Kneipp has been rooted in a clear philosophy for over 135 years. Built on the principles of water, plants, nutrition, movement and balance, the brand has evolved from a traditional bath product into a broader wellbeing proposition. In this conversation, Petra Oonk, Head of Marketing at Kneipp Benelux, shares how the company approaches brand growth through a combination of strong heritage, organisational alignment and continuous relevance in a competitive market. A Strong Identity that Evolves with the Times For Petra, brand growth starts with a clear understanding of what should never change and what must continuously adapt to the current zeitgeist. While growth is often measured in revenue and profit, she emphasises that the real driver sits deeper: the ability to remain relevant. “Brand growth is something you can quantify in revenue and profit, but I think it’s especially about your brand value. You have to continuously adapt to what consumers need, so your brand remains relevant in today's context.” This distinction between identity and execution is central to Kneipp’s approach. The brand’s philosophy has remained unchanged for over a century, yet its expression evolves with the times. “Those five pillars have been there for 135 years, and they feel more relevant than ever before. But that’s not because the world moved towards us. It’s because we continuously translate them into today’s context.” In that sense, growth is not about reinventing the brand, but about reinterpreting it. A strong, stable identity provides the foundation, while relevance ensures it continues to resonate. “Brand growth is something you can quantify in revenue and profit, but I think it’s especially about your brand value. You have to continuously adapt to what consumers need, so your brand remains relevant in today's context.” One Team, One Goal: Culture as a Growth Driver Beyond brand strategy, Petra highlights organisational culture as a critical enabler of growth. At Kneipp Benelux, marketing, sales and trade marketing are not separate functions but part of a unified commercial effort. “It’s not just a marketing effort or a sales effort. It’s a commercial team effort. We work together towards one goal: bringing the brand to a higher level.” This integration is supported by the company’s relatively compact structure, which allows for short lines of communication and faster decision-making. But Petra is clear that size alone is not enough; mindset is equally important. “There’s a shared sense of responsibility. People are not focused on their own position, but on how we can move the brand forward together. You could say there’s Kneipp blood running through the organisation.” The result is a culture where silos are actively avoided and where collaboration becomes a natural way of working. According to Petra, this alignment is essential for maintaining consistency across all touchpoints, from innovation to communication to in-store execution. “There’s a shared sense of responsibility. People are not focused on their own position, but on how we can move the brand forward together. You could say there’s Kneipp blood running through the organisation.” Consistency as a Strategic Advantage In an industry that often prioritises change, Kneipp deliberately leans into consistency. Petra believes that one of the biggest mistakes companies make is treating strategy as something short-term. “A strategy is not for two years. A strategy really is for the long term. From that, you derive your plans and tactical execution.” This long-term mindset allows the brand to build memory structures over time, rather than constantly resetting its positioning. At the same time, the organisation remains flexible in how it executes that strategy. “We’ve managed to keep our strategy consistent, while still being flexible in how we respond to the market. That’s because everything is so well connected internally.” Perhaps the most telling reflection of this philosophy comes in how Petra describes communication: “When we start to feel tired of our own communication, that’s when it actually starts working for the consumer. That’s when you need to keep going.” Consistency is not a lack of creativity, but a deliberate choice to build long-term effectiveness. “When we start to feel tired of our own communication, that’s when it actually starts working for the consumer. That’s when you need to keep going.” Driving Growth through Penetration and Innovation While brand building provides the foundation, innovation remains a key growth lever, particularly when it supports penetration. “Penetration growth is the most important driver for long-term growth. You always need to find new buyers.” For Kneipp, innovation serves two roles. On the one hand, it strengthens existing categories with new concepts. On the other hand, it enables the brand to expand into adjacent spaces, supporting its evolution from a bath brand to a broader wellbeing brand. “We used to be a bath brand, but now we’re a wellbeing brand. That opens up a much broader range of categories we can play in.” However, Petra is realistic about the challenges that come with this approach. Entering new categories requires rapid validation and strong execution, especially in retail environments where performance is quickly assessed. “It’s a bit of a chess game. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But it keeps the brand dynamic and creates new growth opportunities.” Innovation is therefore not an isolated function, but closely linked to brand positioning and long-term strategy. “Innovation is a bit of a chess game. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But it keeps the brand dynamic and creates new growth opportunities.” Navigating Commercial Pressure without losing Brand Value Operating in highly promotional retail environments adds another layer of complexity. Kneipp is active in both drugstores and supermarkets, where promotional pressure continues to rise. “The promotional pressure is increasing, and it’s a challenge for everyone. The question is always: how do you balance brand value with activation?” For Petra, the answer lies in understanding the role of different products within the portfolio and maintaining a clear value proposition. Promotions are necessary, but over-reliance can erode brand equity. “You need activations, but you can’t overdo them. If you do, it comes at the expense of your brand value.” This balancing act extends to partnerships with retailers. By positioning itself as an expert in the category, Kneipp is able to guide activation strategies and contribute to better outcomes for both parties. “When you have a clear vision and can support it with insights, you’re seen as an expert partner. That gives you a stronger position in the conversation.” “You need activations, but you can’t overdo them. If you do, it comes at the expense of your brand value.” Global Alignment with Local Entrepreneurship As part of the international Kneipp Group, the Benelux organisation operates within a global framework while maintaining strong local influence. Petra plays an active role in the global marketing leadership team, ensuring alignment between markets. “It’s a global approach, but with strong input from local markets. We bring trends, ideas and insights, to decide what has global potential.” This balance creates a system that combines scale with flexibility. Global teams provide structure and consistency, while local teams bring speed and market understanding. “We’re probably somewhere in between. Not fully agile, but also not purely top-down. It’s a combination of both worlds.” For Kneipp Benelux, this translates into a high degree of ownership, particularly in areas such as media and local execution, while benefiting from globally developed brand assets and positioning. “It’s a global approach, but with strong input from local markets. We bring trends, ideas and insights, and together we decide what has broader potential.” Staying in Control of the Brand Ultimately, Petra believes that one of the most important responsibilities of a marketer is to stay in control of the brand’s direction. “If you don’t make choices, you let things happen to you. And then you become a product of the market instead of steering your brand yourself.” This philosophy runs through every aspect of Kneipp’s approach, from long-term strategy to day-to-day decisions. It reflects a clear conviction: that strong brands are built through deliberate choices, consistent execution and a deep understanding of what the brand stands for. “If you don’t make choices, you let things happen to you. And then you become a product of the market instead of steering your brand yourself.”

Utrecht, 11 June 2026 - DVJ Insights is pleased to welcome Fred Roodbeen to its Dutch team as Client Consultant. With 15 years of experience in market research, Fred further strengthens DVJ’s expertise in brand, communication, innovation and shopper research. Fred joins DVJ with 15 years of experience from MarketResponse, where he started as a Junior Consultant and later progressed to Principal Consultant. Over the years, Fred has worked across both B2C and B2B environments and has advised a wide range of organisations on addressing business and market challenges through effective research approaches. At DVJ Insights, Fred will focus on helping clients strengthen their brands and accelerate growth by combining deep consumer understanding with strategic consultancy. He is particularly enthusiastic about DVJ’s distinctive approach, which combines deep expertise in campaign testing and evaluation with extensive knowledge of brand growth through its Brand Growth Platform. By leveraging these proven methodologies, tools and insights, Fred will support clients in making better-informed decisions, strengthening their brands and identifying new growth opportunities. “What attracted me most to DVJ is that the company truly practices what it preaches. Its clear vision and focus on Brand Growth help clients achieve measurable business success, while DVJ’s own growth reflects the strength of that approach. Winning the FD Gazelle Award for eight consecutive years is a testament to this. That combination of expertise, credibility and proven results is what makes DVJ a best-in-class research agency,” Fred says. “Fred brings a wealth of experience in brand and communication research, and his enthusiasm to embrace our vision and solutions is enticing. His strategic mindset and passion for understanding what drives brand growth make him a valuable addition to our team. We are delighted to welcome him to DVJ,” adds Fons van Workum, Managing Consultant Netherlands at DVJ Insights.

For Beatriz Faustino, brand growth starts with a simple but often overlooked principle: marketing must be at the service of the business. Drawing on her experience as Chief Marketing and Digital Officer across leading retail, restaurant and lifestyle brands including Carrefour, McDonald’s, Burger King, Swatch and Imaginarium, she sees the CMO role as a strategic bridge between customer understanding and commercial growth. In this conversation, Beatriz explains why relevance is the foundation of lasting brand relationships, why customer experience has become one of the most decisive moments of truth, and how AI, data and personalisation are reshaping the way brands connect with people while still needing to deliver real business impact. Marketing as a Driver of Business Growth For Beatriz, marketing should never sit apart from the business. Its role is not only to manage campaigns or build visibility, but to understand the market, the competition, the product and the customer, and then help the company make better strategic decisions. That also changes how marketing success should be measured. Brand metrics such as awareness, consideration, preference, NPS, conversion and traffic matter, but they need to connect back to commercial growth. As she puts it: “The best ally of the business should be the marketing team,” she says. “By business, you can understand market share, sales, traffic, depending a bit on the sector. But yes, it means being extremely close to the business.” In her view, the first measure of growth is whether the business itself is moving forward. “The first KPI has to be building the business, which the marketing team must serve.” That starts with sales. Margin and efficiency are important, but they cannot compensate for a weak top line. “If the first line of your P&L is sales, and you do not make that grow, the lines underneath are not going to help you make the bottom line good.” At the same time, Beatriz does not see this as a choice between acquisition and loyalty. In retail, she has seen how loyalty programmes can contribute strongly to both sales and margin when customer knowledge is used well. That balance becomes harder when the commercial agenda becomes too narrow. “If we start with a dynamic of, I only want to sell what I really want, with the margin I want, it is extremely difficult to convince the customer that this should be the purchase decision they have to make.” Relevance is what Makes Brands Grow When Beatriz talks about what truly moves the needle, she comes back to the ability of a brand to connect with people in a way that feels useful, attractive and timely. Having worked for brands that are part of everyday life, she has seen that visibility alone is not enough. A brand has to keep earning its place in people’s routines. “What makes your value proposition unique and attractive to the customer is something that, for me, I consider as relevance,” she says. “Relevance is the way in which you connect with your target audience.” That connection matters whether a brand is speaking to an end consumer, a B2B customer or another audience. The challenge is to capture attention, create real interest and build a relationship over time. “If you do not have good relevance with customers, if you are not relevant for the proposition you make, if you are not there at the right moment, if you make a value proposition outside what is attractive to them, that brand will never grow.” For Beatriz, this makes customer understanding one of the most important sources of growth. Brands need to stay close to the market and context, but also listen carefully to customers themselves. They tell brands what matters, often directly and without filters. The challenge is whether companies are willing to turn that into action. Building for Today and Tomorrow One of the biggest tensions Beatriz sees in marketing today is the pressure to deliver short-term results while still building long-term brand value. Annual plans may still exist, but quarterly and monthly targets increasingly shape decisions. “The closing of the quarter is where the real number comes in,” she says. “Everything becomes shorter in that process.” For marketing teams, this means becoming more versatile: they need to support today’s business while also building the brand for tomorrow. That balance also shapes how Beatriz thinks about strategic investments. The decisions that create the most impact are rarely one-off actions. She points to examples such as digital ordering kiosks, table service, personalised coupons and digital content adapted to the consumption moment at McDonald’s. These are connected choices that make the customer experience more distinctive. “When there are strategic decisions behind something, it means there has been reflection, there is a long-term vision, there is decision-making at the right stages and at the right times.” For Beatriz, this makes customer experience one of the strongest opportunities for future growth. It is the moment where the relationship becomes real, and where customers decide whether the brand is worth continuing with. “For me, the purchasing experience is decisive and will be one of the major growth bets of the future, because that is really the moment of truth.” Personalisation, Consistency and AI Technology is making it possible to personalise experiences in ways that were previously impossible. Beatriz sees hyper-personalisation, omnichannel integration, AI, frictionless experiences and emotional connection as key trends for the future. At the same time, brands need to adapt to different channels and contexts without losing their identity. “You can lose that consistency by adapting very well to the medium,” she says. “You have to understand very well what the medium allows you to do, but without losing sight of what you want to convey.” That consistency matters because consumers do not think about brands as much as marketers do. Messages need to be simple, clear and easy to recognise. “Many times we get distracted and we brands think that customers are thinking about our brand 24/7. No, that is just us and that is it.” AI plays a central role in this future, both as an internal tool for automating processes and saving time, and as an external tool for building more personalised customer relationships. But Beatriz stresses that organisations need the right culture, training and practical use cases to make it work. “AI does not suddenly arrive and everyone is trained in it,” she says. “You have to help and encourage teams to have good training and good use cases.” In media and communication, she sees AI as an opportunity to plan more efficiently, target better and adapt content across channels, while recognising that the industry is still learning. “This has only just begun and we are still in trial-and-error mode.” The CMO as a Hybrid Growth Leader As brands become more data-led, technology-enabled and customer-focused, Beatriz sees the CMO role becoming much broader. It is no longer only about communication, but about combining strategy, analytics and customer knowledge. “The CMO has evolved into being more hybrid in strategy, analytics and customer knowledge than ever before. It has to be a strategic position that helps you across all disciplines of your business.” That also changes how CMOs need to manage budgets and internal relationships. With more pressure on lower-funnel results and more marketing spend going into technology, they need to work closely with data, IT, finance, CEOs and CFOs. “We have to fight to get our companies to see us as an investment, not as a cost,” Beatriz says. For Beatriz, sustainable brand growth comes from connecting business goals, customer understanding, experience, data, AI and organisational versatility. It is not about choosing between brand and performance, but about making marketing capable of delivering both.

In a market dominated by large players and tight category conventions, standing out is no easy task—especially for a smaller, family-owned company. In this conversation, Nina Hagman, Marketing & Innovation Manager at Herrljunga Drycker, shares how the Swedish beverage company has carved out a distinct position through bold innovation, strong internal alignment, and a willingness to challenge category norms while staying true to its DNA. From Idea to Market: Owning the Full Innovation Journey At Herrljunga Drycker, innovation and marketing are not separate disciplines—they are deeply intertwined. This combination allows the company to take ideas all the way from conception to launch without losing momentum or intent along the way. “You often sit in marketing or insight and come up with a lot, and then you hand it over to someone else. There’s a risk that things get lost along the way.” By keeping both functions closely connected, the team ensures that the original idea remains intact throughout development. This end-to-end ownership is a key advantage, particularly in a smaller organisation where speed and clarity of direction matter. At the same time, the company’s size enables something larger competitors often struggle with: real-world testing. Rather than relying solely on controlled environments, Herrljunga Drycker can run full-scale production tests within a normal week, allowing them to validate whether an idea truly works in practice—not just in theory. “If a product doesn’t solve a problem, it’s not real innovation—it’s just changing a blue cup into a white one.” Challenging Categories to Create Growth A defining characteristic of Herrljunga Drycker’s growth strategy is its willingness to challenge established categories. Instead of competing head-on in saturated segments, the company looks for gaps—often creating entirely new propositions in the process. This mindset has led to unconventional launches, such as alcoholic versions of traditional soft drinks and new formats like lemonade mixers—products that don’t neatly fit into existing categories but open up new consumption occasions. “Lemonade is water, lemon and sugar, many products called lemonade aren’t actually that. So we’ve taken a different approach.” Rather than following competitors, inspiration comes from outside the category—travel, food trends, social media, and everyday observations. The goal is not to copy what already works, but to identify what’s missing. “If you look at what’s not on the shelf, there’s no data for that.” This approach allows Herrljunga Drycker to punch above its weight, competing not through scale or budget, but through originality and relevance. Balancing Courage with Credibility Boldness is central to Herrljunga Drycker’s success—but it is carefully managed. The company actively encourages experimentation and accepts that not every product will succeed. “We don’t make such a big deal if it goes wrong, that has made us dare.” However, there are limits. Too many failed launches can damage credibility, particularly in relationships with retailers and distributors. Knowing when to stop is just as important as knowing when to start. “You can’t have too many of those, then credibility gets worn down.” This balance between courage and discipline is critical. Success comes not from avoiding risk, but from taking calculated risks, and being honest enough to discontinue products that don’t resonate. “We don’t make such a big deal if it goes wrong; that has made us dare.” Staying True While Pushing Boundaries One of the more nuanced challenges Herrljunga Drycker navigates is how far to push innovation without diluting the brand. As a family-owned business with a long heritage, there is a strong emphasis on staying true to core values. “It has to feel right, not just look good on paper.” This principle acts as a filter: not every opportunity is worth pursuing, even if it is commercially attractive. At the same time, the company recognises the need to evolve continuously to remain relevant. To manage this tension, Herrljunga Drycker operates with a portfolio of six brands, each with its own framework, identity, and intended target audience. While the corporate brand provides the foundation, each sub-brand has clear boundaries regarding which products and occasions fit within its positioning. “Our size means we can set up a full-scale test in the middle of a normal week, larger companies don’t always have that flexibility.” This allows the company to innovate freely without compromising the integrity of its main brand, a crucial strategy when operating across both non-alcoholic and alcoholic categories. “Our size means we can set up a full-scale test in the middle of a normal week, larger companies don’t always have that flexibility.” The Power of Internal Alignment In a smaller organisation, internal culture plays a decisive role in success. At Herrljunga, Drycker innovation is not confined to a single department—it is a shared responsibility across the company. “Everyone is a consumer in the end, it’s important to involve everyone.” Employees are encouraged to contribute ideas, whether through direct conversations or anonymous suggestions. Regular internal events celebrate successes and build excitement around upcoming launches, reinforcing a sense of shared ownership. Rethinking Data: Beyond Numbers While data plays a role in decision-making, Herrljunga Drycker takes a broader view of what “data” actually means. Alongside traditional metrics, the company places significant value on qualitative insights—observations, experiences, and conversations. “I would say we use soft data, feelings, impressions, experiences.” This combination of “hard” and “soft” data reflects a pragmatic approach: structured where necessary, intuitive where useful. Importantly, it also acknowledges the limitations of traditional data sources, which often only capture existing behaviour, not future opportunities. “Traditional data shows what works, but not what doesn’t exist.” Nina describes this as the difference between seeing the data and understanding the human behaviour behind it. Data might show when the highest number of children are born, but the real opportunity lies in interpreting what that means. More newborns may also mean more exhausted parents, creating opportunities for entirely different ideas or communication angles. In that sense, innovation is not just about reading statistics, but about understanding the real-life situations hidden beneath them. “Traditional data shows what works, but not what doesn’t exist.” Growing Smart in a Market of Giants Operating as a smaller player in a market dominated by global giants presents clear challenges, particularly in terms of scale and investment. Herrljunga Drycker has, at times, had to turn down growth opportunities simply because it lacked the capacity to deliver at the required level. Yet this constraint has also shaped a more disciplined and focused growth strategy. Rather than chasing rapid expansion, the company prioritises sustainable, organic growth aligned with its capabilities and values. “Be smart with small budgets; a smaller player needs a smarter approach to reach out. We want to grow through our own ability and strength.” “Be smart with small budgets; a smaller player needs a smarter approach to reach out. We want to grow through our own ability and strength.”

In today’s rapidly evolving events landscape, traditional venues are being challenged to redefine their role. In this interview, we speak with Tom van Kuyk, Head of Business Innovation at Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs, one of the Netherlands’ leading exhibition and conference organisations. In our conversation, we explore what brand growth means in this context, how live experiences are being redefined, and how innovation is shaping the future of the organisation. From Venue to Destination: How Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs is Redefining Brand Growth For decades, Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs has been a familiar name in the Netherlands. Ask almost anyone, and they will recognise it. Yet recognition alone is no longer enough. As Tom explains, the real challenge lies not in being known, but in being understood. “I think almost everyone in the Netherlands knows Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs,” Tom says. “If you ask what it is, most people will know Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs from the expo’s and large events. But that doesn’t really cover what we do. There is so much more!” That gap between awareness and full familiarity sits at the heart of Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs’ transformation. In a changing landscape where digital interactions dominate and traditional exhibition markets are under pressure, the organisation is redefining both its role and its brand. What emerges is not limited to a repositioning exercise, but really a major strategic shift in how Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs creates value — for visitors, partners, and itself. Redefining Brand Growth Beyond Awareness For many organisations, brand growth is still closely tied to awareness. At Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs, that metric has long been strong. The challenge lies much deeper: shaping the associations and meaning behind the name. “Our brand awareness is strong,” Tom explains. “That gives us a valuable foundation to build on as we further develop our proposition for the future.” At its core, Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs is reframing itself around a simple idea: enabling deeper, meaningful live encounters. This positioning is both timeless and increasingly relevant. While digital tools have made communication faster and more efficient, they often lack depth. Tom explains that digital interactions often remove nuance and non-verbal communication, making it harder to deeply understand one another, whereas face-to-face encounters create a stronger and much more memorable connections that ultimately leads to better outcomes. This shift from functional understanding to emotional and experiential meaning is critical. Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs is no longer a place where events happen; it has already become a catalyst for growth and sees clear opportunities to build on this role further — whether through professional development, inspiration, or unexpected encounters. In that sense, brand growth is not about expanding reach, but about strengthening relevance. Innovation as a Structured Growth Engine To deliver on this repositioning, Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs has built a dedicated Business Innovation function. What started as a one-person role has quickly evolved into a team covering strategy, insights, brand development, and concept creation. Tom is clear that innovation cannot rely on creativity alone. “Innovation is fun — coming up with ideas all day,” he says. “But without data and insights underneath, they remain restricted to nice ideas.” This belief underpins a structured approach to innovation. Every initiative starts with understanding demand: where are the gaps, what do consumers need, and how do markets evolve? Only then are concepts developed and tested. “We start with data and consumer insights,” Tom explains. “Where is the demand? What is missing in the market? Otherwise, you end up with thousands of ideas and no direction.” This disciplined model allows Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs to innovate on multiple fronts. On the one hand, existing events are redesigned to better match changing consumer expectations — moving from product-driven formats to much more experience-led concepts. On the other, entirely new propositions are developed, often targeting adjacent markets such as leisure and entertainment. Importantly, innovation is not treated as a separate function but as a driver of overall business growth. From brand positioning to mergers and acquisitions, the innovation team plays a central role in shaping the future of the organisation. From Exhibition Venue to Experience Destination One of the most significant shifts lies in how Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs views its physical space. Traditionally focused on exhibitions and conferences, the organisation is now rapidly moving towards a broader, much more diversified model. “I really want Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs to become a destination. A leisure destination, a place for free time and restaurants.” This ambition is driven by both opportunity and necessity. While the European exhibition market is stabilising, Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs sees strong growth potential internationally, particularly in regions and sectors where demand for exhibitions continues to rise. To capture this potential, the organisation is leveraging more than a century of expertise to expand beyond its home market by exporting its flagship concepts. While firmly rooted in the Netherlands, the company now operates on a global scale, delivering events across multiple high-growth sectors, including cybersecurity, health and life sciences, and agriculture. Originally established as a national trade exhibition, the Agri Feed Trade Fairs are now hosted in key growth markets such as Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Rwanda, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. This international ambition is guided by a clear roadmap that identifies where category and regional growth are strongest, enabling Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs to scale rapidly in markets where momentum is building. At the same time, sectors like leisure and recreation are growing rapidly, offering new avenues for national expansion. For Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs, this means rethinking how its spaces can be used. Instead of being active only during scheduled events, venues are increasingly programmed year-round with experiences that attract different audiences. This includes immersive exhibitions, new hospitality concepts, and other forms of entertainment that extend beyond the traditional business model. This shift also has implications for the brand itself. By consistently offering diverse and engaging experiences, Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs strengthens its role as an active curator of encounters, ideas, and experiences. The brand becomes synonymous not only with a location, but with a constant sense of activity and possibility. Driving Change Through Culture and Leadership Transforming an organisation of this scale requires more than strategy and innovation. Culture plays a decisive role. Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs has a long history as a traditional exhibition business, and shifting the mindset towards the opportunities that can be built on top of that takes time. “This is one of the biggest challenges. Bringing things in and programming them is actually the easy part. But getting the organisation on board is absolutely crucial.” Rather than forcing change, Tom focuses on demonstrating it. By launching tangible initiatives and proving their value, the organisation gradually builds confidence in the new direction. “I strongly don’t believe in forcing things, but in demonstrating what is possible,” he explains. “And by showing that it really works, you start to bring people along.” This approach is reinforced by strong leadership support. The Business Innovation function reports directly to the CEO, underlining its strategic importance and ensuring the necessary resources and mandate. That combination of top-down commitment and bottom-up proof is essential. It enables Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs to move beyond isolated experiments and embed innovation into its DNA. Building a Future-Proof Brand Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs’ transformation reflects a broader shift in how organisations think about brand growth. It is no longer sufficient to be known; brands must be meaningful, relevant, and adaptable. By redefining its purpose around live encounters, structuring innovation around insight, and expanding into new experience-driven markets, Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs is building a brand that goes far beyond its historical role. At the same time, the organisation recognises that this is an ongoing process. Each new concept, each experiment, and each success contributes to a deeper understanding of what the future could look like. “We’re essentially creating a testing ground,” Tom says. “What works today informs what we build tomorrow.” In that sense, Royal Dutch Jaarbeurs is transforming its business model while simultaneously redefining what brand growth means in a world where experiences, connections, and relevance matter more than ever. These two developments go well hand in hand.

Infrastructure is rarely discussed in the context of brand growth. Yet for Jenny Olsson, Marketing Director at the Øresund Bridge, the fundamentals of marketing remain strikingly familiar. In this conversation, she explains how a unique, cross-border connection between Denmark and Sweden is driven not just by traffic, but by brand, behaviour, and the ability to inspire people to travel more. A Different Product, the Same Marketing Fundamentals At first glance, marketing a bridge may seem worlds apart from marketing consumer goods. Unlike traditional products, the Øresund Bridge is a fixed piece of infrastructure, connecting two countries through both a bridge and a tunnel, and serving as a critical artery for regional mobility. But according to Jenny, the core principles of marketing still apply. “Of course, the Øresund Bridge is something different from selling a pure retail product,” she explains. “But we also want to create more journeys, more customers, and work with our existing customers. That’s where you find a lot of the fundamentals of marketing.” Like many brands, the organisation operates a full-funnel approach, with a strong focus on driving awareness and conversion for its key consumer offering, ØresundGO. This subscription-based product provides significant discounts on crossings and is central to the commercial growth strategy. The challenge, however, is not just selling the product, but ensuring that the right audiences know it exists. “Of course, the Øresund Bridge is something different from selling a pure retail product. But we also want to create more journeys, more customers, and work with our existing customers. That’s where you find a lot of the fundamentals of marketing.” From Demand Capture to Demand Creation One of the most important growth levers lies beyond simple demand capture. While many consumers already travel across the bridge, the real opportunity is in increasing frequency. This requires a shift from transactional communication to inspiration. “We saw clearly that more inspiration is needed,” Jenny says. “People know the top three things to do on the other side, but not much beyond that.” To address this, marketing efforts focus on expanding consumers’ horizons, showing them new reasons to cross the bridge, and ultimately encouraging additional trips. This is supported by a broader ecosystem of partnerships, offering discounts and experiences on both sides of the border. By enriching the perceived value of travel, the brand moves from being a facilitator of journeys to an enabler of experiences. Balancing Traffic and Brand Metrics Measuring growth in this context requires a dual approach. On one hand, there are clear behavioural metrics, such as the number of passages, frequency of travel, and geographic distribution of users. On the other hand, brand health plays a crucial role. “We measure both awareness and traffic,” Jenny explains. “Traffic is a very clear metric, but we also measure the brand itself to understand attitudes and how many people know our products.” This balance became particularly important during the rebranding of the subscription product from “BroPass” to ØresundGO. The previous name lacked clear associations with the region and created confusion in the market. The new name was designed to be simpler, more distinctive, and directly linked to the Øresund identity. However, as with any rebranding, awareness initially dropped. Rebuilding that recognition has since become a key focus, highlighting the direct relationship between brand clarity and commercial performance. “Traffic is a very clear metric, but we also measure the brand itself to understand attitudes and how many people know our products.” Standing Out in a Sea of Similar Choices While the Øresund Bridge may have limited direct competition in terms of physical routes, it competes in a broader landscape of consumer choices. Travellers can choose alternative transport options, different destinations, or even decide not to travel at all. In this context, distinctiveness becomes critical. Jenny points out that when stripped of logos, many transport and tourism communications look remarkably similar. This insight led to the introduction of a brand mascot, Gustav. “It’s a way for us to create a universe where we clearly stand out,” she explains. “So people can quickly recognise that it’s us.” Gustav, a bird acting as a guide and inspirer, helps the brand cut through the noise and improve recall. The result is not just more memorable communication, but also measurable improvements in marketing effectiveness. “Our mascot Gustav is a way for us to create a universe where we clearly stand out, so people can quickly recognise that it’s us.” Growth Shaped by Forces Beyond Marketing Despite strong marketing efforts, growth is heavily influenced by external factors. Economic conditions, currency fluctuations, the weather, and broader travel trends all play a significant role in shaping demand. For example, exchange rate shifts have impacted travel flows between Sweden and Denmark, making it more expensive for Swedes to visit Copenhagen while simultaneously attracting more Danish visitors to Sweden. As a result, traffic patterns have shifted over time. “There’s a strong natural desire for Swedes to travel to Copenhagen,” Jenny notes. “But it’s been held back somewhat by the exchange rate.” Looking ahead, infrastructure developments such as the Fehmarn Belt tunnel are expected to further influence traffic, particularly from Germany. The organisation sees it as an opportunity. “Everything that makes it easier for people to move between countries is positive,” she says. “There’s a strong natural desire for Swedes to travel to Copenhagen, but it’s been held back somewhat by the exchange rate.” The Evolving Role of Marketing Jenny also reflects on how the role of marketing itself has evolved. Where marketers were once primarily responsible for communication, they are now deeply involved in broader business strategy. “Today, discussions are much more about what business we want to build, which markets and products we focus on, and how we communicate,” she explains. “It’s much more cross-functional and strategic than before.” This shift is supported by a wide range of data sources, from brand tracking and campaign measurement to behavioural analytics and user data. These insights help guide decisions across both marketing and product development, ensuring alignment with customer needs. “Today, discussions are much more about what business we want to build, which markets and products we focus on, and how we communicate.” A Digital-First Approach to Reaching Travellers In terms of execution, the media strategy is overwhelmingly digital. From social media and search to display and streaming TV, the majority of marketing investments are focused on channels that allow for precise targeting and geographic control. “It’s almost entirely digital,” Jenny explains. “Even out-of-home is often digital screens.” This reflects both the need for efficiency and the importance of reaching audiences within specific regions, depending on travel patterns and seasonal behaviour. Ultimately, the Øresund Bridge demonstrates that even the most unconventional “product” can be approached through a modern brand growth lens. By combining clear measurement, strong brand building, and a focus on behavioural change, the organisation continues to drive growth in a complex and evolving environment. At its core, the challenge is not just to connect two countries, but to give people more reasons to cross between them.

Stockholm, 2 June 2026 - DVJ Insights is pleased to welcome Malin Larsudd to its Nordic team as Consultant, further strengthening the agency’s expertise in strategic insights, innovation, and shopper research. Malin brings more than 15 years of experience in insights, brand strategy, and consumer understanding, having previously worked with companies such as Coop, Nepa, and Ipsos. Throughout her career, she has worked closely with brands across a variety of industries, helping organisations translate consumer and shopper insights into business strategies that deliver tangible results. With a strong background in consumer understanding and market research, Malin joins DVJ with a passion for combining analytical depth with commercial impact. At DVJ, she will focus on helping clients identify growth opportunities through insight-driven strategies, with a particular focus on innovation, shopper insights, and brand development. “I’m very excited to join DVJ at a time when understanding people and behaviours has never been more important. What really attracted me to DVJ is the combination of sharp strategic thinking, deep shopper and consumer expertise, and a genuine willingness to challenge conventional perspectives. I’m especially looking forward to working closely with clients on innovation and growth-focused projects, as well as shopper projects that create real impact,” says Malin Larsudd. Elin Scotford, Market Lead Nordics at DVJ Insights, adds: “Malin is a fantastic addition to our Nordic team. Her broad experience, combined with her strategic mindset and commercial understanding, will help us support our clients even better. What particularly sets Malin apart is her ability to connect deep consumer understanding with tangible business value, which fits perfectly with DVJ’s approach.”

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?