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What makes brands grow? We spoke with Professor Koen Pauwels, who is referred to by Mark Ritson as “the best marketing professor on the planet”. In this conversation, Professor Pauwels shares a clear and practical view on the topic. From positioning and segmentation to data, differentiation and long-term effectiveness, his argument is simple: growth comes from making sharper choices, executing them consistently, and using data to improve decisions rather than just defend them. About Professor Koen Pauwels Professor Koen Pauwels is one of the leading voices in marketing effectiveness today. As a Distinguished Professor of Marketing at Northeastern University, he is known for combining academic rigour with real-world relevance across topics such as brand growth, dashboards, pricing, retail media and marketing ROI. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Research in Marketing and previously worked as Principal Research Scientist at Amazon Ads. At DVJ, through our Brand Growth platform, we are keen to better understand what drives brand growth. From your perspective, what separates growing brands from those that stagnate? “I typically divide this into two things: doing the right things and doing things right. Doing the right things starts with bringing together insights on your customers, your company and your competitors. The first question is: where do you really want to play? That is partly about category selection, of course, it is easier to grow in a growing category, but it is also about positioning. So, marketing strategy and positioning are crucial. I still think it is very important to think in terms of segmentation, targeting and positioning. Consumers differ in important ways, and companies need to be clear about which segments are most desirable for them. That could be the biggest segment, the one that is willing to pay more, or a small number of large customers who can become a reference for others. Then comes the question of feasibility: what can we genuinely offer that we are better at than the competition? That is where positioning becomes concrete. Why should customers take us seriously? That is your point of parity. And why should they choose you? Are you faster, cheaper, better? Once you have that crystal clear, you can probably use it for five to ten years. And that kind of strategic clarity is often what I see missing when companies talk about growth, especially profitable growth. After that comes execution. I still believe in the four Ps: product, price, place and promotion, all aligned to the strategy. Brands that grow well are brands that think carefully about doing the right things first. You cannot be all things to all people if you want to grow. You have to pick your battles. When I was at Amazon, I pushed back against the Metaverse hype. Not just because I saw it as a limited market, but because I didn’t see any competitive advantage for Amazon in it.” So, where does that leave Byron Sharp’s thinking, who emphasises reaching a broad audience and building distinctiveness rather than differentiation? “I would say I agree with Byron Sharp 95%. But I do think there are some blind spots in his theory. What he did very well was push the importance of distinctiveness. Academia has probably not paid enough attention to that. In theory, consistency over time seems obvious. In practice, it is hard. Every new CMO wants to change things. CEOs and everyone around them have opinions about branding. Everybody thinks they can do a marketer’s job without any formal training in marketing. So Byron was right to emphasise: stay the course unless you have a really good reason to change. He was also right that differentiation is hard. It is difficult to get consumers, or customers in B2B, to see you as genuinely better than competitors, and to make that stick over time. But hard does not mean unimportant. Differentiation is extremely valuable when you achieve it. It drives not just sales, but also price premium and stronger organic growth. Apple is the cliché example, but it is a good one. Apple gets an extraordinary amount of publicity for free. Even an announcement gets more coverage than a competitor’s launch. Why? Partly because journalists like writing about Apple, but more importantly, because consumers trust the brand and think highly of it. The brand stands for something. So yes, distinctiveness matters. But differentiation matters too.” Is the balance different for young brands and established brands? “Yes, that is where the nuance really matters. For young brands, differentiation is essential. If you are a new brand, you cannot go to a consumer who is reasonably happy with their current choice and say, ‘Switch because we are here.’ You have to give them a real reason: we are better, faster or cheaper for your needs. Later on, once you are a large and established brand and your differentiation is already broadly known, then distinctiveness becomes relatively more important. Brands like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s are good examples. At that point, consistency matters more than trying to invent some big new difference every year. That said, even for bigger brands, segmentation still matters. You may want to reach everybody eventually, but you should not speak to everybody in exactly the same way. A person actively looking for a new refrigerator should be approached differently from someone who is nowhere near the category. That is still segmentation, even if people dress it up differently.” Many companies pride themselves on being data-driven. But what does data-driven marketing actually look like in practice? “The short answer is: you are willing to change your decisions based on data. If you are not willing to do that, then you are not really data-driven. That does not mean you should ignore experience or gut feel. And it certainly does not mean every decision needs a perfectly calculated ROI. There is still a lot of room in marketing for creativity, experimentation and learning. But being data-driven means starting with the decision you are trying to make and then being very clear about what you want the data to help you understand. In my consulting, for example, clients often ask me to optimise the marketing mix. But then I first ask: do you want advice on reallocating the budget, or do you also want advice on the size of the budget itself? Very often, the people hiring me do not control the total budget. They only control part of it. So the practical question becomes: within the constraints you actually have, what can you do better? That matters because even if the model says something dramatic, for example raise prices by 40%, cut advertising in half, almost no marketer is going to do that immediately. The career risk is simply too big. So what do good marketers do? They move in the direction of the evidence, but they do it in manageable steps. They test. They run field experiments. They reduce risk. That, to me, is what real data-driven marketing looks like: using data to improve decisions in the real world, not just to produce a mathematically elegant answer.” And what would you consider the main reason why companies are not making optimal use of the data available yet? “The first reason is data silos. Companies are drowning in data, but the right data often sits in different parts of the organisation, owned by different teams, with different incentives. Sometimes, people do not even know where the relevant data lives. And even if they do, they still need to convince others to share it. The second issue is a lack of alignment. If my incentives are not aligned with those of leadership, and those incentives do not clearly support the company’s broader goals, then data is much less likely to drive good decisions. And then there is the issue of decision-making itself. Companies need structural ways to make data win the argument. That is not just about dashboards. It is also about how meetings are run. If the most senior person speaks first, everybody adjusts to that. If they speak last, the chances improve that the strongest argument actually gets heard. That is the real challenge: how do you design meetings and decisions so that the data has a fair chance of winning?” In marketing there is an ongoing discussion about short-term versus long-term results. Is that something you recognise as well, and how does that play a role in effective marketing? “I do. And that whole trajectory also happened at Amazon. When I came in, everyone was told: we want to be in the best position five to ten years from now. So, your decisions were guided by that. It was a wonderful environment. Later on, it became more about delivering quarterly results so that Wall Street would be happy. But I always say that in practice, the long term is a percentage of the short term. You cannot simply say, ‘Trust me, it may take years, but this will pay off in the long term.’ Not in today’s environment. Your strategy and your positioning should also generate some short-term signals that things are moving in the right direction. Those short-term wins are what create organisational buy-in for longer-term investment. That does not mean everything has to convert into immediate sales. This is where leading KPIs matter. You may not see sales effects right away, but you may see an increase in consideration, search behaviour, website visits or inbound interest from the sales team which your analysis has demonstrated to convert to profits later. That sounds like a plea for combining behavioural and attitudinal data, rather than choosing between them “Exactly. Behavioural data is powerful because it is unobtrusive and often relatively cheap. But it only tells you what people do, not why they do it. That is why attitudes still matter. Surveys still matter. If you want to understand why people are responding in a certain way, how they think about your brand, and how they compare you to competitors, you still need to ask them. And that is also why humans still matter, despite all the excitement around AI. AI can help make reporting and analysis faster. But clients still want someone to explain why something is happening. They want interpretation. They want judgment. They want empathy. That is still human work.” Finally, what is the one piece of advice every marketer starting out should hear? “Get trained. There is just no excuse. I completely agree with Mark Ritson on that point. Too many marketers have little or no formal training in marketing. And that is a problem, because our field has developed a huge amount of useful knowledge over the past 50 or 60 years. The good news is that there are no longer many barriers to accessing that knowledge. You do not have to read academic journals cover to cover. There are executive summaries, blogs, podcasts, videos and explainers everywhere. What I do think is unacceptable is when people present themselves as branding experts while not knowing the foundational thinkers in the field. If you want marketing to earn respect in the boardroom, marketers need to be seen as specialists too. The CFO has credentials and recognised expertise. Marketers should bring the same depth. The knowledge is out there. It has never been more accessible. So my advice is simple: take the discipline seriously.”

Bjørn Barfod Vestergaard is a Danish entrepreneur, marketing expert, and media profile, best known for his work within the podcast space and as the host of the business podcast Rollemodellerne (“The role models”). Alongside his podcast, he is the founder and CEO of Amp 99 which is a part of SuperSonic Collective, an AI-driven platform that connects brands with relevant podcasts. With a background spanning companies such as Danske Spil, DSV, and Ekstra Bladet, Bjørn combines strategic thinking, content creation, and data-driven marketing to help brands grow in an increasingly fragmented media landscape. In this conversation, he shares a clear and sometimes critical perspective on what truly drives brand growth today. Moving beyond traditional metrics and short-term tactics, Bjørn argues that brands need to rethink how they measure success, how they engage audiences, and how they navigate a world shaped by AI and content overload. From Awareness to Engagement: Rethinking Brand KPIs When discussing brand growth, many organisations still default to familiar metrics such as awareness, recall, and consideration. While Bjørn acknowledges their relevance, he believes they only tell part of the story. The real question, he argues, is what actually drives those metrics in the first place. For him, one KPI stands out above the rest: share of time. “If perception is to be formed, you need time to say something meaningful,” he explains. In a media landscape dominated by short formats and constant interruptions, the brands that win are those that manage to hold attention for longer. Closely linked to this is engagement, which Bjørn considers the most important, yet often misunderstood, indicator of brand strength. “There’s a huge difference between choosing something and being force-fed something,” he says. This distinction is particularly evident when comparing channels like podcasts to traditional advertising environments. Where passive exposure may generate impressions, active choice creates real connection. “There’s a huge difference between choosing something and being force-fed something.” The Illusion of Metrics and the Limits of Data Despite the industry’s increasing reliance on data, Bjørn is cautious about how metrics are used in practice. Too often, he argues, numbers are treated as definitive proof rather than as inputs for better thinking. “Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. The point is not that data is unimportant, but that it can easily be misinterpreted or used to justify pre-existing decisions. This becomes particularly problematic when metrics such as impressions are elevated to the status of success indicators. “You can’t look at an impression in isolation and say that it builds your brand,” Bjørn explains. Being seen once is not the same as being remembered, and it certainly does not guarantee meaningful impact. Instead, he points back to the fundamentals: brands grow when they create something that resonates, something people remember, and something that stands out in a crowded landscape. “You can’t look at an impression in isolation and say that it builds your brand.” Creating Impact in a Fragmented Media Landscape The challenge of standing out has become significantly more complex. Where brands once relied on mass-reach channels like television, today’s media environment is highly fragmented, requiring a fundamentally different approach. For Bjørn, this means moving away from one-size-fits-all campaigns and towards content tailored to each specific channel. “You can’t just copy-paste across platforms,” he says. What works on LinkedIn will not work on Reddit, just as a TV ad cannot simply be repurposed for a podcast. This shift places greater demands on marketers, not just in execution but in thinking. The key is no longer to produce more content, but to create the right content for the right context—content that feels native to the platform and relevant to the audience. AI, Authenticity and the Future of Trust As AI becomes increasingly integrated into marketing, Bjørn sees both opportunities and risks. While AI can enhance efficiency and enable new forms of creativity, it also raises important questions around authenticity and trust. “We are heading into a place where trust in brands becomes more and more important,” he explains. For Bjørn, the danger lies in assuming that technology alone can solve creative challenges. “You can’t just prompt your way to great advertising,” he says. The idea must come first; AI should be used to enhance it, not replace it. He also observes a growing flood of mediocre content, driven by the ease of production. As barriers to creation decrease, the importance of strong ideas and clear brand positioning only increases. “We are heading into a place where trust in brands becomes more and more important. You can’t just prompt your way to great advertising.” Brand Building Is a Long-Term Game If there is one theme that runs consistently through Bjørn’s perspective, it is the importance of long-term thinking. In contrast to the industry’s focus on short-term performance, he emphasises that brand building requires patience, consistency, and investment. “Branding is a long, tough process,” he says. It cannot be treated as an occasional campaign or an afterthought in a marketing plan. Instead, it demands continuous effort over time, building familiarity, trust, and relevance step by step. This also means avoiding what he calls “random acts of marketing”—disconnected initiatives that lack a clear strategic direction. The brands that succeed are those that take a deliberate, consistent approach, reinforcing their positioning across every touchpoint. The Role of Courage in Brand Growth Alongside time and consistency, Bjørn highlights another critical ingredient: courage. In an environment where many brands are hesitant to take risks, he believes that standing for something has never been more important. “It’s very difficult to build a brand if you don’t stand for something,” he says. This requires making clear choices, not only about what to say, but also about who to target. Rather than trying to appeal to everyone, brands need to define their audience and commit to it fully. “Have the courage to choose your audience, and the courage to deselect the rest,” he explains. By doing so, brands can become truly relevant to a specific group, rather than vaguely present for many. “It’s very difficult to build a brand if you don’t stand for something. Have the courage to choose your audience, and the courage to deselect the rest.” Making Media Work Harder Finally, Bjørn stresses the importance of understanding the true value of different media channels. Not all exposure is equal, and marketers need to think carefully about what they are actually buying. A low-cost banner may deliver reach, but does it create any meaningful impact? In contrast, a channel where consumers voluntarily spend 20 or 30 minutes, such as a podcast, offers a completely different level of engagement. “Use media channels on their own terms,” he advises. “By respecting the unique strengths of each channel, brands can create more effective and more meaningful interactions.” “Use media channels on their own terms. By respecting the unique strengths of each channel, brands can create more effective and more meaningful interactions.” A Shift Back to Fundamentals Despite the rapid changes in technology and media, Bjørn’s perspective ultimately points back to the fundamentals of marketing. Brand growth is not driven by shortcuts or single metrics, but by a combination of time, engagement, relevance, and courage. In a world where attention is scarce and trust is fragile, the brands that succeed will be those that invest in meaningful connections, create content that truly resonates, and commit to a clear and consistent strategy over time. Because in the end, being seen is not enough. What matters is being remembered and chosen.

Artificial intelligence is changing the marketing and creative industries at speed. But for Alistair Robertson, Creative AI Director, its real significance is not that it replaces creativity. It is that it could help brands get back to what has always driven growth: genuine distinctiveness, stronger ideas, and more effective brand building. With experience across FMCG, finance, healthcare and technology, Robertson has seen multiple waves of change in advertising. His perspective, however, remains grounded in fundamentals. Strong brands are built on something meaningful at their core, supported by creativity that is emotionally resonant but commercially focused. In his view, AI is exciting precisely because it has the potential to strengthen those fundamentals rather than distract from them. Brand Growth Starts With Real Distinctiveness For Robertson, brand growth begins far earlier than the marketing campaign. It starts with the product or service itself. The brands that grow most successfully tend to be the ones that have done something genuinely different at their core. “If you’ve got a service that people generally enjoy using or a product they see value in, then it gives you distinctiveness. That distinctiveness is then something you can take into marketing.” He points to Dyson as a clear example. By reinventing an everyday household product and making it feel desirable, Dyson created the conditions for truly distinctive, product-led marketing. When the product itself stands apart, marketing becomes easier because the difference is already there. Communication and storytelling can then amplify something real, rather than trying to manufacture interest around something interchangeable. In categories where true product differentiation is harder to achieve, brands have to create distinction in other ways. That might come through tone of voice, narrative, identity or a sharper understanding of audience needs. Robertson points to the early success of Innocent Drinks as a good example of how voice and personality can reshape a category. He sees similar patterns in financial brands such as Monzo and Revolut, which brought a more human and distinctive character into traditionally conservative spaces. But even then, creativity has to stay grounded in commercial reality. In Robertson’s view, the role of advertising is not self-expression for its own sake. It is commercial creativity: creativity in service of selling something people value. Distinctiveness matters because it gives marketing something more powerful to work with. “If you’ve got a service that people generally enjoy using or a product they see value in, then it gives you distinctiveness. That distinctiveness is then something you can take into marketing.” What gets in the way: Short-termism and Risk Aversion If distinctiveness is the foundation of growth, Robertson believes many businesses make it harder than necessary to build. One of the biggest reasons is short-term thinking. Despite the importance of long-term brand platforms, many organisations still plan tactically from one year to the next, even in sectors where future business pressures are highly predictable. “When you can plot out where roughly your business is going to be, why aren’t we projecting what we’re going to do in two or three years, not just what tactics we are doing for the following 12 months?” he asks. He sees this clearly in healthcare, where companies can often anticipate events such as patent expiry and competitive entry years in advance. In those circumstances, the lack of longer-term strategic planning is difficult to justify. Frequent leadership change can make the problem worse, as new leaders often want to put their own stamp on the business, sometimes at the expense of consistency. Alongside short-termism, Robertson sees risk aversion as another major barrier. This is especially true in regulated sectors such as finance and healthcare, where businesses can become more cautious than regulation itself requires. The result is work designed to satisfy every internal stakeholder, rather than work designed to move people. That kind of caution tends to produce messaging that feels safe but indistinct. When brands try to land on one broad idea that offends no one and reassures everyone, they often strip out the very things that make communication memorable. The result is blandness, not effectiveness. “When you can plot out where roughly your business is going to be, why aren’t we projecting what we’re going to do in two or three years, not just what tactics we are doing for the following 12 months?” The Result is Parity Advertising For Robertson, one of the clearest symptoms of this broader problem is what he calls parity advertising: communications built around category-level claims such as being the most trusted or most recommended. Those messages can play a role, particularly in defending an existing position, but they rarely create real ownership or meaningful competitive advantage. That is because parity claims tend to signal equivalence rather than difference. They may reassure, but they do not usually make a brand more desirable or memorable. For Robertson, lasting growth comes less from saying you are slightly better than the next option and more from creating emotional connection and a stronger sense of identity in the market. Why AI is the Most Interesting Shift in Years This is why Robertson is so optimistic about AI. While many people in the creative industries frame it as a threat, he sees it as the most exciting shift the industry has experienced in many years. Not because it changes the fundamentals of good marketing, but because it could remove some of the friction that has stopped stronger ideas from getting made and sold. One of AI’s most immediate benefits, in his view, is its ability to make ideas visible much earlier. For decades, agencies have often had to sell creative concepts that clients could only imagine. AI changes that dynamic. It allows teams to bring ideas to life earlier in the development process, making abstract thinking more tangible and giving clients greater confidence in bolder routes. That matters because people are far more likely to buy into something they can see. When an idea becomes visible early, the conversation changes. Stronger creative work has a better chance of surviving the process because stakeholders are no longer being asked to make a leap of faith. In that sense, AI is not just a production tool. It is also a persuasion tool. It helps creatives sell braver thinking internally and gives clients a clearer way to engage with ideas before they are fully produced. That, Robertson believes, could have a meaningful effect on the quality of work that reaches the market. “One of the most powerful things AI enables is making ideas visible early. When clients can actually see the idea, they’re much more likely to buy into something bold.” AI is Powerful, but often Misunderstood At the same time, Robertson is clear-eyed about how AI actually works in practice. One of the biggest misconceptions is that AI-generated advertising is simply the result of entering a prompt and receiving a finished piece of work. In reality, the process is far more involved. It often requires multiple tools, deliberate iteration and a carefully constructed workflow. He compares it less to traditional film production and more to animation, where the final output is built step by step rather than captured and refined from large volumes of footage. “Using AI is more like an animation production technique than a film production technique,” he states. As with any creative discipline, the quality of the output still depends on the quality of the thinking, the briefing and the craft applied throughout the process. AI does not remove the need for judgment. If anything, it makes good judgment more important. “Using AI is more like an animation production technique than a film production technique.” New Technology, Old Truths For all the transformation AI brings, Robertson does not believe the fundamentals of marketing have changed. His concern is that brands may become overly focused on short-term performance and forget the long-term work of building memory, meaning and preference. What interests him is the combination of old principles and new capabilities: “I want the opportunity to use the latest technologies to prove the tenets of great brand marketing.” AI can help teams refine brand voice, explore alternative approaches and test different scenarios with greater speed. It can make brand systems more dynamic and help strategic and creative thinking become more tangible earlier. But none of that changes the underlying objective. The goal is still to build brands that people remember, value and choose. For Robertson, that is the real promise of this moment. AI is not most valuable as a shortcut to more content. It is most valuable as a tool that can help brands return to more distinctive, persuasive and commercially effective creativity. In other words, the future may look new, but the standard for great marketing remains the same. “I want the opportunity to use the latest technologies to prove the tenets of great brand marketing.”

The Dominant Paradigm: Business Metrics and Operational Thinking in Segmentation In segmentation, there is rarely a clear “right” or “wrong.” Instead, segmentations are more or less useful depending on how effectively they help achieve business objectives. And those objectives are typically framed in familiar, measurable terms: growth, revenue, market share, or profitability. When defining success—and even more so when proving it — organisations tend to fall back on tangible metrics such as segment size, revenue potential, or share of wallet. At the same time, stakeholders across the business naturally shift toward operational questions: What do I need to do differently? How do I activate this?

London, 20 May 2026 - DVJ Insights welcomes Nicola Ball as consultant in the UK, further strengthening its shopper and innovation expertise and supporting continued growth in the region. Nicola brings more than 20 years of experience in shopper research and consultancy. She started her career at Kantar Worldpanel before moving to Australia, where she held shopper and customer insight roles at Colgate-Palmolive and Lion. Most recently, Nicola worked at IGD, where she provided strategic direction and commercial recommendations to FMCG suppliers and retailers, grounded in shopper and consumer insight. She specialises in understanding how shopper behaviour influences brand and category growth, retail environments and innovation strategies. Throughout her career, Nicola has worked across a broad range of categories, helping businesses translate shopper understanding into stronger marketing, category and commercial decision-making. At DVJ Insights, Nicola will work closely with clients to support brand and category growth, with a particular focus on shopper and innovation. She will help brands identify, develop and refine innovations to meet evolving market needs, while uncovering real-time shopper decision-making through innovative methodologies and behavioural insight approaches. “I am delighted to join the DVJ Insights team. DVJ stood out to me because of its clear focus on delivering added value to clients, the quality and rigour of its research, and its commitment to innovation. I was also drawn to the company’s ambition to be not only the best research agency, but also the best place to work,” says Nicola. “What particularly attracted me to the role was the opportunity to work in close partnership with clients, helping them solve commercial challenges, while also collaborating with some of the industry’s leading experts.” Jemma Toynebee-Smith, Managing Consultant UK, adds: “Nicola is a great addition to our UK team. With her strong experience in shopper research, retail environments and commercial consultancy, she strengthens our ability to support clients in understanding how shopper behaviour can drive brand and category growth. We are very happy to welcome her to the team.”

Over the past decade, brand growth has become increasingly grounded in data, evidence, and structured decision-making. In this conversation, Alexander Dedovets, responsible for Marketing Effectiveness at Cloetta, a leading confectionery company in Northern Europe and home to some of the strongest brands on the market, shares how the company approaches growth through a clear focus on penetration, product quality, and evidence-based marketing. From prioritising “superbrands” and consumer relevance to balancing innovation with commercial reality, his perspective reflects a pragmatic and disciplined approach to building brands in a complex category. The Product as the Foundation, Distribution as the Driver While Cloetta combines multiple growth levers – brand communication, distribution, pricing, and innovation - Alexander is clear that not all of them play the same role. At the core, everything starts with the product itself. Strong distribution or marketing may drive initial trial, but only a product that consumers genuinely like will generate repeat purchase and long-term growth. “If people buy it once and don’t like the product, they will not buy it again.” This makes product quality the foundation of brand building. It determines whether a brand deserves to grow at all. Without it, any growth driven by marketing or distribution is short-lived. In that sense, the product is non-negotiable; it is what sustains demand over time. At the same time, a strong product alone is not enough to deliver growth at scale. This is where physical availability becomes critical. Growth, in practice, comes from being easy to buy—being present in the right channels, with the right formats, at the right moments. Distribution is what enables penetration, allowing more people to access and choose the brand. “The most efficient way to grow the brand is to increase the penetration, meaning that more people buy the product of the brand.” The distinction is subtle but important. The product ensures that consumers come back; distribution ensures that more consumers can buy in the first place. One creates sustainability, the other creates scale. Together, they form the engine of brand growth, supported by mental availability to ensure the brand is also top-of-mind when purchase moments arise. “The most efficient way to grow the brand is to increase the penetration, meaning that more people buy the product of the brand.” Balancing Physical and Mental Availability Cloetta’s growth approach is built on the interplay between physical and mental availability. On the one hand, the brand needs to be present wherever consumers want to buy, whether in supermarkets, convenience stores, or online platforms, and offer the right formats for different consumption moments. On the other hand, it needs to come to mind in those moments when consumers are considering a purchase. “You need to have both physical and mental availability hand in hand to be able to drive the growth effectively.” If one is missing, growth becomes difficult. Strong awareness without availability limits conversion, while strong distribution without awareness reduces the likelihood of being chosen. Innovation as a Complex Balancing Act Innovation plays a key role in driving consumer relevance, even though it is among the most complex drivers of growth. For Cloetta, the true opportunity lies in deeply understanding consumer needs and transforming those insights into scalable, winning products. “The real challenge is uncovering what consumers truly want, especially when those needs are still taking shape.” Successful innovation needs to strike a careful balance. It must be new enough to stand out, but familiar enough to appeal to a broad audience. It must deliver on taste and quality, while also being commercially viable in terms of cost and scale. Even with strong processes, uncertainty remains, and not every idea will succeed in the market. “The real challenge is uncovering what consumers truly want, especially when those needs are still taking shape.” Insight-led Growth, not Guesswork To navigate this uncertainty, Cloetta integrates data and consumer insights in every part of the business process. Inspiration comes from a combination of research, behavioural data, trend observation, and internal expertise. Ideas are not only generated through these inputs, but also rigorously tested before launch. “There’s a very clear and logical pattern. The better the product is, the better the market performance is once the product is launched.” This validation loop helps increase the probability of success and ensures that investments are directed towards ideas that are more likely to resonate with consumers. “There’s a very clear and logical pattern. The better the product is, the better the market performance is once the product is launched.” The role of Marketing and AI As the marketing landscape becomes more complex, the role of marketers is evolving. Rather than being specialists in a single area, they increasingly act as orchestrators, bringing together different capabilities, teams, and partners. “You need both: a generalist who can manage the whole project and specialists with deep expertise in their own areas.” This shift is driven by the growing number of media channels, data sources, and tools, making coordination and alignment more important than ever. In this context, AI is seen primarily as an enabler rather than a game changer. It helps speed up data processing, generate outputs, and support early-stage work, acting as what Alexander describes as a “junior assistant.” While it improves efficiency, it does not replace human judgment or creativity. Looking ahead, Alexander emphasises that the real opportunity for marketers lies in making better use of the knowledge already available. With more data and proven frameworks than ever before, future brand growth depends on applying this evidence consistently. “We have the logic, data, concepts, and scientific insights available; use them as a base in order to create the magic. But don’t skip the logic and focus only on the magic; strong marketing requires both.“ “We have the logic, data, concepts, and scientific insights available; use them as a base in order to create the magic.”

In a category as complex and high-stakes as higher education, brand growth is no longer just about filling seats. It is about building trust, authority, and long-term relevance in a market where decision-making is increasingly fragmented, emotional, and influenced by a multitude of touchpoints. Ana Marín, Marketing Manager at Universidad Europea, sits at the centre of this transformation. Responsible for driving growth across strategic verticals within one of Spain’s largest private university networks, she is navigating a shift that many brands are now facing: from performance-led marketing to brand-led growth. From Performance to Preference: Redefining Growth KPIs For years, marketing in education, like many sectors, leaned heavily on performance-driven tactics. Capture demand, optimise conversion, and drive enrolments. But that model is no longer sufficient in today’s environment. Ana describes a dual KPI framework that reflects this evolution. On one hand, there is the tangible outcome: student growth. On the other, there is brand relevance, the degree to which prospective students feel connected to, and prefer, the university. “These two KPIs go hand in hand,” she says. “You probably can’t achieve one without the other.” What makes this particularly challenging is that different parts of the organisation sit at different stages of maturity. A newly launched campus may need to prioritise awareness, while more established units focus on deepening relevance and differentiation. The implication is clear: brand growth is not linear. It requires adapting the marketing focus depending on where the brand, or sub-brand, sits in its lifecycle. “The ultimate business KPI is clear: how we attract more students year on year. But alongside that, there’s another KPI that matters just as much—how we make people prefer our brand over others.” The Real Drivers of Choice: Prestige and Recommendation When it comes to what actually drives growth in higher education, Ana is unequivocal: “The main drivers are prestige and recommendation.” Prestige, however, is not a superficial construct. It is built through a combination of tangible and experiential elements: academic quality, industry connections, faculty expertise, facilities, and ultimately, career outcomes. “It’s about the academic model, how students learn, the link with industry, and how studying here positions you in your professional life,” she explains. Closely intertwined with this is recommendation. In a category where decisions carry long-term consequences, peer validation and word-of-mouth play an outsized role. While recommendation is important across industries, Ana notes that its influence is particularly strong in education. Together, these drivers highlight a key truth: brand growth in education is inseparable from the product experience itself. “It’s about the academic model, how students learn, the link with industry, and how studying here positions you in your professional life.” From Funnel to Fluidity: Building One Brand in a Fragmented Journey Achieving this recommendation, however, is harder than ever. One of the most profound shifts Ana highlights is the collapse of the traditional marketing funnel. The once-linear path, from awareness to consideration to conversion, has given way to something far more complex. “We’ve moved from a model where Google was king to a ‘search everywhere’ reality,” she explains. Today, prospective students navigate a fluid ecosystem of touchpoints: TikTok, influencers, AI tools, social content, and multiple search environments. As a result, the role of brand has fundamentally changed. “Now the consumer doesn’t just search by product, they search by brand,” Ana notes. Faced with this fragmentation, Universidad Europea has made a decisive strategic shift. Rather than tailoring dozens of messages for different audiences and stages of the funnel, the focus is now on building a single, consistent brand narrative. “We were diluting our investment across too many messages,” Ana admits. The new approach centres on a universal insight: the human need to grow through learning. Whether targeting a recent school leaver or a mid-career professional, the underlying motivation remains the same. “The insight doesn’t change. Whether you’re 22 or 40, the core need is progressing in your professional life,” she explains. This shift has enabled the brand to achieve greater coherence and impact. In a world where consumers encounter brands across countless touchpoints, consistency is no longer optional; it is essential. “To be relevant, you need to be coherent. If you’re launching 30 different messages, you won’t build a clear positioning.” The Attention Economy: Media and Creativity Reimagined As media consumption evolves, so too does the battle for attention. Interestingly, Ana points to a counterintuitive trend: the resurgence of traditional channels. “Formats like out-of-home are coming back because they capture attention better than digital.” At the same time, digital channels, particularly social media, are redefining what effective content looks like. Success is no longer about polished production, but about relevance and authenticity. “The 17-year-olds don’t read long texts. They want a TikTok video, something quick and real,” Ana says. This shift is reshaping creative expectations. High-production, cinematic advertising is perceived as distant and is losing ground to content that feels credible, informal, and user-generated. “What they expect is something real, a video shot on a phone that shows the truth,” she explains. For brands, this creates a delicate balance: how to remain authoritative and credible while also being relatable and human. Within this context, artificial intelligence is emerging as both an opportunity and a tension point. While at Universidad Europea it is already embedded in internal processes supporting planning, briefing, and efficiency, its role in communication is more complex. “I see AI as a very positive evolution,” Ana says. However, she also notes its current limitations: “When we test AI-generated campaigns, they feel artificial. Consumers perceive them as distant.” This insight reinforces a broader theme: in a world saturated with content, authenticity becomes a key differentiator. Technology can enhance efficiency, but it cannot replace the human connection that drives brand relevance. “When we test AI-generated campaigns, they feel artificial. Consumers perceive them as distant.” Lifelong Learning, Lifelong Brands Beyond marketing tactics, Ana’s perspective reflects a deeper shift in the category itself. Education is no longer a one-time decision but a continuous journey. “Learning is no longer something you do once—it’s lifelong,” she says. This has implications not only for product offerings but also for brand positioning. Universities are no longer just institutions; they are long-term partners in personal and professional development. At the same time, competition is intensifying. Alternative education models, such as shorter, more affordable programmes, are challenging traditional formats. Yet, this also reinforces the importance of strong branding. In a crowded and evolving market, the brands that succeed will be those that combine credibility with clarity, consistency with creativity, and innovation with authenticity. Reflecting on the future, Ana sees the biggest opportunities in two areas: communication and the decision-making journey. “There’s still a lot of room to communicate better, and to support people better through the decision process,” she concludes. Her advice for marketers is simple but powerful: stay true to your brand. “The key is being authentic and legitimate to your brand, while still being relevant to your audience,” she says. In an era defined by fragmentation, speed, and constant change, that balance may well be the ultimate driver of brand growth. “The key is being authentic and legitimate to your brand, while still being relevant to your audience.”

In a category where products are largely interchangeable and differentiation is difficult to sustain, brand becomes the primary growth lever. In this conversation, Teresa Hedlund, Head of Marketing at Telenor Sweden, shares how the company is navigating growth in a highly competitive telecom market. From driving consideration in a low-interest category to sharpening brand distinctiveness and adapting to changing consumer behaviour, she explains why consistency, reach, and strategic focus are critical to staying relevant. Winning in a Category of Sameness Telecom is, by Teresa’s own admission, a mature category where most providers deliver similar core services. “We operate in a market where we don’t really have any competitive advantages to speak of,” she explains. “The products and services are essentially the same.” For customers, that makes the decision less about specs and more about confidence: choosing a brand they recognise and trust. “That’s why the brand becomes much more important,” Teresa says. “It’s about constantly reminding people, being present where the consumer is, and maintaining continuity over time.” A key structural challenge lies in the timing of purchase decisions. At any given moment, only a small proportion of consumers are actively considering switching providers. “Roughly 12% of the market is in-market at any given time,” she explains. “The rest are in binding or not actively looking to change Telecom provider.” That means Telenor has to be helpful and relevant both for people who are ready to choose now and for those who will decide later. This dynamic makes an always-on approach essential. Rather than focusing purely on short-term activation, Telenor invests in a consistent market presence and broad reach, so the brand feels familiar and credible when consumers eventually enter the market. “We operate in a market where we don’t really have any competitive advantages to speak of; the products and services are essentially the same. That’s why the brand becomes much more important.” From Awareness to Meaning: Solving the ‘Why’ In Sweden, many people already know Telenor — and the opportunity now is to make that familiarity mean something clear and compelling when customers are ready to choose. “We are quite well known, but less known in terms of why you should choose us,” Teresa notes. Brand strategy plays a crucial role in closing that gap by translating awareness into preference. The focus is not just on being visible, but on consistently communicating the reason to choose the brand — in a way that’s easy to understand and easy to remember. “That’s what we’re trying to solve; reaching more people with the ‘why’.” For customers, one of the biggest benefits is how easy Telenor makes it to connect the people who belong together — families in the broadest sense. “Family doesn’t have to mean a traditional household,” Teresa explains. “It can be your chosen family: Friends, Neighbours, or Extended Family. We allow up to eight people on one subscription.” With everyone gathered in one place, customers get a smoother way to manage their services, unlock family offers, and keep costs predictable. It also makes it easier to add the things that matter in everyday life — from parental controls and security solutions to streaming, roaming, and 5G broadband — in one coherent setup for the whole group. The result is a win-win: it makes it easy for new customers to join, and it gives people even more reasons to stay, because multiple users share the benefits and the experience together. “We are quite well known, but less known in terms of why you should choose us. That’s the communicative challenge we’re trying to solve; reaching more people with the ‘why’.” Fewer, Stronger, Better: The Power of Focus One of the most significant shifts under Teresa’s leadership has been a move towards greater focus, both in media and messaging. “When I started, we were spread across too many channels with too many messages,” she explains. “So we reduced the number of channels and messages to put more weight behind the ones we kept. That clarity makes a huge difference.” For Teresa, that’s ultimately a prioritisation challenge: deciding what deserves the investment and what doesn’t. “The hard part isn’t coming up with ideas — it’s deciding what to say no to,” she says. She puts it simply: “A strong brand isn’t built through lots of activities — it’s built by choosing what to leave out, and putting real weight behind the activities that support growth, done consistently.” That focus can’t sit in marketing alone. It starts with business strategy. “Our job isn’t to communicate everything that’s happening,” she says. “The business has to choose the key priorities that matter most — and our job as marketers is to translate them into clear communication that solves a real customer need.” With fewer messages in market, Telenor also invested in building stronger, distinctive brand assets — with a clear ambition: to be the brand people remember when it’s time to choose. “So we focused on what drives consideration. We want people to remember us at the point of purchase — and choose Telenor,” Teresa says. This included a clearer visual identity, more consistent use of distinctive brand elements, and a long-term commitment to a single creative platform. “We’ve kept the same concept since 2023, and now we’re starting to see the payoff. Media investments become more efficient over time.” The early results have been very positive, including major improvements in both Ad Awareness and Ad Impact. Together, the approach reflects a broader principle often referred to as “double jeopardy”: brands grow not by doing more things, but by doing fewer things better — and doing them consistently. “When I started, we were spread across too many channels with too many messages. So we reduced the number of channels and messages to put more weight behind the ones we kept. That clarity makes a huge difference.” Rethinking Growth in a Changing Category Beyond communication, shifts in the category are prompting Telenor to rethink where growth and engagement come from. One change Teresa points to is that phone replacement cycles appear to be stretching. “People keep their phones much longer now,” Teresa explains. “So the number of possible purchase moments is decreasing.” Historically, phone upgrades have often been a natural moment for people to review their mobile subscription. If that moment happens less frequently, it becomes even more important to stay relevant between purchase cycles — by giving customers useful reasons to engage. “We need to find new reasons for people to interact with us; new services, add-ons, things that create value for the customer.” This could include services such as security products, device repair, streaming services or bundled offerings — additions that create everyday value and an ongoing relationship, not just a one-off transaction. At the same time, perception remains a powerful barrier. “There’s still a belief that some competitors have better networks,” Teresa says. But rather than trying to win on claims alone, the opportunity is to earn trust over time by consistently showing up with clear proof points and experiences that reinforce network confidence — for example, sharing results from independent benchmarks such as OpenSignal or Bredbandskollen where available, making coverage and speed information easy to understand, and backing it up with the kind of service customers actually feel: safe and reliable connectivity in everyday life. Changing ingrained perceptions is a long game — and sustained brand building is what makes it possible. “We need to find new reasons for people to interact with us; new services, add-ons, things that create value for the customer.” Future-Proofing Growth in a Fragmented Media Landscape Looking ahead, one of the biggest challenges is not just what to say, but how to reach people at scale. “Everything is fragmenting, and it’s becoming harder to reach large audiences.” In that environment, Telenor leans into broad reach and continuity — ensuring the brand is present beyond the moments when people are actively shopping. “For us, reach is the most important thing. We need to ensure we are present across the population, because everyone is a potential customer.” At the same time, staying present isn’t enough — the communication has to earn attention and build a stronger emotional connection. That’s where creativity comes in, and where Telenor’s consistency matters. To stay true to the brandplatform, the team has established a simple “equation” that every message is filtered through: it starts with a clear customer need, and shows how Telenor helps solve a real problem families experience in everyday life. This helps avoid communication that feels generic or purely sales-driven. “Advertising can sometimes feel quite generic,” she observes. “And a big reason is the industry’s shift towards sales-driving, short-term campaigns — often at the expense of emotion and storytelling.” Telenor’s answer is to combine usefulness with emotion — making the message relevant while still building the brand. “It’s more about being useful: ‘How can we help the individual?’” That requires a deep understanding of customers and their daily lives. “You have to start with insight — what people need, how they live, what their worries are and what role you can play.” “You have to start with insight — what people need, how they live, what their worries are and what role you can play.” Balancing Brand and Performance: An Investment Mindset Finally, Teresa emphasises the importance of maintaining a long-term perspective on marketing investment. In a category where results can be difficult to attribute directly, proving value internally is a constant challenge. “It’s not an exact science,” she admits. “But we use models like MMM to understand the impact of media on sales and show how we are driving sales results.” Crucially, she reframes marketing not as a cost, but as an investment. “Tomorrow’s sales depend on what we invest today.” This perspective is reinforced by experimentation. “We tested what would happen if we dialled down brand-building and leaned more into tactical communication for a short period — and the results were clear: it didn’t work. Brand and Performance have to work together. It’s not addition, it’s multiplication.” For Telenor, the implication is clear: sustained growth requires both brand and performance working in tandem, supported by consistent investment and strategic focus. “We tested what would happen if we dialled down brand-building and leaned more into tactical communication for a short period — and the results were clear: it didn’t work. Brand and performance have to work together. It’s not addition, it’s multiplication.”

Over the past two decades, few marketers have had the opportunity to build brands entirely from scratch, let alone do it twice in highly competitive categories. Oscar Santamaria, former CMO of Vueling and Iryo and now a board member of the Spanish Marketing Association, has done exactly that. In this conversation, he reflects on what it truly takes to grow a brand from zero, why marketing must be seen as a business investment, and how experience, data, and AI are reshaping the rules of brand growth. Marketing as a Long-Term Growth Engine For Oscar, the starting point is clear: marketing is not a cost centre, but a fundamental business lever. His experience building Vueling and Iryo from the ground up demonstrates that when done well, marketing directly contributes to commercial success. “Good marketing and a well-built brand have a positive impact on the business. It’s an investment, not a cost,” he explains. But this impact does not come overnight. Brand building is inherently long-term, and while tactical actions can drive short-term results, their contribution remains limited if not supported by sustained investment. “Brands are built over the long term. The immediate doesn’t really exist,” Oscar notes. Instead, he advocates for a balanced approach to measurement, combining classic funnel metrics such as awareness, consideration, and conversion with longer-term indicators like penetration and brand equity. Yet ultimately, what matters most is not whether people know your brand, but whether they come back. “For me, recurrence is more important than NPS. What really matters is whether the customer comes back and buys again.” Sustainable growth is therefore rooted in loyalty and lifetime value, not just initial trial. “Good marketing and a well-built brand have a positive impact on the business. It’s an investment, not a cost.” Experience as the Core of Brand Growth If there is one principle that defines Oscar’s approach, it is the central role of experience. In a world saturated with communication, brands can no longer rely on messaging alone to stand out. “We are living in the age of experience. Experience is the new advertising,” he states. What people remember and share is not the campaign itself, but the experience they have with the brand. This fundamentally changes the role of marketing. Communication can attract attention, but it is the experience that builds trust and preference. “People don’t talk about how beautiful your logo is. They talk about the experience: the service, the product, the feeling.” If that experience fails to deliver on the promise, even the strongest campaign becomes meaningless. “If the experience doesn’t match what you’ve communicated, then neither the marketing nor the brand has any value.” In this sense, brand, marketing, and experience are no longer separate functions, but parts of a single, connected system that must work consistently end to end. “We are living in the age of experience. Experience is the new advertising.” Standing Out in a Saturated and Fragmented Landscape While the fundamentals of brand building remain unchanged, the context in which brands operate has become significantly more complex. Media channels are increasingly fragmented, audiences are harder to reach, and the overall level of saturation is higher than ever. “It’s very difficult to stand out today. The ecosystem is saturated, and audiences are fragmented,” Oscar explains. This makes it essential not only to invest, but to invest wisely. “If you don’t communicate, you don’t sell,” he adds, but simply increasing spend is no longer enough to guarantee impact. Instead, brands must focus on the quality of attention they generate. Oscar points to environments such as digital out-of-home and large-scale events as examples of channels that still cut through the noise. These moments create memorability in a way that many digital formats no longer do. At the same time, simplicity has become a critical success factor. “A value proposition that takes more than two seconds to understand is doomed to fail.” In a crowded landscape, clarity and consistency are what allow brands to remain recognisable and relevant over time. “A value proposition that takes more than two seconds to understand is doomed to fail.” The Next Frontier: AI, Data, and Adaptive Brands Looking ahead, Oscar sees artificial intelligence as the next major shift in how brands grow and compete. Beyond improving efficiency, AI is set to transform how consumers interact with brands and how decisions are made. “The next touchpoint will be AI. Instead of going to a website, you’ll ask AI—and it will decide what to recommend.” This evolution challenges many of today’s digital metrics and forces brands to rethink how they remain visible and relevant in AI-driven environments. At the same time, AI creates new opportunities to enhance the customer experience. By combining high-quality first-party data with intelligent personalisation, brands can move closer to truly understanding and serving individual consumers. However, this also raises the bar for data quality and transparency. “The key is quality, verified data that the customer has accepted. That’s what builds long-term relationships,” Oscar emphasises. Alongside technological change, brands must also remain adaptable at a strategic level. Markets shift, consumer expectations evolve, and external events can quickly disrupt even the best-laid plans. “You need a plan A, B, and C. The world changes constantly, and you have to be ready to adapt quickly.” Yet this adaptability must always be anchored in a clear and consistent brand position, ensuring that while execution evolves, the essence of the brand remains intact. “You need a plan A, B, and C. The world changes constantly, and you have to be ready to adapt quickly.” Purpose Starts from Within Finally, Oscar highlights that strong brands are not only built externally, but internally. Purpose, often discussed as a communication tool, is in reality something that must be embedded within the organisation itself. “The first customer of a brand is its employees,” he explains. When employees understand and believe in the brand’s purpose, it becomes something that is naturally expressed in every interaction, rather than something that needs to be artificially communicated. This is where many brands fall short. Purpose cannot be decorative or opportunistic; it must be authentic and reflected in real actions. “Storytelling must be supported by storydoing.” In an environment where consumers are more aware and more vocal than ever, any disconnect between what a brand says and what it does is quickly exposed. The brands that succeed are those that align their purpose, experience, and communication into one coherent whole. “Storytelling must be supported by storydoing.”

What does it take to grow brands in a category where science, regulation and consumer behaviour intersect? For Jen Whyte, Front End Innovation Insights Director, and Shafik Saba, Global Lead for Innovation Capability at Haleon, the answer lies in a careful balance: combining FMCG-style brand building with scientific rigour, while building innovation capability through a more structured and consistent way of working. In this conversation, Jen and Shafik share how Haleon approaches brand growth, why consistency matters more than disruption, and how AI is beginning to reshape the way innovation happens. Defining Brand Growth in a Science-Led Business At Haleon, brand growth is grounded in a clear and disciplined framework. As Shafik succinctly puts it, penetration, sales, and equity sit at the heart of how success is measured. Jen expands on this, highlighting that within Haleon’s internal model, the focus is on penetration, market share, and demand power as the three core levers for building superior brands. Yet what makes Haleon distinctive is the context in which these metrics operate. Unlike traditional FMCG companies, the business spans oral care, vitamins, and over-the-counter medicines, categories shaped by clinical evidence, regulation, and professional endorsement. “The science here is incredible” Jen explains. “It plays a very prominent position, but it’s also highly regulated.” This scientific backbone influences everything from product development to communication. Claims must be proven, products must perform, and trust is non-negotiable. At the same time, Haleon operates with a strong commercial discipline, supported by a long-standing marketing mix modelling programme and a deep focus on ROI. Over time, the role of brand equity has grown in importance. As Shafik notes, while financial metrics have always been central, the brand equity measures have become increasingly important. The result is an approach that brings together healthcare science and regulation with FMCG-style brand building. “The science here is incredible. It plays a very prominent position, but it’s also highly regulated.” The Foundations of Sustained Brand Growth When asked what separates successful brands from the rest, both Jen and Shafik emphasise the importance of a clear brand purpose, built through clarity, discipline, and consistency over time. Shafik points to Sensodyne as a standout example: a brand that has grown into a multi-billion-pound business while staying true to its original positioning. “It’s always had a very clear sense of purpose”, he explains. “What it is, what it isn’t, and how it should behave.” This clarity enables brands to balance two critical priorities: protecting the core while expanding into adjacent opportunities. Shafik uses the analogy of a drum kit, where the core brand is like the steady bass drum beat, while innovations and extensions beyond the core are like cymbals and the high hat, adding variations without losing the overall main rhythm and cadence. He warns against chasing disruption for its own sake. Over 80% of innovations fail, he notes, often because they stretch too far from the core of the brand, are technically infeasible, or (even still) fail to meet a genuine consumer need; but the latter is rarer these days. Instead, success comes from aligning three elements: brand fit, technical feasibility, and real consumer demand. The story of Sensodyne Clinical White illustrates this perfectly. An earlier attempt at a premium whitening product failed because it lacked brand alignment. A later launch worked better when the product experience, brand execution, and dentist-led communication all came together more effectively. “It’s ticking all the boxes,” Shafik says. “Brand fit, technical feasibility, against an enduring genuine need to whiten and offer sensitivity relief at the same time.” “It’s ticking all the boxes; brand fit, technical feasibility, against an enduring genuine need to whiten and offer sensitivity relief at the same time.” Alongside strategy, culture plays a crucial role. Frequent leadership changes can disrupt momentum, while long-term stewardship enables consistency. As Jen reflects from her previous experience, brands with stable leadership and clear direction tend to outperform. There is discipline and rigour that filters its way down to everybody else, she explains. The Role of Front-End Innovation in Driving Growth Innovation is not an optional extra at Haleon; it is a fundamental driver of growth. According to Shafik, it contributes roughly a third of growth, driving both brand penetration, as well as trading up through premiumisation. “Innovation is absolutely critical” he says. “It’s responsible for about a third of growth.” At the heart of this is Haleon’s front-end innovation (FEI) approach. Rather than only working on individual projects, the FEI team also acts as a capability builder and an internal consultancy. Jen describes how the team works closely with brands to create structured, long-term pipelines. “We’re building capability within the organisation, a consistent language, a consistent way of doing things,” she explains. These pipelines can span across years, providing a clear roadmap for future growth. While this may seem lengthy, it reflects the view that many consumer needs do not change dramatically over time; instead, companies often discover new needs or uncover underserved ones. “I don’t think consumer needs change drastically over time,” Shafik adds. “Innovation is absolutely critical. It’s responsible for about a third of growth.” Innovation at Haleon draws from multiple sources. Consumer insight plays a key role, particularly in identifying underserved needs. At the same time, professional expertise (such as dentists) offers a unique perspective on emerging problems that consumers may not yet recognise. This dual lens is especially important in healthcare. As Shafik explains, consumers often know the symptom they are experiencing, but not necessarily the science or physiology that explains the underlying cause. By combining science, professional insight, and consumer understanding, Haleon can create entirely new categories, such as enamel protection with Pronamel. AI as an Accelerator of Innovation Few topics generate as much discussion today as artificial intelligence, and at Haleon, AI is already playing an important role in innovation workflows. For Jen, the value of AI lies in its ability to enhance and accelerate thinking. “I absolutely love it,” she says. “It just speeds our whole innovation process up.” From generating personas to refining language and supporting ideation, AI has become a powerful tool for inspiration and efficiency. Tasks that once took days can now be completed in hours, freeing teams to focus on higher-value thinking. However, Jen is clear about its limitations. “Do not use it to replace research,” she cautions. “You use it to support or to inspire.” Shafik builds on this, describing the shift towards agentic workflows where AI systems replicate structured processes while still allowing for human intervention. The goal is not to remove the human element, but to combine human judgment with machine capability. “You’re not taking the human out,” he explains. “There’s a human element and an AI element, and they work together throughout the process”. “There’s a human element and an AI element, and they work together throughout the process”. Looking ahead, the real potential lies in AI’s ability to analyse vast amounts of structured and unstructured data, uncovering patterns that humans might miss. Yet this opportunity comes with a caveat: data quality remains critical. For both Jen and Shafik, experimentation is key. Rather than waiting for perfect solutions, teams must engage with the technology, test its capabilities, and learn by doing. Consistency Over Novelty: A Pragmatic View of Growth Across the conversation, a clear theme emerges: growth is less about chasing the next big idea and more about executing the right ideas consistently over time. Enduring creative platforms, such as Sensodyne’s dentist-led communication, demonstrate that long-term consistency can outperform constant reinvention. While execution evolves, the core idea remains intact. “Just as consumers start to hear about it, marketers get bored and move on,” Shafik observes, highlighting a common pitfall in brand management. Instead, Haleon’s approach is grounded in discipline: understanding the brand’s role, investing in the right areas, and building capabilities that enable repeatable success. Innovation plays a critical role, but it is most effective when it is aligned with brand fit, technical feasibility, and real consumer needs. As Jen puts it, “you’ve got that framework to work within, and then you can be creative.” “You’ve got that brand framework to work within, and then you can be creative.”

Utrecht, 5 May 2026 - DVJ Insights welcomes Jantine Cornel and Stefanie Pooyé as consultants in the Netherlands, further strengthening its local consultancy team and supporting continued growth in the region. Jantine brings over 10 years of experience in marketing research. She started her career at MetrixLab (now Toluna) as a researcher and, after around seven years, moved into a commercial role as Client Director. Throughout her career, she has developed a strong affinity for agency life and a deep passion for research. She specialises in brand and communication research, with extensive experience designing and managing large-scale brand and campaign tracking programmes. Jantine has worked with a wide range of clients across industries, helping them better understand and strengthen their brands. “After 11 years at the same agency, I felt it was the right time for a new challenge. DVJ stood out to me for its strong focus on learning and validation, as well as its commitment to sharing valuable industry knowledge. I’m particularly drawn to the emphasis on translating insights into real impact for clients, and I’m excited to be part of the team,” says Jantine Stefanie brings over 10 years of experience in market research, both on the agency and client side. She previously worked at MetrixLab as a researcher and consultant, as well as at Markteffect and Versuni (Philips Domestic Appliances), where she was part of the Global Consumer & Market Insights team. She also spent time teaching bachelor students, an experience that further strengthened her passion for the agency environment. She combines a strong research background with client-side experience, enabling her to translate insights into relevant and actionable recommendations. Her work is centred on understanding business challenges and supporting brands in making better-informed decisions. Stefanie: “I’ve always been passionate about combining consumer insights with innovation to drive growth for brands. With experience on both the agency and client side, I realised how much I enjoy the pace and diversity of agency work. DVJ immediately stood out to me because of its strong reputation, as well as its focus on quality, learning, and truly understanding behaviour. I’m really excited to be part of this team and to contribute to delivering impactful insights that help brands grow” “Jantine and Stefanie are great additions to our team in the Netherlands. With their experience and ambition, they strengthen our ability to support clients locally while staying closely connected to our global expertise. We are very happy to welcome them to the team,” says Sonja van den Berg, Managing Consultant, Netherlands.

In a marketing world shaped by fragmented media, growing pressure on short-term results and an endless stream of new tools, it can be tempting to believe that brand growth has become more complicated than ever. For Rik Keessen, Brand Tailor at Mountain, the opposite is often true. While the context has changed, the foundations of growth remain strikingly consistent. Brands still grow by reaching more people, being easy to recognise, and showing up consistently over time. From Mountain’s position between strategy, identity and design, Rik sees growth not as a matter of adding complexity, but of applying the right principles with greater clarity and discipline. Growth Starts With Reaching More Buyers For Rik, the most important question in brand growth is still a simple one: how many people buy your brand? He sees penetration as the key driver of growth, especially in FMCG and retail categories where margins are tight and competition is constant. “What we do see, in the more successful cases at least, is that growth really comes from more buyers, but also from higher penetration.” In that context, loyalty matters less than many marketers assume. “You really need to get it from high penetration and less from loyalty.” That perspective shapes Mountain’s work. The agency operates at the intersection of strategy, identity and design, often helping brands that want to remain category leaders or become one. In that role, design is never just a finishing touch. It is part of how a brand becomes mentally and physically available. As Rik puts it, “We can only practise our profession if we truly understand the business context or the category context, or what is really behind it.” For Rik, the fundamentals of growth are still clear: brands need to reach people, take up a distinctive position and stay consistent. “What we do see, in the more successful cases at least, is that growth really comes from more buyers, but also from higher penetration.” Mental And Physical Availability Still Do The Heavy Lifting Although the marketing landscape has changed dramatically, Rik believes the basic mechanics of growth have not. Brands still need to come to mind in buying situations and they need to be easy to buy when that moment arrives. “If you strip everything back to the essentials,” he says, “it still comes down to mental and physical availability. They are still the big levers.” That is why he remains sceptical of marketing approaches that become too narrow or too focused on short-term activation. Growth comes from reaching as many category buyers as possible, not from endlessly refining smaller audiences. Or as Rik puts it: “You cannot harvest demand that you have not first created.” He is careful to say that he is not a media specialist, but from a brand-building perspective he sees a clear need for balance. Long-term brand building still matters. Mass reach still matters. Social can play an important role, but not every brand problem should be reduced to a social-first solution. “I also get a bit tired sometimes of the idea that everything is social-first, while the science also shows that that is not everything.” “If you strip everything back to the essentials, it still comes down to mental and physical availability. They are still the big levers.” The First Few Seconds Matter Enormously Because Mountain works so closely on packaging and identity, Rik looks at brand growth very much through the lens of the buying moment itself. In many categories, that moment is extremely short. Consumers notice, recognise and choose quickly. That makes design a commercial tool, not just a creative one. “You get three seconds, six seconds. That’s it,” he says. “And if you are not immediately in the right emotional space or not recognisable straight away, then you fall short.” In those few seconds, a brand needs to stand out and be easy to understand. “At the very least, in those six seconds, you need to stand out on the shelf. And people need to be able to find their variant easily.” This is where Rik sees a big underestimation of design in growth discussions. Distinctive brand assets such as colour, typography and structure are not aesthetic details. They help brands get recognised faster and remembered longer. They also reduce friction in the moment of choice. In that sense, recognisability matters enormously. A brand does not always need to feel radically different, but it does need to be easy to notice and easy to identify. Consumers Know Less Than Marketers Think Another recurring theme in Rik’s thinking is how little consumers often know or remember about brands. Marketers tend to assume that their message has landed more strongly than it really has. Rik is much more sober about that. “Consumers know damned little about you, to put it plainly.” That is one reason Mountain has started paying more attention again to associations. For Rik, association research helps reveal what people actually connect with a brand and whether those connections are strong enough to matter in real buying situations. It is also important because branding is not only about the mind. Rik explicitly adds the emotional layer. “I think it is not just about positioning in the mind, it is also about positioning in the heart, because you need both the brain and the heart to be able to influence people’s behaviour.” That combination of recognition and feeling is what makes branding work. It is not enough for a brand to be visible. It also needs to create the right response when it appears. “I think it is not just about positioning in the mind, it is also about positioning in the heart, because you need both the brain and the heart to be able to influence people’s behaviour.” Creativity Remains Essential Even with all the new possibilities around AI, testing and data, Rik has no doubt that creativity remains one of the strongest multipliers of effectiveness. “Despite all the wonderful AI techniques, excellent creativity can still help enormously,” he says. “We still need to stay sharp and produce strong creative work, simply because that remains important.” At the same time, he is realistic about the tension inside design itself. Some agencies, he says, focus too heavily on aesthetics without thinking enough about commercial effectiveness. Mountain tries to balance the two. For Rik, the challenge is to keep a brand fresh without losing the elements that make it recognisable. Brands need to evolve, but not so much that they lose the memory structures they have spent years building. The Biggest Barriers Are Often Internal When Rik talks about what blocks growth, he does not start with external market conditions. He starts inside organisations. “I think that is much more internal than external, just to be clear.” Short-term thinking, lack of consistency, fragmented choices and poor alignment all make growth harder than it needs to be. He is especially critical of the way marketing has become more complex in recent years. Internal structures, processes and efficiency models may all have their place, but they can also distract from what matters most. Rik describes it sharply: “It almost feels like people are more busy with the engine than with actually riding the motorbike.” For him, that is where many brands go wrong. They optimise details, but lose sight of the larger growth logic. Stronger alignment, clearer focus and more consistency would often do more for growth than another layer of complexity. “It almost feels like people are more busy with the engine than with actually riding the motorbike.” Back To Simple, Scalable Growth Rik’s overall message is not that marketing should ignore new tools or changing realities. Mountain actively uses data, scientific insight and AI where they help sharpen thinking. But he does believe many marketers have drifted too far from a few basic truths. “Growth still often comes through the simplicity you try to find in the whole story, and making sure you can scale that simplicity.” In the end, his view of growth remains grounded in a few enduring principles: reach more people, make the brand easy to recognise, and show up consistently in the moments that matter most. Or, as he puts it, “We are not in the reach business, so to speak, because there are communication agencies for that. But we are in the business of making sure that in those three to six seconds, in the right order, the right things happen.” “Growth still often comes through the simplicity you try to find in the whole story, and making sure you can scale that simplicity.”