friction, voice, and unpredictability still exist.

2. SEARCH FOR MEANING

Uncertain times do not make people more rational.
They make them search for meaning and stability.

When the world feels hard to read, people look for belief, comfort, and physical grounding.

That shows up in astrology, religion, tradwife narratives, being held, mushroom nutrition, and a renewed focus on the body.

Meaning becomes a coping strategy.

3. IRL IS THE NEW GOLD

Digital made everything available. And therefore forgettable.
When everything is everywhere, effort becomes the filter.

Queuing, spontaneous meet-ups with thousands of people, city-wide scavenger hunts, and real-life conferences gain value because you had to be there.

Belonging becomes something you earn, not something you follow.

4. GREEN INSIDE

Sustainability has lost momentum.
Under pressure, price, speed, and simplicity win, even for people who care.

Green struggles because it lives in reports and language, not in daily decisions.

In this last chapter I make the case for designing sustainability into how work actually happens, where speed is traded for recovery and optimisation stops before systems break.

When people experience this logic internally, sustainability becomes durable instead of fragile.

Read The Full Trend Report

👨‍💻 How did I write this Marketing Trend Report?

Full disclosure: It was a lot of fun, but it also was exhausting.

Because I wanted to level up my game and chose a different approach compared to my first PULSE: RETURN TO REAL.

1️⃣ First, and this was the real highlight for me, I interviewed 9 amazing strategic thinkers. People whose work I deeply admire - thank you for your time Zoe Scaman, Bianca Wimmer, Alex Morris, Baiba Matisone, Bénédicte Ibert-Clarençon, Rob Estreitinho, Chloé de Ruffray, Amy Daroukakis, Jenny Chang.

They all were gracious to give me 30 minutes of their time to share what they think about marketing in 2026.

2️⃣ Then I went wide and read 60 trend reports across culture, technology, economics, marketing, sustainability. This brought perspective and contradictions.

3️⃣ Lastly the really hard task started: Bringing it all together, finding common themes, threads and links. I arrived at 1 synthesis. I quickly understood, that not everything deserves attention. I decided I will go for the 1 theme of FRICTION RELOADED with 4 sub-trends.

This report is the result of extensive interviews, synthesis, and filtering.

So if you like this work, please quote me whenever you use any of it. This way I know the sweat, tears and grey hair that this experiment brought, were worth it ❤️

Read The Full Trend Report

🔮 My offer for you and your team

You now have the signals. So does everyone else.
The difference for your brand is what happens next.

So I have created a special offer to help you choose your strategic path:

• After the session, your team feels relief because everyone is aligned around a small set of clear priorities.

• The lab combines inspiration with guided, interactive exercises, grounded in real marketing team realities.

• Your team leaves knowing what to focus on in 2026, what to test and has concrete ideas on how to bring it to life.

🎬 Final thoughts

We’re already well into 2026 now.

I hope my observations, data points, insights, analyses, case studies and recommendations have provided you with some initial starting points and helped you enter 2026 with more clarity and fewer distractions.

Decide what you care about.

Do less.

Do it deliberately.

Thank you for reading along!

Florian

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Winter is coming! And that’s a good thing - if you use it right.

In nature trees use this time to strengthen roots and expand in the invisible underground. We can draw some inspiration from that and use this season to wind down, reflect and maybe even some intentions for the next year.

I personally have never been a big fan of New Year’s resolutions, but what I have been doing in recent years is to sit down and think about some questions to reshape my approach.

So if you also want to use the holiday season for some new found clarity – and maybe even a new way of looking at your strategy, here are my 7 questions about your marketing strategy that might also spark some new perspectives.

Each one touches a different part of your marketing strategy:

1. AI

2. Focus

3. Relevance

4. Momentum

5. Customers

6. Team

7. You

So here are the 7 questions for your marketing strategy:

1. AI - Is AI making our brand smarter, or just faster?

2025 was the year AI went from innovation to infrastructure.

By now, most marketing teams have mastered agility and speed. But in the rush to ship, create, and optimise, many forgot how to think.

They stopped questioning. Stopped sharpening their strategy.

In 2026, reflection will be a competitive advantage again. The brands that stand out won’t be the fastest – they’ll be the ones that know when to pause, zoom out, and ask better questions.

Because you can’t be a source of clarity if you’re addicted to speed.

The real strategic shift? Stop asking what AI can do.

Start asking: What’s the part only you should still do.

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2. FOCUS - What are we still doing out of habit, not impact?

Most brands are overproducing.

Content, Reports, Presentations, Meetings.

True focus means choosing what deserves your time, not what fits your template. Many teams, managers – even strategists – say “yes” to too much. Because that is expected and because that is how things have been done in the past.

But to quote the great Steve Jobs:

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But it means saying no to the hundred other good ideas.”

So think about it: What did you say “yes” to this year that diluted your impact?

Here are two brand examples:

• Lush dramatically reduced its digital presence – shutting down TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook for most markets. Why? To stop chasing algorithmic attention and focus on community-driven, local engagement instead.

• Vita Coco shifted their PR and marketing strategy away from large influencer gifting campaigns – and toward a more community-driven pop-up experience. They stopped chasing surface-level hype to focus on real-world, human connection.

Read more

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I am a marketing strategist. And my heart beats for sustainability.

But that beating drum feels a little bit broken right now.

And I am not alone in that.

The generation with the most at stake in a sustainable future feels a real lack of agency to shape it.

My own sustainability journey started back when I worked at McDonald’s and questioned some of the approaches when it came to “doing good”.

Then I worked for Greenpeace and thought “we are fu€#ed” just being overwhelmed by seeing so many things that are going the wrong direction.

Then I started my dream job of being Head of Marketing of the food-saving app Too Good To Go. For 2.5 years I felt like actually having an impact of changing things for the better.

It also was a good time for sustainability.

2019 was the peak of the green movement.

Greta was spearheading a global movement of student protests, we all went out to huge street protests, the EU Green Deal was introduced, the wave for electric cars was changing the automotive industry and producing solar energy got cheaper than fossil fuels.

Then came Covid.

Then the war in Ukraine.

The conflicts in the Middle East.

Inflation of everyday goods.

And by the time AI amazed all of us, no one was talking about sustainability anymore.

A recent study by BBMG reveals this significant shift: The number of Gen Zs globally who feel “indifferent” about sustainability has increased from 22% to 31% since 2021, while climate “enthusiasts” have declined from 30% to 21%.

And it’s not just Gen Z that’s reportedly feeling less engaged in the planet. The number of people who say helping the environment is important to them has been declining worldwide, a downward trend that’s reflected among Gen Alphas as well.

Now it feels like the sustainability movement has entered a deep sleep phase.

Yes, some companies - especially big ones - still keep pushing their sustainability agenda. But many also stopped communicating about it, because of fear of backlash - leading to Greenhushing.

So when your heart beats for sustainability, it can feel like… no one cares anymore.

Now, I am still a marketing strategist.

I am still an optimist and thus I think there is a way out of this.

So this time I want to dive deeper on:

🦖 WHY Sustainability Communications has such a hard time right now

🧩 WHAT could help us to revive it

🍉 HOW strategic Marketing can help us getting there

🍑 Making sustainability sexy again

I aim to arrive at some newfound clarity, new perspectives and maybe even some optimism.

Ready? Let’s go.

🦖 WHY is Sustainability Communications in trouble?

There are three big issues I see here:

PROBLEM 1: Sustainability is not an intrinsic need.

Or at least not for 99% of the population.

If we look at the pyramid of human needs by Abraham Maslow, we can see what humans care about: Our physiological needs, our safety, we want to love and belong, feel respect and self-actualise ourselves.

Only if the bottom needs (e.g. we have food) are met, we can actually care about higher needs (e.g. we want to feel loved). It makes sense, because only when I have an actual roof over my head can I invite people over who make me feel respected.

And here is a first insight we could use to our advantage in sustainability communications: Air, Water, Food, Shelter - the bottom layer - actually depend on the climate, are threatened by any change.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

Back in 2019 in the EU we were in that lucky position: Seeing the connection of behaving more sustainable to our wellbeing. Because in a way, all our other needs were met. So we had the societal support and political will to think about changes to keep our environment in the way that it is.

And this doesn’t just matter for brands. Political parties face the same challenge. How do you inspire people to act on long-term issues when daily fears dominate? The answer lies in storytelling - not in speeches, but in symbols, emotions, and belonging.

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Now here we have to talk about psychology.

The classic filter/​bottleneck models of attention (e.g., Donald Broadbent’s Filter Model) illustrate that humans only process a limited amount of sensory or informational input at a time.

So, when sustainability sits alongside many other crises (pandemic, war, inflation, etc) there is simply less attentional “bandwidth” left for it.

When people are cognitively exhausted, they retreat from complex issues that require long-term thinking and systemic awareness.

Sustainability is one of those. It demands reflection, patience, interconnection, mental control - things that are hard to hold when we fear for our safety or our ability to afford daily life.

As psychologist Daniel Goleman put it,

“Overloading attention shrinks mental control. Life immersed in digital distractions creates a near constant cognitive overload. And that overload wears out self-control.”

In short: This doesn’t work when we fear for our safety or our ability to afford stuff.

PROBLEM 2: Numbers don’t vibe.

Scientists have known about the problem of fossil fuels for our environment since the 1950s. A lot has happened in that time. But also not a lot at all.

That has two reasons:

1. The effort and ability of fossil fuel companies to discredit the environmental movement and their own responsibility.

2. The inability of the sustainability bubble to get the mainstream on board.

I just want to focus on the second part here, because the first you can read a ton about everywhere.

How was the sustainability movement started? By scientists.

And they love numbers, facts, statistics.

The problem is, the mainstream population doesn’t.

People listen to stories. They connect emotionally. They want simple solutions.

So for decades sustainability communication did a great job speaking to - at a maximum - 10% of the population. Not enough for a tipping point.

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We’re chatting about everything with AI now:

Love, dating, job interviews, business, recipes, coaching.

My students write exams with it.

My inbox is full of AI cold calls.

LinkedIn? A river of AI-written posts.

And at the top of this trend is ChatGPT the product of OpenAI whose name has become synonymous with all AI assistants (like Google that now stands for searching something).

OpenAI interestingly doesn’t shout “AI” like everyone else. While most tech sites plaster buzzwords, OpenAI’s presence feels strangely… human. Real people. Real settings. Real voices. The product is sci-fi but the presentation is everyday.

That contrast is on purpose.

We’ll dive into what they get right, what’s replicable, and why they feel different - from naming, ads and product launches, to social. We will dive deep on OpenAI’s marketing strategy.

And the main question:

Let’s take a look at that here today:

1️⃣ From Research Lab to Product Hero

⚫️ The $14 Million Dot

3️⃣ Human First Branding

4️⃣ The future of AI (marketing)

5️⃣ 5 Learnings for our own Marketing Strategy

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1️⃣ From Research Lab to Product Hero

Let’s take a look into the past:

OpenAI started in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab, talking about AGI (artificial general intelligence) safety more than consumer products. That changed overnight with the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022.

A “launch” that had nothing to do with marketing, as this tweet from Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, shows:

It was meant as a “research preview” but quickly went viral, hitting 100 million users in two months and suddenly turning a lab into a household name.

And when we are speaking about the name: That almost wasn’t ChatGPT.

Head of ChatGPT Nick Turley admitted the team was about to ship it as “Chat with GPT-3.5” - until a last-minute, late-night decision simplified it. They settled on ChatGPT, short for “generative pre-trained transformer.” CEO Sam Altman later joked that even ChatGPT is a “horrible” name, but it stuck and became shorthand for AI itself.

The company’s value has exploded from around $29 billion in 2023, to $157 billion in late 2024, to around $340 billion in early 2025.

“The chatbot has evolved from a prototype to a $4 billion revenue engine with 300 million weekly active users. It has shaken the foundations of the tech industry, even as OpenAI loses money (and cofounders) hand over fist while competitors like Anthropic threaten its lead.”

Kylie Robison, The Verge

But at the beginning, there was just a product, no brand, no marketing, not even a corporate design guide. But that all changed in 2025:

They invested in a Super Bowl ad, did a polished rebrand, and now have a surprisingly human Instagram account. All signals that OpenAI is ready to step onto the stage as a brand in its own right.

⚫️ The $14 Million Dot

It’s February 2025, Super Bowl Sunday.

Read more

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Being a strategist, I always collect signals, trends and insights on what is happening in marketing, consumer behaviour and where leading brands tap into new categories of branding.

Over the summer I took some time to work on one of these observations that has drawn on me for quite a while.

This led to my very first marketing trend report of my own, which I call PULSE.

And the theme of this first report is “RETURN TO REAL”.

Read the whole trend report

It’s 75 slides structured in 5 chapters.

So, what is my first marketing trend report about?

Where does this come from?

Over the last years I have seen marketing becoming even louder, penetrating (!) attention spans. Up to a point where they seem to be close to 0.

Now AI produces even more content and in many conversations friends, clients, survey participants have told me again and again:

“We are tired of digital media.”

Maybe digital media has become the new TV?

Good to reach a lot of people. But inefficient to really cut through the noise, because it has become the noise.

It feels like marketing’s loudest moment, is also its emptiest.

That’s the initial thought that sparked this report.

Then I went deep into research, data points, signals, reports and observations - to develop something that counters this movement.

Read the whole trend report

Here are some of the key points that I outline in my 5 chapters:

1. WAKE UP ✴ Tensions

Phones give us everything we think we need, but the joy is gone.

Scrolls feel endless, but empty. Gen Z is reporting record levels of digital fatigue, and the promise of social platforms has thinned into obligation.

• 57% of Gen Z wish social media was never created

• 26 % are engaging in full digital detoxes

• 56% express fatigue from social media content

We are more connected than ever. And more alone than we’ve ever admitted.

Read more

Now I want to better understand what's really important to you.

➡️ I have 5 short questions and you need 2 minutes to answer them.

Your feedback will then flow directly into further development! To make this newsletter even better for you and everyone else.

I read every answer - and look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you for your time!

🙋 Question 1

💛 Question 2

🤔 Question 3

🎩 Question 4

🙏 Question 5 - be honest, I can take it

Thank you so much for your time!

Is there any feedback, a wish or an idea that you would like to share with me here?Then simply send me an e-mail.

I'm now taking a summer break and from September on there will be new deep dives on marketing, strategies and sustainability for you 💌

Thank you for reading along,

Florian

Really good strategy projects start with a change of perspective.

A new point of view.

An "I've never seen it like this before" moment that sets everything in motion.

That's why I love books that do just that.

That get by without buzzwords.

That ask uncomfortable questions - and provide practical answers.

So if you're looking for inspiration for your summer reading list about marketing and strategies - here it is:

Three books that show that strategic thinking doesn't originate in an ivory tower - but in everyday life.

In close observation.

In clear positioning.

And in thinking boldly ahead.

Because strategy is not a PowerPoint - it is a way of thinking that provides orientation and creates direction.

1️⃣ Lead from the Future by Mark W. Johnson & Josh Suskewicz

A strategic book - in the best sense of the word.

The subtitle "How to Turn Visionary Thinking Into Breakthrough Growth" says it all in this book, which quickly became one of my favorite strategic books.

While other books explain how to solve problems, this one shows how to think about the future. And not as a vision poster. But as an entrepreneurial discipline: planning backwards from the future.

„Most companies are trapped in today. Visionary companies act from the future.“

Mark W. Johnson & Josh Suskewicz

For me, the book is a good counterpart to the reality of short-term reactivity, which is unfortunately often characterized by quarterly reports and marketing meetings. It encourages long-term thinking - an absolute necessity for good strategy work.

Our coming decade will be far too turbulent for conventional, present-oriented marketing strategies. Marketing managers, CEOs, sustainability managers and innovation managers need to look back from the future, but act now.

A good add-on: The book is full of real case studies from companies such as Amazon or Nestlé and makes it clear how to think in scenarios, translate them into business models - and derive growth from them.

I have been using the future-back process in my marketing and strategy workshops for some time now. The examples in the book have helped me to refine my own method.

2️⃣ Do/Interesting: Notice. Collect. Share. by Russell Davies

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There are brands you want to own. And there are brands you want to understand. Aesop is one of the few brands that achieves both.

Never heard of the brand?

Then you’re either not the target – or about to become obsessed.

A few hard facts:

280 signature stores worldwide, an annual growth rate of 30-40%, a brand value of US$2.5 billion, and a cult-like love for the company among its target audience.

Aesop is one of the most coveted brands in the world.

“No matter where and how you first meet the Aesop brand it will strike you as the prototype of a modern beauty brand.”

JP Kuehlwein, Uberbrands

Aesop is not a traditional cosmetics brand.

It is a feeling. A space. A story. A ritual.

It whispers where others shout.

It makes a niche audience feel deeply understood.

Perhaps I am so fascinated by it because it was born in the same year as me—1987. But perhaps also because it does many things differently, goes its own way—and does a lot of things right.

But how does it do that? What makes this brand so special?

Today we will explore it through these topics:

1. Brand identity over performance

2. POS Cathedrals of tranquility

3. Quiet sustainability

And finally, 3 key lessons we can learn from the Aesop brand for our own marketing strategies.

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💆 Identity over performance

Like many unique brands, the story of Aesop did not begin with a business plan, but rather with dissatisfaction. Dennis Paphitis, a hairdresser with Greek roots living in Australia, was annoyed by the synthetic scents and exaggerated promises of conventional care products.

So he began mixing alternatives in his own salon in Melbourne. High-quality ingredients, understated packaging, no exaggerated claims. Just effectiveness, aesthetics, tranquility.

Even the name “Aesop,” after the ancient fabulist of the same name, is a subtle, almost provocative counter-reaction to an industry that stages its products in a meaningful but superficial way.

While classic cosmetics brands fight for attention—shouting loudly and colorfully—the brand dispenses with discounts, celebrities, and garish advertising messages.

Instead, the company invests in sensual store architecture, literary language, and radical consistency.

In times of obsession with quick results and ubiquitous advice promising “Results in 7 Days” or “Clinically Proven,” Aesop responds differently.

No hype.

No discounts.

No promises of a glowing complexion.

Instead: texts featuring quotes from Camus, stores designed like architectural poems, and marketing channels based on emotions.

A product needs to perform, but if it can do so with a little poetry, so much the better. Technology increasingly robs us of the “mystical” in our lives, but not everything needs to be fast, available, and convenient. I like ideas and products that reveal themselves slowly – more whisper than scream, something that becomes part of our own personal universe.

Dennis Paphitis, Founder AESOP

And so the brand is less concerned with promoting the company and more with the consumers' own identity, with the products positioning themselves as a mirror of that identity.

Visitors to the website will find no superlatives, no beauty promises, no inauthentic missions. Instead, they will find factual descriptions, clear language, and short sentences.

The products are not touted, but explained. There are no “secret formulas” or perfectly styled models.

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Almost all strategies, concepts, and projects start with a workshop. Since 2008, I’ve led more than 150 workshops – from 2-person core teams to events with 50 participants. From strategic to operational.

Sometimes full of inspiration, sometimes laser-focused on outcomes. Sometimes for leadership teams seeking direction, sometimes for experts exploring new ways of working.

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I love workshops.

And more and more often, I get the question:

“What makes a workshop truly great?”

So today, here’s this special post about workshops.

Full of learnings, observations, and methods.

Let’s start with this:

• A perfect workshop doesn’t feel like work — it feels like a collective awakening.

• For me, there’s no such thing as a “perfect” format. The art lies in creating spaces that make exactly that possible. And it all starts with one central insight and a lot of intentional craft.

So today, we’ll look at:

1️⃣ What makes a workshop perfect?

Then we’ll dive into the three core phases of my workshops:

2️⃣ Entering

3️⃣ Centering with lots of methods

4️⃣ Exiting

And finally, a few practical tips:

5️⃣ Your next step

💎 What is a (perfect) workshop?

The key question at the beginning of a perfect workshop is: What do we want to achieve?

Each of my workshops is structured differently, because it depends on the kind of future we’re working toward.

Over the years, I’ve tested countless methods – but it wasn’t until I developed my own model that my workshop design became truly strategic:

The Focus Map.

A visualization and decision-making matrix that helps us create the most energizing workshop format for our organization and team. The Focus Map helps us identify which of the five key forces we want to bring to the forefront of the workshop.

Together with my clients, I use this to find out what they really need.

Do we have the right problem?

The question sounds simple, but it’s often the biggest lever for real impact. In many cases, the problem exists in my clients’ minds but hasn’t yet been clearly defined.

That’s why my role as a consultant and strategist is to take a closer look right there.

“We are hired to begin at the beginning. Like the medical professionals that our four-phase model of diagnose, prescribe, apply and reapply suggests, our highest value offering is our ability to bring new perspective and understanding to our clients’ problems.”

Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

Workshops that start with a fixed solution in hand feel like obligatory appointments. Workshops that start with genuine curiosity about the problem generate energy.

Together, we uncover possible problems the workshop can solve and then define the core problem we want to focus on:

That’s why I never start by asking: “How do we solve this?” but rather:

“What do we want to build?”

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“Why should I read this newsletter?”

That's probably the question you're asking yourself at the beginning.

And that's exactly the topic I want to write about today:

➡️ The trend towards always looking for personal and often immediate benefits.

More and more surveys show that consumers prioritise price, convenience and personal benefit over social or ethical considerations - especially in times of economic stress.

A multinational survey of 4,000 consumers in Europe found that price sensitivity has increased by ~5% since before the pandemic, while traditional factors such as product quality and convenience have become slightly less important.

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In the face of high inflation and tight budgets, consumers are increasingly willing to compromise on quality or brand loyalty in order to save money.

And sustainability efforts are also affected by this:

“Consumers are increasingly opting for affordability over sustainability in their purchasing decisions, preferring cheaper alternatives as financial pressures hit household budgets.”

It is also very understandable: when money is tight, ethical or environmentally friendly decisions that do not pay off immediately are often put to one side.

This shows us one thing above all:

Consumers are becoming increasingly selfish.

Cost-benefit thinking is at the forefront and we are living more and more in a transactional world - which we are also experiencing in Trump's geopolitical policies.

Many people's first thought is therefore often:

“What’s in this for me?”

Consumer behavior is increasingly influenced by ego and self-identity.

People often choose brands not only because of their benefits, but also because of what these brands say about them. The “theory of self-congruence” states that consumers are attracted to brands that reflect their ideal self-image.

For example, luxury brands such as Rolex or (until recently) Tesla are chosen as symbols of status and success, not just for their functional value.

As soon as the personal advantage disappears, the willingness to buy collapses. We can see this right now in the collapse of Tesla sales figures: The car is the same as it was before Elon Musk's government contributions. But the personal, emotional value has changed.

So let’s look into:

1. Data points

2. The origin of the trend

3. What this means for marketing

4. Recommendations for marketing strategies

5. The challenge for sustainability

📊 Data points

• The top brands in a Havas study perform 57% better when it comes to communicating personal benefits. Their shares even perform 200% better.

• 71% of consumers believe that companies should help them improve their own personal wellbeing and health.

• 69% of companies have strategies to offer benefits in exchange for personal data. This means that customers explicitly want to know what's in it for them before they give up their trust or data - be it discounts, VIP access or a smoother experience.

• The majority lack optimism for the next generation. Only 36% of respondents believe that the next generation will be better off. In industrialized countries, only one in five see a better future.

• 71% of consumers expect companies to offer personalized interactions. 76% are frustrated when this is not the case.

“Over the last 15 years, we've commissioned research into what makes a brand really meaningful. What we've seen in the data is that actually there's a big shift back towards a personal lens on everything,”

Joanna Lawrence, Global Chief Strategy Officer at Havas Media Network

🗝️ Origins of the Ego-Conomy Trend

In my view, this movement towards the ego economy and the selfishness that goes with it began with the Covid-19 pandemic. The triggers: uncertainty, coupled with a retreat into and appreciation of the home - or what The Economist calls the “hermit consumer”. Then there were ongoing geopolitical conflicts in Eastern Europe, even more uncertainty, waves of inflation and therefore restrictions on personal budgets.

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Do you think sustainability is important?

Probably yes.

And do you think you contribute a lot to it yourself?

I and many others would tend to say no.

That's the problem. Sustainability has an image problem!

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One of the biggest mistakes we made was to talk about statistics and figures - all of which are correct - in relation to the green future and the climate crisis.

However, this does not inspire the masses because, as I have already written in recent posts, they are one thing above all: overloaded.

And that unfortunately leads us to a clear result:

The last decade has been a massive failure for climate policies worldwide. Instead of meaningfully reducing emissions, we mostly did: nothing. A lost decade with one negative record after another causes many people to feel helpless and hopeless.

And while this story is true, it is not the whole picture. The situation is serious but not hopeless. Many things have started to change for the better in recent years, and scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs everywhere are working on solutions. There are things we can do, and it is not too late.

Kurzgesagt

If we want to change this, we need to inspire people.

We need an overarching story. We need to make sustainability sexy.

But if we simply implement random campaigns or launch a big sustainability campaign once every few years, that won't get us anywhere.

We need a sustainability strategy.

In the strategy, we define our approach to sustainability and what, how and why we communicate about it.

Today I describe how I develop these fundamental ideas and solutions together with my clients.

At the heart of this are a few key points. We need

1. a potential for why we want to promote sustainability.

2. a definition of what sustainability means for us as a brand.

3. a commitment from the very top - no strategy without a CEO.

4. actions that we take to improve our impact.

5. marketing activities to make our contribution visible.

The most important thing is: first the sustainability strategy. Then the appropriate marketing.

The basic principle of good communication is not without reason:

“Do good and talk about it.”

And not

“Talk a lot and then do some things”

So here's how I work this out together with my clients:

1️⃣ Why sustainability?

In hundreds of conversations with CEOs, CMOs, founders and marketing managers, I always hear the same message:

“I care deeply about sustainability.”

And yet we still see little progress. According to the latest UN 2024 report, we will only achieve 16% of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). And that means even more extreme weather events in the coming years.

Why do we have little progress?

Because sustainability is an investment.

Sustainability is a business thing, not a marketing thing, first and foremost. In other words, it’s something you should do at a wider business level, not something that is a quarterly spike of activity or anything like that.

Rob Estreitinho

A strong sustainability strategy will not directly bring us better results next quarter or year.

But it will ensure the continued existence of our company (and pleasant temperatures) over the next 5-10 years. So what are good reasons for a brand and company to invest in and focus on sustainability right now?

• We can gain a competitive advantage over our competitors. Companies that have sustainability strategies achieve on average 11% higher profits than their unsustainable competitors. This is because their customers are more loyal and satisfied.

• We can already create a framework for future legislation. Because when it comes to legislative amendments, pioneers such as the EU or California will always look to the market for inspiration.

• We can be more attractive suppliers for big companies that have to integrate their sustainability impact into their reporting. 73% of all B2B buyers are already planning to delist partners if their sustainability efforts are insufficient.

• And the most important thing from my point of view: we will find it easier to attract young talent as employees. This is because they increasingly no longer want to work for non-sustainable brands:

The most important thing in this first step is to determine together:

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When was the last time you watched a commercial to the end?

When was the last time you really read a newsletter?

When was the last time you changed your buying behavior?

2025 shows us one thing above all:

An overload of (world) news.

We feel like we're under constant stress.

Everything is so fast.

The.

All.

Time.

And it's not just us marketers who feel this way.

So do the customers we try to reach.

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According to a study, women usually spend around 84 seconds evaluating a partner profile in a dating app, while men only need 58 seconds.

If we don't even pay attention to choosing a partner, then we can assume what is happening to our expensively produced and carefully considered marketing.

• We spend 1.7 seconds on an advertisement in a magazine.

• On a mailing 2 seconds.

• On a social media post 1.3 seconds.

Our brand content is literally eaten up by people's everyday lives.

And they prefer to forget this everyday life when they are entertained.

Who hasn't experienced this?

After a long day at work, you just want to relax on the couch.

Just scroll TikTok or watch Netflix... (or both at the same time).

And escaping the omnipresent and constantly changing algorithm seems almost impossible.

“The Algorithm” doesn’t measure what people want.
It measures what people pay attention to.”

Karen X. Cheng, Creative director, video and visual arts

Brands will have a hard time in 2025.

This is not just a challenge for companies:

53% of all creators also think it is harder to reach their followers than it was five years ago.

People are overwhelmed by communication, choice, products, services and advertising.

Nobody wants to buy products.

And people want to buy sustainability even less.

They want to be rewarded, to feel a bit of nostalgia in uncertain times. And in essence, they want a benefit for their lives.

So what will brands have to create in 2025?

Let's take a look at that today:

1️⃣ From purchase to desire

2️⃣ Emotions on eye level

3️⃣ Green marketing reframed

1️⃣ From purchase to desire

Some brands are simply bought.

Others are desired.

In the incredible amount of content and choice, brands need to stand out with emotion.

Consumers are searching for a deeper meaning. The value of a product or service will increasingly be judged by its ability to evoke a profound emotional response.

We forget the majority of brands relatively quickly.

A few live somewhere in the hinterland of our consciousness. We buy and consume on the basis of habit. We buy because we want to satisfy a need.

And when we buy, 99% of the time it's a transaction.

Sounds harsh.

But unfortunately it is the reality of marketing in 2025.

Let's take a change of perspective from this dreary thought:

Think of a product that you really want. Something you want right now.

Nobody buys a Rolex because they need it. Nobody buys a house because a spontaneous desire has just arisen. We spend days, weeks, months rationalizing why we make big purchase decisions.

This is desire.

Luxury brands have been working with it for decades.

Why do we buy a Rolex but ignore sustainable products?

But what happens when we apply these mechanics to more everyday products?

What happens when we work with it around sustainability communication?

That's where we need to start.

From transaction to transformation.

From “here's what we do” to “here's what we help you do”.

In a very practical way:

🍎 What does Apple sell?

At first glance, they are electronic devices.

But at second glance, they are a tool to connect us, to express ourselves (and our status) and to pay more and more attention to our health.

It is not for nothing that the Apple Watch is the best-selling watch in the world, which incidentally communicates with one argument at the top of the list: Health.

So it's not just about the WHAT behind products, but more and more about the HOW and WHY.

“Consumers are no longer buying just items, but are buying into sensations and visions of themselves. Brands need to understand the emotional journeys of the customers and display and position their products not just as objects of desire, but as integral parts of larger lifestyle aspirations.”

© Next Atlas Unveiling 2025

A few more examples that show how an everyday product can stand for more:

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We need to talk about AI.

I know, everyone wants to talk about it.

All. The. Time.

But we need to discuss the impact of AI on marketing, its potential, and its risks. And how we can use it effectively for organizations.

In my last newsletter, I mentioned that I see 5 particularly exciting trends around marketing and strategy for 2025.

Today, we’re diving deep into number 4:

🤖 GenAI Explosion – The AI Cultural Shift in Marketing

Let’s get this straight from the start—I wrote this piece myself.

But AI helped me research a little beyond my usual scope.

Some key questions that have been on my mind (and maybe on yours too?) are:

• Will young marketing managers have a harder time finding jobs now that agencies and brands have artificial assistants?

• Will AI not only change our work but also our perception of creativity itself?

• Will companies and employees who don’t engage with AI still be competitive in five years?

• Will AI models soon replace creatives and strategists—or will they free us from repetitive tasks so we can focus on real ideas again?

• Will AI make brands smarter, more relevant, and more unique—or will it lead to uniformity, making all content interchangeable?

As these questions show:

We’re moving in a field of tension.

On one hand, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, claims that AI will take over 95% of all marketing, creative, and advertising work currently handled by agencies.

"It will mean that 95% of what marketers use agencies, strategists, and creative professionals for today will easily, nearly instantly and at almost no cost be handled by the AI — and the AI will likely be able to test the creative against real or synthetic customer focus groups for predicting results and optimizing. Again, all free, instant, and nearly perfect. Images, videos, campaign ideas? No problem."

Yes, Generative AI produces text, images, videos, and even entire campaigns in seconds.

But is that enough to create real brand relationships?

Marketing is more than just generating content quickly.

It thrives on intuition, human creativity, and cultural sensitivity. It’s about understanding emotions, telling stories that stick, and giving brands a unique identity.

AI can test, optimize, and personalize—but it can’t feel. It can analyze data, but it can’t create genuine brand culture. And if everyone uses the same algorithms, won’t everything start looking the same?

Data Points

• 88% of organisations are exploring how to use Generative AI (only 61% are working on prediction models, and just 30% on robotics).

• 25% already say, that they are integrating Generative AI capabilities across large parts of their organizational structure als integrierte Fähigkeit in großen Teilen ihrer Organisationsstruktur (not just in marketing).

• 76% of marketing strategists have a positive attitude toward AI - and nearly 90% expect to work with AI even more.

• Only 25% of companies invest in AI training for their employees, and only 39% of employees have received AI training from their companies.

• 80% of employees in organizations with AI bans admit to using AI anyway - 74% do so through their personal accounts.

• Employees don’t want to wait for official AI guidelines. They use it because it saves time (90%), helps them be more creative (84%), and makes their job more fulfilling (83%).

Between Unlimited Potential & Lack of Direction

Why do marketing professionals use AI in their work?

The top 3 reasons are:

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